INTPs as Salespeople

[Magus]

I know I can't be the first person to have noticed this, but INTPs two extraverted functions Ne and Fe stack quite very well and strongly complement Ti/Si's calculated analysis.

Even though they are not naturally dominant functions, an INTP who sufficiently develops both their Ne and especially Fe might appear to others as highly personable/charming.

From a career/getting stuff done point of view, this is obviously very desirable as it allows for both the ability to make informed and logical decisions even in complicated situations and the 'people skills' to manage others to effect change.

I find this interesting, as from what I read it seems more often than not INTPs generally shy away from leadership roles, yet, should inferior functions be developed (and assuming the person isn't strongly strongly introverted) it seems we if anything might have a natural advantage over other types in this area.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? Does anyone work in a sales/management role or is otherwise known among coworkers as being pretty personable?

How does one develop Ne/Fe together to balance our advantage in logical thinking?

Also first post from a long time lurker, hi everyone from Australia, hope to be catching you all around!

 

[Hadoblado]

I'm not sure if I am INTP, but I find the role of sales person abhorrent. It's not just the interaction, but the way one needs to further an agenda using people. I feel incredibly uncomfortable on both sides of a purchase.

Where are you from in Aus?

Also, welcome to the forum!

 

[Cognisant]

It is abhorrent, 90% of the time it's utter inanity, 5% dealing with obnoxious idiots, and sometimes it's fun, in retail you get to meet everyone and although there's a lot of people you don't want to meet there's always a few you'll be glad you did.

Welcome to the forum

 

[Brontosaurie]

"here buy this thing it's like stuff and things... it has some good things and some bad things. what do you think about this other stuff that's got nothing to do with those things?"

 

[redbaron]

I agree mostly, though if you ask me an even better fit for INTP's is to become a consultant of some sort.

I am paid for being openly critical, for analysing and interpreting data/information and then presenting it to a team as a usable concept, that they are responsible for implementing. Then I'm expected to follow-up, which dependent on the team's capabilities at a given task involve either directing, coaching, consulting or simply empowering (basically just encouraging them and assuring them that they are on the right track) them towards improvement.

Possibly the only downside is that if things don't work or there's a hiccup somewhere, I'm also expected to get my hands dirty to ensure that implementation doesn't go awry. Which is simple enough really, and I find that in relatively small doses, I actually enjoy being an implementer and externally focussed planner (think ENTJ sort of).

So basically I get to be as crude and logical as I want (it's actually encouraged), and it's up to other people to make my ideas work, assuming there's no major hitch. There's plenty of interaction, but it's focussed around informing, refining, discussing and encouraging analytical processes and improving existing systems (or forming new ones). So it's more stimulating than it is draining.

I also don't think the subject matter is that important, as long as there's information to assess , people to motivate and lead, and systems that can be refined/improved, it would stand to reason that an INTP would feel quite at home as a consultant.

 

[Architect]

An INTP can certainly do that. You see it in INTP entertainers such as Larry David (INTP) and Jim Parsons (probable INTP). I don't know what to make of the Olson twins, they're billed as INTP's (which I don't really see) but they don't put out the Ne/Fe on stage.

I had a job once as a technical leader for a few hundred engineers. I used my Ne/Fe and was able to do it well, so yes you can definitely do it. Unfortunately it led to a huge crisis. I think the key is you can do it ... for a while. Not forever. It's an unbalanced situation. The Archie you see today is one who has been in recovery.

So I'd recommend caution in acting outside your functional stack. The cost is psychic imbalance, which results in mental exhaustion. If kept up too long then in midlife something kicks in and says "no more". Jung observed that his mid life patients were mostly ones who had acted outside their predilections for too long, either through childhood training or other.

 

[Chad]

I tried being a sales person once it didn't work out so well for me.

However, for some reason I do plane to own my own store one day. However, I plan to sale stuff that sales itself. Less personal contact is better for business.

 

[Proletar]

An INTP sales-person? I'm one of those. Although my work is not so much about selling, and more about enforcing a law. Although we do use the phone. We basically call private citizens up and interrogate them over the phone.

I'm doing great at it. On the first days of work, I read through the law until I owned it. Then I startad fine-tuning my dialogue, and finding the best lines. After that, I learned to free-form it a bit, changing my tone and way to approach. I went from a boring information-type to a jolly salesman to a harsch and brutal interrogator and back to a boring information-type. I am one of the best, even though I'm fairly new at it.

 

[Chad]

An INTP sales-person? I'm one of those. Although my work is not so much about selling, and more about enforcing a law. Although we do use the phone. We basically call private citizens up and interrogate them over the phone.

I'm doing great at it. On the first days of work, I read through the law until I owned it. Then I startad fine-tuning my dialogue, and finding the best lines. After that, I learned to free-form it a bit, changing my tone and way to approach. I went from a boring information-type to a jolly salesman to a harsch and brutal interrogator and back to a boring information-type. I am one of the best, even though I'm fairly new at it.

What is you Job @Proletar ?

 

[Lostwitheal]

My first job out of college was working in a jeweler's selling jewellery and watches. Anything from a £50 seiko up to the more expensive end of the spectrum (I'm not talking Patek Philippe here, but Tag Heuer, Corum, Breitling, Rolex, that kinda thing).

I didn't try very hard but I did alright. It took some time and work overcoming my natural social idiosyncrasies to be able to feel relatively comfortable striking up conversations with strangers but I'm sure it actually helped me a lot. It can be very productive taking yourself outside of your comfort zone, and all that.

I think my best achievement was when a guy in a wheelchair with a very pronounced speech impediment came in to complain about another member of staff basically fobbing him off and selling him the wrong watch strap just to get him to leave. I spent about 2 or 3 hours with him patiently listening and doing my best to see how I could help him. In the end I got him what he wanted and he left the store a much happier customer. He'd even started smiling and sharing some stories with me. Either that, or when another guy came in to get a new battery put in his watch. I got talking to him and he left with a £2k Tag Heuer

The whole experience set me up quite well for being able to take on a technical/management position in my next job after that. If I'm honest though I didn't really enjoy the management part of the job (quarterly staff appraisals, manager's meetings, snore...) and dealing with members of staff who'd been misbehaving in various ways was never that fun, but I did it. I much preferred tinkering with expensive gadgets in the server room

 

[BloodCountess88]

I'm a great sales person. I worked in the repair industry, I "sold" repairs. I was to take in repairs, classify them correctly, and try to put it in a way that people who know nothing about them would understand. While doing so, I was expected to "upsale".

I found that trying to sell people random stuff that they did not need was useless, pointless, and backfiring in the long run. So I was very specific about how the repairs worked and the other features that would give you the most worth for your money.

I got bonuses on a weekly basis for going above my targeted total sale amount. I wouldn't call my role "leadership", more like counseling. I have been in management, but I am often too cold and distant and I am just not comfortable at it, the people I managed weren't too fond of me which probably made it even more uncomfortable.

 

[Proletar]

What is you Job Proletar?

I work with fees and licenses. Certain licenses are applied to people, if they own or use certain things. They are required by law to pay them, but of course some try to get away from it. My job is to trace those unlicensed possessions, using the information that the potential holders have left around themselves. It's like being a detective at first, and then switch over to interrogating the subject.

I've become so much more shrewd since I started working here, and so much more in tune with the system. Skills like those are invaluable.

 

[Magus]

I'm not sure if I am INTP, but I find the role of sales person abhorrent. It's not just the interaction, but the way one needs to further an agenda using people. I feel incredibly uncomfortable on both sides of a purchase.

Where are you from in Aus?

Also, welcome to the forum!

Thanks! I agree in general I don't think I could keep up a sales/leadership role for long until I started retreating back into the shadows. I just thought it was interesting that for such an introverted analytical people such as INTPs have the potential to be quite easygoing socially, even if it doesn't come naturally.

I'm from Sydney, but I'm studying in Canberra at the moment.

 

[Nezumi]

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? Does anyone work in a sales/management role or is otherwise known among coworkers as being pretty personable?

I've worked in sales for 5 year and recently got out. I did minor management in most of them. I noticed that I would latch onto things to keep me going. Make games out of things or floo charts in my head of how to talk to people.
Selling is just finding the right pattern of things to say to find out what they what, vs what you have in stock to try and get them to leave with it. People are pretty predictable and very hive mindish.

As a sales person I tended to be not pushy enough, very unintrusive. I also can't bring myself to indulge in illogical rules, or ways to muniplate people into buying. If they want it after I present the facts and item then yay for me! Otherwise, oh well. I think that if I wasn't as good at watching for patterns in customers I would have failed. Mental yes/no floocharts saved me. ^.^



Taco Bell:
This was my first job. I was scared to work in a VERY fast paced team environment. And I wasn't good at it at first. I didn't talk to my crew members enough and they found that weird. I remember one instance were a girl called me out in front of everyone else. Asking why I was so self centered and quiet. Why I never talked about myself. After that I started to participate in small talk more....though I sucked at it and usually gave up after a few trys if the conversation didn't turn to something more interesting. But I think they noticed that I tried. A few warmed up to me more.

Where I really excelled though was front counter and later, drive through. Tacobell used to used a really complicated old b&w touchscreen menus that used odd abbreviations and badly named folders. It was a mess. I remember having to take home flash cards to study. lol. But once I learned it and mixed it with some good head/money math...it became more of a game. I was the person that knew how to save people money with my magic tacobell fingers. I knew the in and outs, had my managers card so I could unlock the special options
Plus I knew every item and how make it. Saving people money when they had big weird orders was when I had the most
fun. I got a 100 dollar tip once for it.

Spencer's Gifts:
I found many of their standards to be illogical. And the company hard to work for.

They buy next to no security for items they target to a high risk crowd but blame the only two employees for not watching a high risk store. This goes as far as firing employees and store-managers. It's hard to watch a coworker get a write up for not being able to see enough thefts. Because that's the rule at Spencers. To catch a theft you must not only see them pocket the object, but they have to leave the store and security has to catch them......

......I have many things I would like to say to mall cops. But for those who haven't had the joy of a mall job. Mall cops have a priority. Or at least my mall did. And suffice to say that Nordstrum and their 50$ t-Shirts are winning. And our store losing a 20$ vibrator to a black girl is not on their radar.
We didn't catch many people. It's hard to see behind cluttered shelves, people are crafty and there is no morale because the company doesn't care to help.

We also had to do push contests. This was were I failed for a long time. You have to push a mostly useless, gaudy, on sale product like pimp cups, or tapout gear or T-Shirt Mug combos to EVERYONE. No exceptions. They last like two weeks and then it's a new product to push.
I always broke this. And came close to getting a write-up for not doing well enough on a push contest. I refuse to push capitalism. I'm like this in the rest of my jobs too. I don't push. It's my own inner rule and after 5 years it's a bit bent....but not broken. At Spencers and most other places, if someone showed interest in an item of the same group/category I would tell them about the push IF they seemed friendly. But there was no way anyone was going to make me ask 75 year old that seems frightened to even be inside the store if she wants to buy two "Drink up Bitches!" shirts/mugs for 14.99.
Fuck off.
I'll go re-arrange the key-chains into alphabetical order...starting with the last letter..


Brookstone
Sears Protraits/Kiddie Kandids
Smart Toys




You asked for my thoughts and my brian kinda exploded....umm. I can't finish. I'm sorry for any errors, rambles and the like. My pipe was falling on teh keyboard.
This was fun to write.

 

[Nezumi]

I'm a great sales person. I worked in the repair industry, I "sold" repairs. I was to take in repairs, classify them correctly, and try to put it in a way that people who know nothing about them would understand. While doing so, I was expected to "upsale".

I found that trying to sell people random stuff that they did not need was useless, pointless, and backfiring in the long run. So I was very specific about how the repairs worked and the other features that would give you the most worth for your money.

I didn't read your post before writing mine but I was happy to see that my thoughts and yours are similar on pushing/upsaling. ^.^

 

[Vrecknidj]

I would assume that if any particular INTP knew enough about something that happened to be a commodity, and also had some conviction about it, then, if that INTP didn't have any social phobias or terrible social awkwardnesses, then, that INTP could be "good" at selling that commodity.

I think this could apply to services as well. For instance, if an INTP sold insurance or financial products of some other sort, knew a lot about personal finances, was able to assist others in their purchases (by being informative, which should fall to the INTP's strengths, rather than being pushy, which wouldn't), then that person could be quite successful.