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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
If you broaden the definition, it will naturally encompass more things. This is what happens in this book, where the definition of selling is broadened to encompass things like persuading people to do something, even like using a style guide. Maybe this convinces you, but it doesn't work for me. There are interesting studies in there, but I lose interest when the author then applies them to the principle of selling.
This was also written in 2012, so may be outdated by today's standards. Some things he suggested (e.g. be specific, elicit curiosity) just seem like click-bait today (e.g. five things you need to know about this!).
This was also written in 2012, so may be outdated by today's standards. Some things he suggested (e.g. be specific, elicit curiosity) just seem like click-bait today (e.g. five things you need to know about this!).
About a month ago I read To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others by Daniel Pink, in which the author makes the argument that the vast majority of us are in sales (especially people in health care and education), whether we know it or not.
"People are now spending about 40 percent of their time at work engaged in non-sales selling— persuading, influencing, and convincing others in ways that don’t involve anyone making a purchase. Across a range of professions, we are devoting roughly twenty-four minutes of every hour to moving others."
Pink shows us that the image, many of us have, of the dishonest used-car salesman who uses tricks and pressure to get people to buy, rarely aligns with reality. Instead he shows us techniques that can help us to more effectively share the world, as we see it, with other people.
"First, in the past, the best salespeople were adept at accessing information. Today, they must be skilled at curating it— sorting through the massive troves of data and presenting to others the most relevant and clarifying pieces. Second, in the past, the best salespeople were skilled at answering questions (in part because they had information their prospects lacked). Today, they must be good at asking questions— uncovering possibilities, surfacing latent issues, and finding unexpected problems."
"Martin also said that top salespeople have strong emotional intelligence but don’t let their emotional connection sweep them away. They are curious and ask questions that drive to the core of what the other person is thinking. That’s getting into their heads and not just their hearts, attunement rule number two. Most of all, “you have to be able somehow to get in synch with people, to connect with them, whether you’re with a grandmother or the recent graduate of an MBA program,” she told me."
I especially enjoyed the part that looked at the role of introverts and ambiverts in selling:
"The notion that extraverts are the finest salespeople is so obvious that we’ve overlooked one teensy flaw. There’s almost no evidence that it’s actually true."
Another key takeaway was the research by Barbara Fredrickson which showed that people with a positive outlook on life tend to have a ratio of 3:1 positive emotions to negative emotions in their lives. She has a daily tracker, which I’ve been using for almost 2 months now and have found incredibly helpful and insightful in realizing how different events and people affect me and my general well-being.
In addition, did you know that people unconsciously feel like things are more true if they rhyme, compared to things that do not rhyme?
"Participants rated the aphorisms in the left column as far more accurate than those in the right column, even though each pair says essentially the same thing. Yet when the researchers asked people, “In your opinion, do aphorisms that rhyme describe human behavior more accurately than those that do not rhyme?” the overwhelming answer was no. Participants were attributing accuracy to the rhyming versions unconsciously."
I greatly recommend To Sell Is Human to traditional and non-traditional sales people alike – especially if you are in the business of moving people. And really, aren't we all?
"In both traditional sales and non-sales selling, we do better when we move beyond solving a puzzle to serving a person."
"That means that not only should we ourselves be serving, but we should also be tapping others’ innate desire to serve. Making it personal works better when we also make it purposeful."
"People are now spending about 40 percent of their time at work engaged in non-sales selling— persuading, influencing, and convincing others in ways that don’t involve anyone making a purchase. Across a range of professions, we are devoting roughly twenty-four minutes of every hour to moving others."
Pink shows us that the image, many of us have, of the dishonest used-car salesman who uses tricks and pressure to get people to buy, rarely aligns with reality. Instead he shows us techniques that can help us to more effectively share the world, as we see it, with other people.
"First, in the past, the best salespeople were adept at accessing information. Today, they must be skilled at curating it— sorting through the massive troves of data and presenting to others the most relevant and clarifying pieces. Second, in the past, the best salespeople were skilled at answering questions (in part because they had information their prospects lacked). Today, they must be good at asking questions— uncovering possibilities, surfacing latent issues, and finding unexpected problems."
"Martin also said that top salespeople have strong emotional intelligence but don’t let their emotional connection sweep them away. They are curious and ask questions that drive to the core of what the other person is thinking. That’s getting into their heads and not just their hearts, attunement rule number two. Most of all, “you have to be able somehow to get in synch with people, to connect with them, whether you’re with a grandmother or the recent graduate of an MBA program,” she told me."
I especially enjoyed the part that looked at the role of introverts and ambiverts in selling:
"The notion that extraverts are the finest salespeople is so obvious that we’ve overlooked one teensy flaw. There’s almost no evidence that it’s actually true."
Another key takeaway was the research by Barbara Fredrickson which showed that people with a positive outlook on life tend to have a ratio of 3:1 positive emotions to negative emotions in their lives. She has a daily tracker, which I’ve been using for almost 2 months now and have found incredibly helpful and insightful in realizing how different events and people affect me and my general well-being.
In addition, did you know that people unconsciously feel like things are more true if they rhyme, compared to things that do not rhyme?
"Participants rated the aphorisms in the left column as far more accurate than those in the right column, even though each pair says essentially the same thing. Yet when the researchers asked people, “In your opinion, do aphorisms that rhyme describe human behavior more accurately than those that do not rhyme?” the overwhelming answer was no. Participants were attributing accuracy to the rhyming versions unconsciously."
I greatly recommend To Sell Is Human to traditional and non-traditional sales people alike – especially if you are in the business of moving people. And really, aren't we all?
"In both traditional sales and non-sales selling, we do better when we move beyond solving a puzzle to serving a person."
"That means that not only should we ourselves be serving, but we should also be tapping others’ innate desire to serve. Making it personal works better when we also make it purposeful."
“Like it or not, we’re all in sales now”
“Selling in all its dimensions, whether pushing Buicks on a car lot or pitching ideas in a meeting, has changed more in the last 10 years than it did over the previous hundred. Most of what we think we understand about selling is constructed atop a foundation of assumptions that has crumbled.”
Old ABCs for selling: Always Be Closing
New ABC’s for selling: Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity
“Selling, I’ve grown to understand, is more urgent, more important, and in its own sweet way more beautiful than we realize. The ability to move others to exchange what they have for what we have is crucial to our survival and our happiness. It has helped our species evolve, lifted our living standards, and enhanced our daily lives. The capacity to sell isn’t some unnatural adaptation to the merciless world of commerce, it is part of who we are… Selling is fundamentally human.”
* 1/9 workers are salespeople (Second largest occupational category)
* 5x more salespeople than the entire federal workforce.
* If every sales person in America live in one state it would be the fifth largest in the US.
7000 person study of US workers asking “What do you do at work?”
Results:
* on average, people are spending roughly 40% of their time at work engaged in non-sales selling
* People consider this aspect of their work crucial to their professional success.
If including non-sales selling (moving people to do, support, etc something) in the before mentioned stat, then 9/9 workers are salespeople.
Technology has enabled all to be sellers. Sites like eBay & etsy or tech like smartphones & mobile payment systems have made “selling” available to the masses.
Today there are 7 billion people in the world and 6 billion mobile phone subscriptions.
Cisco projects that by 2020, there will be more smart phones than human beings (10 billion).
Irritation versus agitation:
Irritation is challenging people to do something that WE want them to do. By contrast, agitation is challenging them to do something that they want to do.
Irritation doesn’t work.
Old ABCs for selling: Always Be Closing
New ABC’s for selling: Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity
Attunement
1. Increase your power by reducing it. The more ‘power’ you have (or think you have) the less you think about the other person‘s perspective.
2. Use your head as much is your heart. Perspective taking his cognitive where as empathy is emotional. In sales, thinking is more important than feeling. Social cartography: drawing a map in your head of social roles of individuals involved in a sale.
3. Mimic strategically. Chameleon within reason. Watch. Wait. Wane.
4. Be ambiverted (not too extroverted not to introverted). There’s basically zero correlation between extroversion and sales success. Ambiverts are the most successful class of sales people.
Buoyancy is the capacity to stay afloat on what one salesman calls an “ocean of rejection.”
Be like Bob the Builder with your self-talk. “Can we build it? Yes we can!”
Interrogative (asking questions) self-talk is more effective than declarative (making statements).
Clarity is the capacity to make sense of murky situations, to curate information rather than merely access it, and to move from solving existing problems to finding hidden ones.
The contrast principle: ask “compared to what?”
1. The “less” frame: reducing the number of options, often increases sales—less choices = less overwhelming.
2. The “experience” frame: people gain much more satisfaction from experiential purchases vs material purchases. Frame your sale as experiential.
3. The “label” frame: changing the name of something frames mindsets and changes outcomes. Ex: The Wall Street Game vs The Community Game.
4. The “blemished” frame: adding a minor negative detail in an otherwise positive description of an object can give that description a more positive impact if put at the end.
5. The “potential” frame: the potential to be good at something is can be preferred over actually being good at that very same thing. People often find potential more interesting than accomplishment because it’s more uncertain. Sell potential.
Give a clear path of action: clarity on how to think without clarity on how to act can leave people unmoved.
Michael Pantalon’s irrational two-question approach:
1. “On a scale from 1 to 10, how ready are you to _______?”
2. “Why isn’t your number lower?”
Like a toddler, ask 5 “why’s”
6 Pitches:
1. The one-word pitch: What company comes to mind when you hear “search” or “priceless”? (Google, MasterCard)
2. The question Pitch: “Are you better of now than you were 4 years ago?” (Ronald Reagan)
3. The rhyming pitch: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” When asked if rhyming aphorisms are more accurate nearly everyone says, “no” but when asked which is more accurate, a rhyming one or a non-rhyming one, most people picked the rhyming one. Rhymes boost processing fluency.
4. He subject line pitch: utility and curiosity are the biggest motivations for people opening emails from someone they don’t know; either they think it will be useful, or curiosity gets the best of them. A third principle, specificity, is also very helpful.
5. The Twitter pitch: 140 characters or less. Tweets that ask questions or provide links are most well received.
6. The Pixar pitch: Once upon a time, there was _____. Everyday, _____. One day, _____. Because of that, _____. Because of that, _____. Until finally, _____.
Clarify the purpose and strategy of your pitch by asking these three questions:
1. What do you want them to know?
2. What do you want them to feel?
3. What do you want them to do?
A true salesperson is an idealist and an artist. They have a desire to both improve the world and to provide the world with something they didn’t know they were missing.
“Selling in all its dimensions, whether pushing Buicks on a car lot or pitching ideas in a meeting, has changed more in the last 10 years than it did over the previous hundred. Most of what we think we understand about selling is constructed atop a foundation of assumptions that has crumbled.”
Old ABCs for selling: Always Be Closing
New ABC’s for selling: Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity
“Selling, I’ve grown to understand, is more urgent, more important, and in its own sweet way more beautiful than we realize. The ability to move others to exchange what they have for what we have is crucial to our survival and our happiness. It has helped our species evolve, lifted our living standards, and enhanced our daily lives. The capacity to sell isn’t some unnatural adaptation to the merciless world of commerce, it is part of who we are… Selling is fundamentally human.”
* 1/9 workers are salespeople (Second largest occupational category)
* 5x more salespeople than the entire federal workforce.
* If every sales person in America live in one state it would be the fifth largest in the US.
7000 person study of US workers asking “What do you do at work?”
Results:
* on average, people are spending roughly 40% of their time at work engaged in non-sales selling
* People consider this aspect of their work crucial to their professional success.
If including non-sales selling (moving people to do, support, etc something) in the before mentioned stat, then 9/9 workers are salespeople.
Technology has enabled all to be sellers. Sites like eBay & etsy or tech like smartphones & mobile payment systems have made “selling” available to the masses.
Today there are 7 billion people in the world and 6 billion mobile phone subscriptions.
Cisco projects that by 2020, there will be more smart phones than human beings (10 billion).
Irritation versus agitation:
Irritation is challenging people to do something that WE want them to do. By contrast, agitation is challenging them to do something that they want to do.
Irritation doesn’t work.
Old ABCs for selling: Always Be Closing
New ABC’s for selling: Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity
Attunement
1. Increase your power by reducing it. The more ‘power’ you have (or think you have) the less you think about the other person‘s perspective.
2. Use your head as much is your heart. Perspective taking his cognitive where as empathy is emotional. In sales, thinking is more important than feeling. Social cartography: drawing a map in your head of social roles of individuals involved in a sale.
3. Mimic strategically. Chameleon within reason. Watch. Wait. Wane.
4. Be ambiverted (not too extroverted not to introverted). There’s basically zero correlation between extroversion and sales success. Ambiverts are the most successful class of sales people.
Buoyancy is the capacity to stay afloat on what one salesman calls an “ocean of rejection.”
Be like Bob the Builder with your self-talk. “Can we build it? Yes we can!”
Interrogative (asking questions) self-talk is more effective than declarative (making statements).
Clarity is the capacity to make sense of murky situations, to curate information rather than merely access it, and to move from solving existing problems to finding hidden ones.
The contrast principle: ask “compared to what?”
1. The “less” frame: reducing the number of options, often increases sales—less choices = less overwhelming.
2. The “experience” frame: people gain much more satisfaction from experiential purchases vs material purchases. Frame your sale as experiential.
3. The “label” frame: changing the name of something frames mindsets and changes outcomes. Ex: The Wall Street Game vs The Community Game.
4. The “blemished” frame: adding a minor negative detail in an otherwise positive description of an object can give that description a more positive impact if put at the end.
5. The “potential” frame: the potential to be good at something is can be preferred over actually being good at that very same thing. People often find potential more interesting than accomplishment because it’s more uncertain. Sell potential.
Give a clear path of action: clarity on how to think without clarity on how to act can leave people unmoved.
Michael Pantalon’s irrational two-question approach:
1. “On a scale from 1 to 10, how ready are you to _______?”
2. “Why isn’t your number lower?”
Like a toddler, ask 5 “why’s”
6 Pitches:
1. The one-word pitch: What company comes to mind when you hear “search” or “priceless”? (Google, MasterCard)
2. The question Pitch: “Are you better of now than you were 4 years ago?” (Ronald Reagan)
3. The rhyming pitch: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” When asked if rhyming aphorisms are more accurate nearly everyone says, “no” but when asked which is more accurate, a rhyming one or a non-rhyming one, most people picked the rhyming one. Rhymes boost processing fluency.
4. He subject line pitch: utility and curiosity are the biggest motivations for people opening emails from someone they don’t know; either they think it will be useful, or curiosity gets the best of them. A third principle, specificity, is also very helpful.
5. The Twitter pitch: 140 characters or less. Tweets that ask questions or provide links are most well received.
6. The Pixar pitch: Once upon a time, there was _____. Everyday, _____. One day, _____. Because of that, _____. Because of that, _____. Until finally, _____.
Clarify the purpose and strategy of your pitch by asking these three questions:
1. What do you want them to know?
2. What do you want them to feel?
3. What do you want them to do?
A true salesperson is an idealist and an artist. They have a desire to both improve the world and to provide the world with something they didn’t know they were missing.
Interesting perspectives on what it means to be a salesman and how in today's day and age we are all salespeople trying to move people to do thing, buy things, etc. Quick read that would be beneficial to everyone in the field of sales.
This is a worthwhile read with some interesting nuggets of social scientists' findings on how to 'move people' (whether that's moving them to buy something or moving hospital staff to wash their hands more to prevent infections). Parts of it are a little bit ted talk-y or corporate seminar-y, and I did get bored at a couple of points. But I think it would be a pretty good thing to read for many working people and is a bit nicer and better-intentioned than most books about "influencing people".
It's not really what I expected from the title, I thought it was going to be about ancient human history and early forms of trade and selling
It's not really what I expected from the title, I thought it was going to be about ancient human history and early forms of trade and selling
Probably more like 3.5 stars, though that might be because I liked it less than Drive or A Whole New Mind. Still, Pink as always manages to craft a practical and readable book. My favorite part was the story of Norman Hall, the last Fuller Brush salesman, whose existence I find a little sad, a lot surprising, and completely inspiring in the face of obsolescence and rejection. I also appreciated Pink's acknowledgment of our cultural aversion to the term 'sales', and the distinction of 'non-selling sales' along the lines of influence/persuasion, which more people do daily than the actual job title of 'sales' - as a reader, these points made me more receptive to and engaged with the content he presented.
informative
medium-paced
This book has a lot of interesting sales tips, and includes precursors to the age of the "personal brand" in sales. I also really appreciated the insight to interrogative self-talk. However, I would love to know what the author thinks now to his point in highlighting Palentir as a great sales company multiple times after they made their empire through selling mass amounts of consumer data farmed from security footage, license plates, and other sneaky means. Another point he makes that I would love to ask him about over a decade late is the idea that cellphones and the internet don't do much to boost sales. After Instagram, Pinterest, Tiktok, and LTK culture where people are influenced by other "average" people, I would expect he has changed his tune. I believe most sales books don't age well, as they become a snapshot of the time period they were written in and professional salespeople are ill-equipped to predict the future.
I think I struggled with this book because I agreed with the author’s premise from the beginning. As a result, I got bored for the first two thirds of the book as he laid out his argument. The last third, though, was informative and contained good strategies. I just wish I didn’t have to read through so much convincing before I got to it.
Very much enjoyed this book. It contains a host of good references and ideas, but the author's writing and line of reasoning doesn't always flow. Of course, I've been spoiled by reading Robert Cialdini.... Anyway, if you like the influence/persuasion field - it's certainly worth reading.