Sales and the Dark Triad

Recently, a conversation on social media turned to salespeople, and a friend said, “A salesman will always try to go for the biggest commission regardless of the proper fit for the customer.” Because of this, he avoided talking to salespeople until he had already done his own research, and had narrowed down exactly what he wanted. We disagreed, but I understood where he was coming from, and he was obviously not alone. Many solar companies prefer to call their reps “solar consultants" or “experts,” anything to avoid the s-word. Why are salespeople so sleazy?

A soulless mockery of life churned out by a sterile system with no moral compass.

Plus the picture was created by an AI, so there’s that, too.

While they may not test for "sleaze," psychologists have identified a so-called "dark triad” of traits that are higher in salespeople as a whole: narcissism (inflated self-importance), machiavellianism (the tendency to manipulate people) and psychopathy (a reduced sense of empathy). Not all salespeople score high in all three, but high scorers dominate the sales industry in general, despite studies that show they don’t do well in the long term. Their high performance in the short-term is attractive to employers, and it’s what the rest of us have to compete with.

Note: these high-scorers I’m talking about include a few friends, even mentors, and while I’m forever grateful the start they gave me in the industry, I’m having to shed some of their influence now that I’m making my own way. Below I explore my process for what to discard, and what to keep.

It’s Not as Simple as “Us vs Them”

It’s tricky to use loaded terms like “psychopathy” and “narcissism,” but note that these are sub-clinical traits: not enough to qualify for any kind of disorder or diagnosis, even ones with similar names. That’s the first problem: sub-clinical personality traits aren't things some people have and others don’t. That either-or thinking is call “type theory” in psychology, and most personality theorists have abandoned it.

Where type theory sorted personalities as if they were eye color (i.e. either blue or brown), trait assessments are more like shades and hues of the same color.

So, what’s normal? On trait assessments of the Dark Triad, the average score in narcissism is 15.3 out of 40. That’s not the average for salespeople, tobacco lawyers, or ex-boyfriends, it’s just plain old run-of-the-mill people. Everyone. For an adult to claim a score of 0 on any of these traits, they would need to be dead, lying or incredibly confused. This is disturbing to many people because they prefer to think of a wide gulf between themselves and "those people" whenever the topic comes up. The uncomfortable truth is that Dark Triad folks just have more of something that every living human being has, in some amount.

It’s all the more absurd to consider how much the Us vs Them mentality is beloved by high scorers. One of the biggest giveaways is how quickly they will criticize others for dishonesty. It makes sense: if sleazy is a “type” rather than “trait,” then pointing out someone sleazier can make you look honest by comparison. Knowing what I know about traits over types, I need far better metrics for honesty and integrity: “Us vs Them” is too easy to play, and impossible to win.

Beware the Bromides

It’s high time the U.S. solar industry found better metrics of integrity, because an industry with no regulation and potentially high earnings attracts the Dark Triads. In November 2023, a deeply critical TIME magazine article claimed the US solar sales culture could be the greatest threat to the green energy transition. To counteract that, we need to understand not just what attracts high-scorers, but why they thrive in this industry in particular.

The use of bromide salts as a sedative gave rise to the term “bromide” for a trite or unoriginal cliche; it seems Dark Triads favor a specialized form of bromide, specifically formulated to put the conscience to sleep. One episode of Last Week Tonight featured a timeshare sales training (2:25) saying they are “saving lives, just like doctors and nurses.” It’s an absurd claim based on faulty logic, but they need to believe it, in order to justify what they do to their customers.

I’ve heard similar bromides in the solar industry: any payoff date is better than what the customer already has, and if the customer is “financially better off” than we found them, what does it matter how much they paid? When I attended SolarCon in 2022, at least four of the speakers challenged us to think not just in terms of leaving the customer “better off,” but actually choosing what was best for the customer out of all possible sales outcomes. It seemed so obvious, but some in the audience seemed shocked to hear that “better off” wasn’t always good enough.

Know Thyself

When speaking specifically of the psychopathy trait, it’s also worth reminding ourselves that psychopaths are charming, especially when appealing to the Dark Triad traits inside others. As Bing Crosby says in White Christmas, “Surely you know that everybody has a little larceny in them.” While a con artist would obviously score high on the Dark Triad, their best mark is someone who scores in the mid-range but is living below that: someone playing by the rules who wants to get away with breaking them, just once. By watching for moral bromides and being aware of our own Dark Triad tendencies, we can minimize the hold they have over us.

Victims are never to blame for crimes, but until a crime is committed, potential victims will find their best control of the situation by monitoring appeals to their own Dark Triad traits. I’ve personally found it useful to have external rules to measure my behavior by, such as the Rotary Four-Way-Test and BNI’s motto Givers Gain. Some good books that explore moral frameworks include Michael Sandel’s “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?”, and Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind.”

Dark Triad Cooties

One might reasonably ask, instead of training ourselves to be wary of moral bromides, and reciting The Man in the Glass once a week, isn’t it enough to avoid such people altogether? “They” (there’s that word again) are the ones who need to change, not “us”! I think we need to be mindful of our natural disgust at the Dark Triad, or of just avoiding situations that make us uncomfortable. Allow me to explain using a concept that I call “Dark Triad cooties.”

Psychologists have studied “cooties” under the slightly more dignified name of the Lady Macbeth effect: people associate moral impurity with physical contamination, and seek to be clean. It’s a fascinating topic, and it begs the question, if we feel contaminated by “sleazy” characters, could that contamination create guilt by association? This is Dark Triad cooties: avoiding a perfectly legal and ethical practice because we heard about it from a sleazy source.

New technology is my business, so a lot of what I do is filter rumors of new products, new innovations, new incentives. Many of these are brought to me by peers in the industry, or salespeople pushing new products. I can’t control the source of information, but I have a moral obligation to brush off any Dark Triad cooties as part of my due diligence; failure to do so could deprive my customers of genuine value.

(I don’t know if anyone will ever study of Dark Triad cooties, but to parapharase Dave Barry, I think we can all agree that “Dark Triad Cooties” would be a great name for a rock band.)

We’re Not Alone

This brings me back to my online discussion, where my friend avoided talking to salespeople until the very end of the purchasing process. I can understand and respect this approach, but salespeople often know features that even the most savvy self-taught customer might not think to research. Without that information, research can easily go in the wrong direction.

My own personal preference is to meet with a salesperson at the start of my process, take note of how they align the product features to my needs, then do my own research with that alignment in mind. Yes, this may mean dealing with some pressure at the beginning, and they may be disappointed when I say I'm not ready to make a purchase yet, but those who can abide a little disappointment will earn my business.

You see, there’s one last thing we need to remember about traits vs. types: types don’t change, but traits do. It’s usually a gradual process, but people can and do change. Perhaps that high-scorer realizes that being better than other people is less important than being better than you were. Perhaps they weren’t so ruthless after all, and were only going with what they had been taught. Perhaps they want the kind of long-term sales career that low scorers do better at, and will need to learn from us at that point the way we learned from them at the beginning.

So as I move into the new year, I'll talk to high scorers as much as I need to. I'll hold to the 4-Way Test, brush off the cooties and offer my customers whatever value I find, and I'll watch for people to form longer-lasting relationships with, regardless of their scores. If you have any other advice or suggestions for dealing with Dark Triad traits, in ourselves and others, feel free to comment.