Читать книгу Elite Sales Strategies - Anthony Iannarino - Страница 9

The concept of being One-Up, as you might guess, comes from the idea of one-upmanship. The Oxford English Dictionary will tell you that one-upmanship is the “technique of gaining a feeling of superiority over another person.”¹ But that's not accurate for our purposes. My Sherpa was not advising me because he was trying to show off or feel superior to me. Instead, his knowledge and experience exceeded both mine and my doctor's, so he was confident in both his expertise and how he could help me. A better definition comes from Jay Haley, one of the founders of family therapy at Stanford University's Palo Alto Veteran's Hospital. He also created the strategic approach to psychotherapy. While at Stanford in the early 1950s, Haley was fortunate enough to meet a student (and patient) of psychoanalysis, who had written a book about what he called “the most basic principles of one-upmanship.” Haley read the unpublished book, which he recounted in an essay a few years later. In his summary, one-upmanship captures a dynamic present “in any human relationship”:

One person is constantly maneuvering to imply that he is in a “superior position” to the other person in the relationship. This “superior position” does not necessarily mean superior in social status or economic position; many servants are masters at putting their employers one-down. Nor does it imply intellectual superiority as any intellectual knows who has been put “one-down” by a muscular garbage collector in a bout of Indian wrestling. “Superior position” is a relative term which is continually being defined and re-defined by the ongoing relationship.²

In this book, we're going to apply the idea of being One-Up to selling more effectively, by using the modern sales approach necessary to help your contacts make effective decisions about how they should change to produce better results. At Basecamp 1, my Sherpa was One-Up and I was One-Down—not just because his knowledge and experience far exceeded mine, but because his advice created value for me. If my Sherpa needed help and guidance around a complex sale or sales leadership, I would be in the One-Up position. Generally, the person who needs help and is willing to pay for it is in the One-Down position. You are in the One-Up position when your superior knowledge and experience benefits your clients, which makes your expertise invaluable.