To Sell Is Human – Daniel H. Pink

To Sell Is Human shows you that selling is part of your life, no matter what you do, and what a successful salesperson looks like in the 21st century, with practical ideas to help you convince others in a more honest, natural, and sustainable way.

Optimism And Pessimism

Agents who scored in the optimistic half of the explanatory style sold 37% more insurance than agents who scored in the pessimistic half. Agents in the top decile sold 88% more insurance than those in the bottom decile.

The salespeople with an optimistic explanatory style—who saw rejections as temporary rather than permanent, specific rather than universal, and external rather than personal, sold more insurance and survived in their jobs much longer.

Three Questions

When something bad occurs, ask yourself three questions—and come up with an intelligent way to answer each one “no”:

• Is this permanent?
• Is this pervasive?
• Is this personal?

The more you explain bad events as temporary, specific, and external, the more likely you are to persist even in the face of adversity.

Less Is More: The Problem with Too Much Choice

Of the consumers who visited the supermarket booth with twenty-four varieties of jam, only 3 percent bought any. “At the booth with a more limited selection, 30 percent made a purchase.”

Adding an inexpensive item to a product offering can lead to a decline in the consumer’s willingness to pay.

Restricting their choices can help them see those choices more clearly and not feel overwhelmed.

Buying An Experience

Several researchers have shown that people derive much greater satisfaction from purchasing experiences than they do from purchasing goods.

Even when people ponder their future purchases, they expect that experiences will leave them more satisfied than physical goods.

Framing a sale in experiential terms is more likely to lead to satisfied customers and repeat business.

Low Effort State

The people processing the information must be in what the researchers call a ‘low effort’ state. That is, instead of focusing resolutely on the decision, they’re proceeding with a little less effort—perhaps because they’re busy or distracted.

 The negative information must follow the positive information, not the reverse. Once again, the comparison creates clarity.

The Potential Gain: Banking On Uncertainty

People often find potential more interesting than accomplishment because it’s more uncertain.

When you’re selling yourself, don’t fixate only on what you achieved yesterday. Also, emphasize the promise of what you could accomplish tomorrow.

The Off-Ramp Push

Once you’ve found the problem and the proper frame, you have one more step. You need to give people an off-ramp push, a specific request accompanied by a clear way to get it done.

People need clear instructions and a specific call to action.

The Curation Process

The Curation Process: Seek

 Once you’ve defined the area in which you’d like to curate, put together a list of the best sources of information. Then set aside time to scan those sources regularly.

The Curation Process: Sense

Creating meaning out of the material you’ve assembled. Make an annotated list of web links or regularly maintain a blog. Tend to this list of resources every day.

The Curation Process: Share

You can do this through a regular e-mail or your own newsletter, or by using Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. As you share, you’ll help others see their own situations in a new light and possibly reveal hidden problems that you can solve.

Successors to the Elevator Pitch

The One-Word Pitch

The ultimate pitch for an era of short attention spans begins with a single word—and doesn’t go any further.

The Question

By making people work just a little harder, question pitches prompt people to come up with their own reasons for agreeing (or not). When people summon their own reasons for believing something, they endorse the belief more strongly and become more likely to act on it.

Make It Rhyme

If you’re one of a series of freelancers invited to make a presentation before a potential client, including a rhyme, can enhance the processing fluency of your listeners, allowing your message to stick in their minds when they compare you and your competitors.

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