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!

You might have missed:  The Yin and Yang of Business: Is Education All You Really Need to Succeed?

Looking Out For #1: What It Could Mean For Your Life

Are You Doing What You Love the Most?

Looking out for Number One is the conscious, rational effort to spend as much time as possible doing those things which bring you the greatest amount of pleasure and less time on those which cause pain.  Everyone automatically makes the effort to be happy, so the key word is "rational."  

To act rationally, and thus experience pleasure and avoid pain on a consistent basis, you have to be aware of what you're doing and why you're doing it.  If you are not aware, you're not living life; you're merely passing through.                                       

-Robert J. Ringer

                             
In his book Looking Out For #1, Robert J. Ringer is not merely suggesting that people should be more egocentric in order to live more fulfilled lives.   With the rising and setting of the sun each day, we are given a new opportunity, but it comes with a choice of attitude and commitment:  

1. To get dragged and pulled through the day
2. To purposefully move through the day with intention

Ringer is presenting the philosophy that if you must choose the life you most want to live, and that if you are not making conscious choices to do what you want, then your life is out of control; he further explains that this kind of life approach requires an elevated awareness of your true desires.

While the high point on the Awareness Meter is taking action based only on your own rational choices, the absolute pits is taking action based on what others choose for you.  If you've been in the habit of doing the latter, the good news is that you only have one way to go from here:  up.

While it makes no sense to make decisions based on what others believe is best for us and our business, we often fall into the trap of allowing the ideas of others control and dictate the path we take in life.  But the question is, how did we get to this point?  How did we end up allowing someone else's dream take first place in our lives?  We have given up our own dream, and ultimately control over our own destiny, one decision at a time.

Ringer continues by posing the question:  What's the payoff for you?

Looking out for Number One is important because it leads to a simple, uncomplicated life in which you spend more time doing those things which give you the greatest amount of pleasure.  It's the discovery of where it's all at -- the realization that life is worth living and that it can and should be a joy rather than a dread.  The natural offspring of this realization are feelings of self-control and self-esteem, which in turn perpetuate still more joy in your life.

With this foundational perspective leading you through the book, each chapter describes the various hurdles every person faces in pursuing the dreams of life.  

Which hurdle most stops you from pursuing the life you always wanted, both in business and in personal affairs? 

1. The Perspective Hurdle
2. The Reality Hurdle
3. The People Hurdle
4. The Crusade Hurdle
5. The Financial Hurdle
6. The Friendship Hurdle
7. The Love Hurdle
8. The Starting Line

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.

T. E. Lawrence 

What Choice Do You Need To Stop Making For Others and Start Making For Yourself Today?

  

We'd Love To Hear The Hurdles You've Jumped To Get Where You Are Today!

You Might Have Missed "The Yin and Yang of Business:  Is Education All You Really Need To Succeed?"

Marketing Warfare - What's Your Battle Strategy?

The concept behind Marketing Warfare, written by Al Ries and Jack Trout, is that marketing strategies in the modern world of business, can be compared to battle strategies and terms from history, not only in the literal sense of actual wars, but also in the marketing sense, as it has related to various product wars from the past.

Ries and Trout start from the basis that in order to successfully win the marketing war, entrepreneurs need to shift their efforts from being “customer-oriented” to “competitor-oriented.”

In the aftermath of World War II, the leading companies became customer-oriented.  The marketing expert was in charge and the prime minister was marketing research.  But today every company is customer-oriented.  Knowing what the customer wants isn’t too helpful if a dozen other companies are already serving the same customer’s wants.  American Motors’s problem is not the customer.  American Motors’s problem is General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, and the imports.  To become successful today, a company must become competitor-oriented.  It must look for weak points in the positions of its competitors and then launch marketing attacks against those weak points.

Ries and Trout go on to illustrate real marketing stories of success utilizing this tactic.  Although this book was published in 1986, it remains a favorite among business people specifically in the marketing business, but it’s principles can also be applied to marketing for any company.  

The chapters briefly described below demonstrate how this book is not written like a business textbook; rather, it approaches the issues the way you, the business person, would expect them to be addressed: in a practical and intriguing way.

• Marketing is war: Introduction to the concepts of warfare strategies and how that can be applied to marketing.
• 2500 years of war: Introducing marketing people to some of the world’s most historic battles.
• The principle of force: The principle of big fish eating little fish, big companies eating small companies.
• The superiority of the defense: No military commander would seek to battle an opponent with the odds stacked against him, and how this applies to business marketing today. 
• The new era of competition: Learning the language and strategies from the military.
• The nature of the battleground: Marketing battles aren’t fought on an actual battlefield, but in the minds of the prospect.
• The strategic square: There are four ways to fight a war, and knowing which type of warfare to fight is the most important decision to be made.
• Principles of defensive warfare: Defensive strategy is for a marketing leader, with 3 key principles to be followed.
• Principles of offensive warfare: The primary principle in this approach is to find the weakness in the leader’s strength and then attack at that very point.
• Principles of flanking warfare: The most successful marketing results have been a result of flanking moves.
• Principles of guerilla warfare: How small companies can survive among the giant competitors.
• The cola war: A closer look at the Pepsi vs. Coke strategies.
• The beer war: The process of consolidation in the beer business, and how smaller breweries should be concentrating their forces together. 
• The burger war: Examining the marketing warfare between McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King.
• The computer war: How big name computer companies can fail when trying to fight a battleground they don’t own.
• Strategy and tactics: Strategy should follow tactics and start from the bottom up, not from the top down.
• The marketing general: The key attributes for marketing generals include flexibility, mental courage, and boldness.

What is your marketing strategy?

Is it working? 

Are you getting the results you want 

Or

Are you in need of a better "battle" plan?  

You will also want to read How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success.

{Book 6} Required Entrepreneur Reading: How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

What has been your most meaningful lesson in learning how to work well with difficult people?  Or what changes have you made in yourself to become a person that is easy to work with?

Written in 1936, this book has sold over 15 million copies around the globe.  What has drawn millions to read a book by someone who is not only from a completely different era, but quite a few generations distant from us?  

Here’s a little snippet from the opening chapter, entitled “Nine Ways to Get The Most Out of This Book:"

“If you wish to get the most out of this book, there is one indispensable requirement, one essential infinitely more important than any other rule or technique.  Unless you have this one fundamental requisite, a thousand rules on how to study will avail little.  And if you do have this cardinal endowment, then you can achieve wonders without reading any suggestions for getting the most out of a book.  What is this magic requirement?  Just this:  a deep, driving desire to learn, a vigorous determination to increase your ability to deal with people.”(emphasis added)

What is the most foundational aspect of business?  Our ability to work with people in a mutually respectful manner, in a way that generates positive outcomes for all parties involved.  Dale Carnegie focuses on providing insightful strategies for you to connect and work with a variety of people and the challenges that often arise in such relationships.

The book is divided into the following major sections:

1. Fundamental Techniques in Handling PeopleSix Ways to Make People Like You
2. How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking
3. Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

The beauty of this book is that these principles are not only useful and applicable to our business relationships, but also can be utilized in personal relationships.

What has been your most meaningful experience or lesson learned in knowing how to approach challenging people in a positive way?