Pinaki Kathiari and Rich Dome with a full room at the Lower Bucks County Chamber of Commerce, 2023
All Talks
Interactive Workshop · Keynote

Everyone is in sales. Almost no one was trained for it.

Six Sales Tips That Will Make You Stop and Say, "Wait, What?!"

90-minute workshop or 35-minute session
For anyone who has to get buy-in
The Speakers

Who's selling.

Pinaki Kathiari
Pinaki Kathiari
CEO, Local Wisdom
Co-PresenterView profile →
Rich Dome
Rich Dome
Sr. Director of Partnerships, Local Wisdom
Co-PresenterView profile →
About This Talk

Communicators are asked to influence constantly. They pitch ideas to win budget, convince leaders to invest in employees, and chase buy-in across functions that do not report to them. Almost none of them were ever trained to do it.

Pinaki Kathiari and Rich Dome spend their working lives on the other side of that skill — Pinaki building a communications agency from the ground up, Rich across twenty-five years of account relationships from newspaper routes to multimillion-dollar contracts. In this session they hand over six tips that salespeople actually use when networking, building rapport and pitching.

The tips are deliberately counter-intuitive. Don't start by selling. Get to a "no" as fast as you can. Be mildly unavailable. Each one runs against the instinct most people bring into the room, which is why the session is built around the moment an audience says "wait, what?!" — and then, a minute later, sees exactly why it works.

Attendees leave having picked a real thing they need to influence, a real person they need to influence, and a plan built from the six tips for getting to yes.

Format
90-minute workshop, 35-minute presentation, or a 20–25 minute keynote
Presenters
Pinaki Kathiari & Rich Dome, or Rich solo
Built for
Internal communicators and anyone who has to get buy-in without formal authority
Room needs
Worksheets, pens, and a pack of Starbursts per table
Presented at
ALI Digital Workplace Summit, Camp ICology, the Lower Bucks County Chamber of Commerce and the University of Tennessee Haslam College of Business
Takeaways Photos By the Numbers
What Attendees Leave With

Build the relationship first, and the yes follows.

You'll learn to

01
Open with common ground
Start an influence conversation by finding genuine common ground instead of leading with the ask.
02
Treat "no" as information
Put the ask on the table early to find the negotiating perimeter, and treat "no" as information rather than failure.
03
Separate fact from story
When someone goes quiet, tell apart what actually happened from the story you are telling yourself.
04
Frame what they stand to lose
Build a pitch around what the other side stands to lose, not only what they gain.
05
Leave with an influence plan
A written plan for a specific person and a specific ask, built in the room.
By the Numbers
6
Counter-intuitive tips from people who sell for a living
45
Minutes of the 90-minute workshop spent building attendees' own influence plans
25
Years of Rich's sales career, from newspaper routes to multimillion-dollar contracts
4
Kinds of stage: IC conferences, a community camp, a chamber of commerce and a business school
Rich Dome at the lectern
Book This Talk

Bring it to your stage.

Six Sales Tips runs as a 90-minute workshop, a 35-minute presentation or a short keynote, with Pinaki and Rich together or Rich solo. It works for communicators and for any room that has to win buy-in. Tell us about your event and we'll shape it to fit.

Get In Touch See the program