Why Honesty Beats Persuasion in Sales
Bradley James Cole has spent the past decade building his career in B2B events and business intelligence, working his way from conference production through to his current role as Global Head of Business Development at Green Street where he leads commercial strategy across a global portfolio of real estate, infrastructure, and project finance events.
We got the opportunity to sit down with Bradley to get his thoughts on sales, and why he believes the most effective salespeople succeed not through persuasion, but through honesty.
Bradley rejected the assumption of there being one right way to sell, introducing the idea that different people suit different situations within a sales process. To lay out this concept, he used the analogy of a football team:
“You will have players that can only play in particular positions… it doesn’t make them a bad footballer, but you need different things from different players at different times.”
This sentiment brings with it the importance of team composition, recognising each individual’s strengths and knowing where they’re best placed to succeed.
The more traditional style identified by Bradley is that of the process-driven salesperson, someone who thrives in a more defined structure:
“They are comfortable being within a structure. And as much as they may not try to make it sound like one, in their head, that structure is their comfort zone.”
However, Bradley was not critical of this approach, signalling its importance in the sales process, particularly when a team needs to move through a high volume of prospects quickly:
“That is an approach that has stood the test of time. It’s a little bit like football: you can still win by playing 1-0.”
In comparison, the style Bradley likes to lean into relies more on patience and reading the moment: “My style is a little bit more of a counter-attacking style.” For Bradley, this doesn’t look like going straight into a pitch during the first conversation, but waiting for the right moment to turn what starts as a casual exchange into something more substantial:
“There will always be a point where the conversation bridges to a next layer of depth. My job is to use that bridge to get further into what actually matters.”
But how does Bradley go beyond the surface-level sales relationship and add more substance? He puts it down to earning enough trust to get past that surface-level exchange:
“Part of getting there is making the client comfortable enough to have that discussion with you. So I always try to casualise things as much as I can.”
It’s this level of authenticity and intentionality that builds long-standing respect in a client relationship:
“If you inject a little bit of personality, so long as your product is strong, you’ll garner respect from a client. They may not necessarily like you, but they’ll respect that you know your craft.”
The value of the product is undoubtedly the most important part of a sale, but what can make your product stand out above the rest is putting yourself forward with it. Rather than positioning yourself as a seller, make it clear that you’re an expert.
When putting this approach into practice, Bradley received the following feedback:
“It was good to work with people with a personality… now we can be human again. We’re getting away from the corporate veneer and mask here.”
It is that human element that is being brought up repeatedly in the industry, and there is no time more important than now to lean into it when building professional relationships. As advised by Bradley:
“Don’t be afraid to be authentic, especially now, when I think a lot of things are generated by AI.”
On where his role can offer the most value, Bradley highlighted the importance of honesty, particularly when advising clients:
“I think you should do this and this, but I don’t think you should do that. And I don’t think you’re establishing that market to get the return on investment. I think you should revisit that market when you have a story to tell for it.”
However, the search for the truth is no easy one, particularly when clients don’t always know exactly what it is that they want:
“It’s about getting to the truth about what the customer wants, and getting to the truth about whether the product serves that. And honestly, sometimes the customer doesn’t really know what they want. Maybe there’ll be another product down the line that’s better suited to their needs.”
The ability to identify and understand the customer’s needs, often before they can themselves, is a skill possessed by the most talented of salespeople. It’s this same pursuit of depth, over the surface-level exchange Bradley described earlier, that continues to substantiate the client relationship.
This quality often goes against a salesperson’s natural instinct to get deals over the line quickly, particularly when they have targets to meet. However, Bradley pointed to this fast-paced mentality as something that can actually damage the deal:
“When salespeople don’t have a pipeline that’s de-risked enough, they’re literally thinking, oh my god, please say yes, I’ll throw everything at you to say yes, especially when it gets to the end of the month… then it just collapses the whole regime.”
Getting to the truth of a customer’s desires is what Bradley labels as the real core of a salesperson’s job, acknowledging how this contrasts with the reputation that often follows sales:
“For salespeople, it’s all about getting to the truth. And I think that’s really, ironically, where the reputation of the industry has got to nearly the opposite end of where it actually should be, because there’s always this veneer of deception with sales. But actually, it’s all about getting to the truth.”
If you nurture client relationships with a pursuit of truth at the centre, staying aligned with the direction of their business growth becomes much easier. Truth doesn’t just bring clarity, it builds trust, and that trust is what ultimately makes a client relationship strong and lasting.
Visit Jackson Barnes Recruitment’s website www.jbrecruitment.co.uk to learn more about how we connect top commercial talent with world-class media and events organisations.
About Jackson Barnes Recruitment
Jackson Barnes Recruitment delivers international recruitment solutions within the events, media, and publishing sectors. Jackson Barnes recruits Graduate to MD level in the following positions:
• Sales – delegate, sponsorship & Business Development
• Editor
We recruit for organisations in the UK and overseas, with success in London, Dubai, New York, Singapore and Australia.