To Sell Is Human: Business Book Review

Don't Be Stubborn When It Comes To Embracing Change

Book Review: To Sell Is Human by Daniel H. Pink

According to the author, we are all trying to sell something all the time: whether convincing our kids to accomplish their tasks, or persuading a friend to accompany us on an adventure, or even presenting all the beneficial reasons our neighbor should help invest in a joint wall.  

Daniel Pink explains that whether your job is in full-time sales or not, we are all in the business of selling.  He knows that this idea is not widely accepted; in fact, he believes that most people would balk at the idea that their lives frequently revolve around selling in one way or another.

Sales?  Blecch.  To the smart set, sales is an endeavor that requires little intellectual throw weight - a task for slick glad-handers who skate through life on a shoeshine and a smile.  To others it's the province of dodgy characters doing slippery things--a realm where trickery and deceit get the speaking parts  while honesty and fairness watch mutely from the rafters.  Still others view it as the white-collar equivalent of cleaning toilets--necessary perhaps, but unpleasant and even a bit unclean.  

I'm convinced we've gotten it wrong.

This is a book about sales.  But it is unlike any book about sales you have read (or ignored) before.  That's because selling in all its dimensions--whether pushing Buicks on a car lot or pitching ideas in a meeting--has changed more in the last ten 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.

Pink begins the book by explaining how the art and ideas behind "sales" (as it has always been known) have changed, even providing recent statistics showing that 40% of our time is used in trying to convince others to move in a certain direction, whether in our professional or personal life.

He continues by diving into key elements of workplace transformation:  Entrepreneurship (how intended barriers to sales jobs have actually turned into more opportunities), Elasticity (how we have found that our job skills must be flexible in moving across boundaries), and Ed-Med (a term coined by the author to describe the fastest growing industries around the world, combining educational services and health care and it's relevance).

Pink then goes even further to define the new ABCs of the sales trade, in order to better deal with situations that make us want to run and hide:

1. Attunement - Bringing yourself into harmony with other people, groups, and contexts.
2. Buoyancy - The necessary mindset to stay afloat even in the face of constant rejection.
3. Clarity - The ability to make sense of problematic and muddled situations.

The last section of the book is about What To Do, in terms of how this book is practical for you, divided into three chapters entitled:

1. Pitch - Learning ways to approach people in an age of limited attention spans
2. Improvise - Learn improvisation rules to enhance your ability to persuade others
3. Serve - Serving personally and with purpose, and why it matters

There is much more depth to this book than what could be barely touched on in a review.  Pink also gives a wonderful illustration on the art of storytelling and the impact it has on our ability to sell others our ideas.  He also draws from research to disprove a widely accepted assumption about extraverts being the best salespeople, which is something that most people believe makes a salesperson successful.

What changes have you had to embrace in the last year, in order to keep up with the pace of change in the business world?

Your comments on this subject are greatly appreciated!

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