This is for the quiet people.

I’ll come right out and say it. I’m an introvert – have been since as long as I remember. Not bashful or shy or anti-social or a snob…As the book “Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength” by Laurie Helgoe describes it – you are an introvert if you re-energize by being alone rather than being with people.

That would be me. Generally speaking, I’d much rather read a book than go to a party. Prefer one-on-one lunches to a banquet. A few very solid friends to a large number of lesser acquaintances. Quiet to loud.

Guilty.

It has taken me a long time to embrace being an introvert, and to stop trying to be something I’m not. Many of my clients are surprised when I tell them that I lean this way. I have had my client friends tell me that I have to be extroverted because I am so ‘up’ and energetic when I am meeting or consulting with them. Well – that’s because consulting is what I do. It’s how I earn my living. Who in the heck wants a low energy consultant? It doesn’t mean that we introverts cannot be energetic and funny and sing karaoke. It just means that we will most probably run out of energy before our extroverted friends do. I know I do. One of my consultants has asked me a few times why I never work on the plane…he always sees me reading a ‘book’ on my Sony reader. The answer is that I am re-energizing. It’s something I know about myself and I no longer fight it. Tried the working on the plane thing…just stare at the screen. Drool forms.

This introversion ‘affliction’ affects how I sell consulting services and how I run my company. Oh how I envy those who go to networking functions and meet 100 people in a night. Get tons of business cards, and make 100 new friends. Or those who can pick up the phone and just start calling people…shot gunning for prospects. I interview a lot of people for jobs – most of them introverts as Lupine Partners is a wonderful place to work for introverts – and when I ask questions about their comfort level in selling they usually go into a fear-based rant on how they don’t want to cold call or be perceived as fuller brush salesman.

Me either. And I would submit to you that we introverts can be as successful in sales and marketing as our louder and more socially extroverted friends. I know because I have done it – Lupine is finishing up its 17^th year as a consulting company. Can’t do that without satisfied customers – most of them garnered by me.

If you are an ‘intro’ like me, the first thing you have to do is determine who you are and what you are willing to do – and comfortable doing. Cold calling – no. Large networking and convention events – maybe. Professional intimacy – you bet. Face to face and one on one – always. Don’t try and be something you are not (just to fit the stereotype in your head of how you need to act to be persuasive) – you will just fight yourself and never win. This also applies if you are ‘selling’ within your organization. Whether you realize it or not – everybody is in sales. And there are many ways to skin the proverbial cat.

Give yourself permission to be introverted (if you are), and realize that you have many things in your toolbox that can be used to your advantage when trying to persuade and to solve problems for your (internal or external) customer base. It’s a little more work, I think, than being an extrovert. I plod along having many one on one conversation…because that is what works for me. Building professional intimacy by having many sustentative discussions with a few people at a time. There isn’t much difference from my personal and professional life in this regard – it took me a long time to realize this and embrace the ‘tactic’. I have flown to both coasts just to have a short face to face conversation with a customer or prospect – because I know this works for me. Has proven out time after time after time. Some would say that it is not the best use of my time. And there is probably some wisdom in that sentiment – but the proof is in the pudding. Seventeen years old and going stronger than ever.

Reading the Helgoe book noted in the beginning was a real eye opener for me. Permission to be yourself is a good thing…and a profitable one too.