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Good discussion on the HBR Blog Network.  I think it will be of value to your master mind group.   excerpt: ....................... When you get into a bar fight, you revert to what comes naturally - the old-fashioned tactics." Your authentic self will always, eventually, come out. Ashok Vemuri, the head of Americas at Infosys, the Indian business process outsourcing company, made a similar point. The more salespeople he has hired, he said, the less impressed he is with the stereotypes and training which dominate the sales industry. The rigid methods taught in most sales courses, he told me, are hopeless in the field. "It seems everyone has to be either Dirty Harry, or the girl on the beach in her bikini teasing people." Instead, what he looks for are intelligence, curiosity and an agile mind. The chest-beating Alpha male of sales myth has no place in this universe. Rather, it is the low-ego character who regards client service as the highest goal who thrives. He is looking for people who can make others comfortable, who are are articulate, and who are able to deal with the unexpected.......... "I've had salespeople with terrible accents, who don't adhere to an acceptable Westernized dress code, and misspeak words, but they are terrific story-tellers," he told me. "They relate their story to your problem and can combine experiences across functions and geographies. They cannot hold a great conversation with the CEO about wine, but they can talk specifically about technology." Everywhere I went, from Silicon Valley to the world of Japanese life insurance saleswomen, I heard the same story. I found that what most companies and sales training programs think really matters in sales is wrong. When training salespeople, they tend to propose one of two things: A sales process with methods and tricks which can move you from prospecting to closing, or a set of behaviors and character traits supposedly typical of great salespeople and worth mimicki