Ice Cream Isn’t Just a Treat - It’s a Masterclass in Sales Psychology
Edition #025: Why Inner Development Goals Matter More Than Ever
Edition #025: What Ice Cream Can Teach About Sales And Why Inner Development Goals Matter More Than Ever
My mission with this newsletter is simple but ambitious: To help 100,000 professionals shift from being People Pleasers to becoming Culture Builders.
And sometimes, culture-building doesn’t begin with a bold vision or strategy deck.
It begins with a 16-year-old outside a department store, offering free ice cream samples to strangers.
Because here’s the thing: sales isn’t about charm or pressure.
It’s about relevance, empathy, timing, and the ability to make someone else’s world a little better even for a moment.
In this edition, I’m sharing one of my earliest lessons in sales.
A lesson that, decades later, came full circle through the lens of the Inner Development Goals (IDG) framework.
This is not your usual sales playbook.
It’s about shifting from short-term persuasion to long-term impact.
Why Sales Needs a Reset
In a world rocked by climate emergencies, rising inequality, and escalating conflict, sales and leadership can’t just be about performance anymore. It must be grounded in clarity, care, and collective capacity.
What you’ll find in this edition isn’t just a reflection. It’s a roadmap for salespeople, leaders, and anyone trying to build resilient businesses from the inside out.
Let’s begin where most training programs don’t:
“With the inner world of the one doing the selling.”
Ice Cream & Inner Work: My First Sales Lesson
I’ve never read a sales book. Instead, I’ve read philosophy, storytelling, psychology books that move my value system. Because to me, sales is not theoretical. Sales is doing.
I was just 16 when I had my first sales job: Pitching a new ice cream flavour to passersby in front of a department store. Sounds easy, right? Just hand out free samples.
But here’s what I learned:
Freebies don’t work if the customer doesn’t feel like having ice cream.
The only way I could get someone to take a sample was by suggesting they take it home for their child, sibling, or partner.
That was my first real lesson:
The right offer matters more than a free one.
Enter the Inner Development Goals (IDGs)
Since then, I’ve sold ideas, learning programs, awareness drives, internal and mass campaigns across 48 industries, 4 continents, and learned countless lessons.
But recently, everything I’ve experienced and practiced came into sharp focus almost as if Erik Fernholm, co-founder of the Inner Development Goals (IDG), had reached into my head and put words to what I couldn’t articulate so beautifully for so many years. Have shared all below.
We’re living through poly-crises:
Climate disasters are no longer future threats, they’re lived experiences.
Inequality is deepening.
Authoritarian ideologies are rising.
Wars are escalating across Europe, Middle East and beyond.
And in this volatile landscape, selling has never been harder.
We want fast fixes from governments, impact funds, or technology. But the truth is:
We don’t have a technical problem. We have a human capacity problem.
Our discomfort with complexity, our need for certainty, and our fear of vulnerability are keeping us stuck.
Why Inner Capacity > Outer Strategy
We’ve mastered dashboards, models, and KPIs. But most sales teams still lack the inner capacity to:
Handle uncertainty
Build meaningful relationships
Communicate across difference
Act with purpose
Play long-term
This is where the Inner Development Goals come in.
Not as another sales framework. But as a foundation for real transformation.
What Are the Inner Development Goals?
The IDG Framework was designed to support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by first strengthening the inner development of individuals and teams.
Here are the five core dimensions:
Being – How we relate to ourselves
Thinking – How we handle complexity
Relating – How we build trust and connection
Collaborating – How we create change together
Acting – How we turn intention into action
This framework is now used by thousands of organisations globally.
It’s not a magic fix but it is be the most important foundation we’ve been ignoring.
This framework allows us to develop sales professionals who are:
Not overwhelmed or burned out
Not reactive or blame-driven
But grounded, self-responsible, and relationally intelligent
Why It Matters for Sales
Salespeople are under immense pressure to:
Hit aggressive targets
Personalise every pitch
Collaborate cross-functionally
Manage complex clients
Stay motivated through rejection
But most sales training only focuses on the what and how.
Almost none of it focuses on the who - the person doing the selling.
That’s where The Inner Seller comes in.
Unlocking Immediate Wins with The Inner Seller Program
We’ve designed this program to build high-performing sales professionals from the inside out. Because at the heart of great sales, great leadership, and great change lies one truth: We don’t need louder voices. We need deeper roots and for that we have developed the five IDG dimensions in real-life sales scenarios.
Let’s take one real-world industry example for each dimension to show how these capabilities translate into business wins:
Being
How we relate to ourselves
Example: Pharmaceutical & Medical Sales
Struggles:
High-pressure + strict KPIs = burnout
Values often clash with scripted selling
Hard to stay authentic
The Inner Seller:
Help reps align personal purpose with sales goals
Build emotional clarity and real confidence
Thinking
Handling complexity
Example: Enterprise Software Sales (B2B SaaS)
Struggles:
Long sales cycles
Multiple conflicting stakeholders
Fast-changing tech landscape
The Inner Seller:
Strengthen systems thinking, adaptability, and insight-based decision-making
Relating
Building relationships
Example: Real Estate Sales
Struggles:
Transactional, short-term client interactions
Trust-building often skipped due to speed
Emotional intelligence underused
The Inner Seller:
Train empathy, listening, and authentic connection as core sales skills
Collaborating
Creating change together
Example: Automotive Fleet Sales
Struggles:
Internal silos (sales, delivery, finance)
Lack of decision-making power
Poor team synergy
The Inner Seller:
Equip teams with tools for co-creation, cross-functional alignment, and feedback culture
Acting
Turning intention into action
Example: Financial Services Sales (Insurance, Investment Advisory)
Struggles:
Lead overload
Hesitation in follow-through
Emotionally worn down by constant rejection
The Inner Seller:
Build resilience, courage, prioritisation, and accountability habits
So What Does The Inner Seller Deliver?
Salespeople who are purpose-driven, not pressure-driven
Teams that are collaborative, not competitive
Cultures that value trust over targets
The Result
An army of Inner Sellers sales professionals who don’t just hit targets, but shape trust, navigate change, and co-create impact. They are rooted in Being, skilled in Thinking, relational in Relating, powerful in Collaborating, and bold in Acting.
The Inner Seller isn't just a sales training program it's a measurable business advantage!
If you lead a sales team, partner in culture change, or just want your people to feel more capable and connected this is your chance.
Email at adarsh@be-artsy.com to explore how this program can support your team’s performance and culture.
Best | Shikha Mittal | Founder, Be.artsy
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Why Subscribe?
Over the past 15 years, I’ve collaborated with 450+ organisations across 48 industries, designing and delivering culture & learning and developing programs impacting over 500,000 professionals through my enterprise, Be.artsy. which I founded in 2010 in Delhi, India. The impact of Be.artsy’s work led to it being documented as a Harvard Business School Case Study. Be.artsy’s work has been widely featured in national and international media outlets including Forbes India, BBC, DW Media.
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