MAKALE

 “THE KEY FOR SUCCESS&FULFILLMENT”

 Emrah Altuntecim

I have had the opportunity of pondering on the reasons, meeting and working with the most successful people. I understood that there was not a single way of rising in business life and especially in sales. I found out that this did not have a single formula or secret. However, successful people were persistent in doing and developing certain things in a very similar way. Working hard, reading a lot, being close to senior executives, being energetic and motivated, adopting the job you do, the product you sell or service, loving your job, and similar traits and skills are some of these… I found, however, there were not advantages or competences everybody had equally. There had to be something everybody had in common. 

I will not belabour. What we all have in common is “perception.” One can ruminate on Descartes’s words: “I think, therefore I am.” We can also call this “I perceive, therefore I am.” We exist if we perceive, but we do not exist if we do not perceive. We perceive our own existence. We can say “I.” It is not the self or ego what I am talking about when I say this “I.” I am talking about “existence.”

I will not go into philosophical depths on this subject. However, I describe the subject briefly saying one reaches from the point of “I” to that of  “you, he/she/it, we, you, they” “by perceiving his or her surroundings.”

Mankind is able to perceive his/her surroundings through their healthy sensory organs. The five senses are active at different levels in every person unless one has a disability or deformation… Sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell… I will not mention the sixth, seventh, eighth or ninth senses. Those who wish may also research these subjects as well. Later, I learned that each of these five senses is dominant at different levels in each individual. The experiential information that I acquired during the trainings that I gave to hundreds of people was also effective. Visual, Auditory and Sense-related senses (touch, taste and smell)…

I also found out, however, most people were not convinced how important such an ancient piece of information was. There were three types of perception but people did not use this valuable piece of information in their professional and private lives. Most people are striving to survive solely through struggle disregarding other people’s perceptual channels with their efforts to express themselves, with battles of communication, with the power of titles, by grinning and bearing things, by oppressing, and not listening. That is why people cannot be happy and peaceful in business life, they continue to fight with jungle rules. Think of an arena on which hundreds of thousands of people that have failed to understand the deep impacts of the three dominant types of perception on human psychology are struggling against one another. Whereas, the communication key to each dominant type of perception is different and the psychological results the doors that open will lead you to will be different as well.

Yet, Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi put it very well: “No matter what you say, you can only get your message across as much as the listener can understand.” This makes one think: “I should say what I am trying to mean in such a way, I should express myself in such a way that the listener will understand me at the maximum level.”

I guess the fact that I graduated from the Faculty of Communication and that I did a master degree on communication made it easier for me to think on this subject longer and make certain inferences. We are face to face with a reality: without getting to know human nature, without knowing the equations of human psychology, attending trainings organized with only a focus on sales does not yield much result. The era of shallow salespeople who believe attending trainings given by trainers who keep repeating like a broken record the most superficial part of body language with such expressions as “If you do it like that this will happen, if you do it like this that will happen,” trivialising humans, have not understood human thoughts and behaviours yet will increase their sales, who can call sales “beheading”, who gird the subjects of body language and communication like an ammunition on all over their bodies is coming to an end…

Moreover, classical body language doctrines will partly lose their value in this period. People are after originality rather than classical templates as you would be aware. Perhaps you will welcome the customer doing a headstand! (Do not ever try for now). In addition, everybody is a salesperson! A lawyer cannot find clients if s/he cannot sell her profession, a teacher can indeed make sales in his/her communication with parents, most outstanding athletes are making sales in addition to playing sports also with the help of image consultants.

One of the most important aims of message is this: try more to understand people, understand ourselves as well while understanding them, loving, respecting, sharing, helping, and making it easier for people to understand our intention in the best possible way. Thus, communication accidents can be minimized, your sales can increase, your meetings and presentations will be much more productive, you can go home in a cheerful way with fuller hands and hearts, and you can embrace your job with more enthusiasm.