Daniel Pink is the successful author of five books on business including Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us and A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future.

His last book, published in 2012, was To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others. In the book, Pink argues that while one in nine working people are in professional sales (and this ratio has not changed in the last ten years despite the advent of the internet), what we need to note is that ALL of us are also selling – not necessarily goods but ideas and techniques. On a daily basis, we are persuading, negotiating and pitching, even to our children. In fact, according to his research, people spend 40% of their work time selling something.

But things are changing for sales people – the days when the slick sales guys made gullible people buy anything are over. The information age, when a buyer can get all the information, including reviews and recommendations from the internet, sellers have to become fair and honest. Today, we are in the age of not “buyers beware” but “sellers beware.” Today, the buyers have the real power.

Therefore, to succeed in sales in the Information Age, sellers have to:
• Understand the needs and perspectives of the buyers.
• Have “buoyancy,” “the gritty spirit and sunny outlook” to survive repeated rejections.
• Have the ability to clarify what they are actually offering.
• Avoid the “elevator pitch,” and to look at new ways of pitching – the one-word pitch, the question pitch, the rhyming pitch, the 140-character Twitter pitch, the subject line pitch, or the Pixar pitch.
• Improvise. If sellers are not being able to break through with the above options, they must practice improvisation techniques.
• Have an attitude of service.

Pink’s message – selling is part of human nature and it can be done well and without chicanery.

Attached is a long (around 78 minutes) talk by Daniel Pink on ‘To Sell is Human.’ In our work life and otherwise, we are sellers and it would be worth your while to go through the talk. A lot of what Pink says is common sense; however, hopefully, all of us will become better at selling by going through the talk.

Visual courtesy : https://www.flickr.com/photos/marfis75/