To Sell is Human

Daniel Pink has written another thought provoking business book. His past efforts include Free Agent Nation, Drive and A Whole New Mind. Pink and Malcolm Gladwell seem to have the Midas touch as authors. Both make a point with their books that is backed up with research to support that point. Plus, both are master storytellers.

Pink’s latest effort, To Sell is Human makes this point: we’re all in sales now. A Gallup poll found that people spend 40 percent of their time at work in non-sales selling—persuading, influencing, coaching, instructing and convincing. And people consider this non-sales selling to be crucial to their success.

If you earn your living trying to convince others to purchase goods or services, you’re in sales. If you’re self-employed or have your own business, you probably do a mix of sales and non-sales selling. If your work requires elastic skills—the ability to cross boundaries and functions and do a variety of different things throughout the day, you’re mostly doing non-sales selling. If you’re in education or health care, you’re in non-sales selling. At least, that is Daniel Pink’s assertion. I think he’s right.

Almost all of us have a negative impression of selling. The words associated with sales include pushy, sleazy, dishonest and slimy. Think used car salesmen. Ironic then, if Pink is right, that we’re all in sales now.

 

 

The old ABCs of selling were Always Be Closing. The new ABCs are: Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity.

Attunement

Social science research shows that these are the new requirements for moving people. Traditional sales views a transaction as competitive. But the new perspective is one of empathy and problem solving. Even more important than empathy is perspective. Extraverts have long been viewed as the best salespeople and introverts as the worst. But research has shown that neither is best. The best sales people are ambiverts; those midway on the extraversion/introversion scale. Introverts are geared to inspect. Extraverts are geared to respond. Ambiverts know when to speak up and when to listen. Ambiverts use their heads and their hearts to be attuned to their prospect.

Buoyancy

The hardest part of selling is getting oneself up and out to face people. Many sales trainers suggest the use of positive self-talk to pump oneself up. Again, social science has provided something better: interrogatory self-talk. It is more effective to ask, “Will I?” rather than tell yourself, “I will.” Asking the question begins the mind thinking of how you will.

Positivity is still important; it opens people up. Negativity tends to close people down. But constant positivity isn’t the most productive, probably because it isn’t how the real world works. Research has provided the answer again: three parts positivity to one part negativity is the best emotional mix. It is also important that negative events—being turned down on a sale pitch, for example—are view as temporary, specific or external. Blind optimism isn’t the answer—flexible optimism is; optimism with your eyes open.

Clarity

Finally, it is more productive to be a problem finder than a problem solver. Finding the problem brings clarity. Often, people want to solve a problem but it is the wrong problem. For example, someone shopping for a vacuum cleaner doesn’t really want a vacuum cleaner, they want clean floors. If the source of the dirt could be eliminated, that would be a better solution. Clarity also is aided by contrast. Ask, “Compared to what?”

The Pitch

I won’t get into all of Pink’s successors to the Elevator Pitch. But he suggests six:

  1. The one-word pitch. Say Volvo and people think safety.
  2. The question pitch. “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?
  3. The rhyming pitch. “Woes unite foes.”
  4. The subject–line pitch. Why did you open this email?
  5. The Twitter pitch. Limited to 140 characters; known as the “twitpitch.”
  6. The Pixar pitch. “Once upon a time…”

One final point is that Pink suggests the modern alternative to upselling is “upserving.” That is, do more than expected. This book did more than I expected, as a result, I recommend it to you.

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