Book Essence – To Sell is Human
To Sell is Human
To a broader definition, selling is our way to propose our idea, to make others willing to do what we want to. This book is showing us how to do today sales and non-sales selling that actually we always do everyday (from a salesman offers his goods to a mom tell his son to do his homework). As we know, the shift from information age to conceptual age (discussed in Daniel Pink other’s books) bring a lot of change, and selling is also affected by change. We cannot only see our counterparts as the selling object that we aim to get profit/benefit from, but rather to act as his/her friend and offer a solution. Other way to say it, offer a win-win solution that benefit both of parts connected through selling process.
Contrary to the past where salesman have an advantage, which is know much better of products than customers, nowadays, customers see many information is easily reached through the internet. So, salesman cannot be longer ‘trick’ their customer because sometimes, customers are somehow smarter than the salesman. But, because of that abundance of information, customers also face difficulties in finding what is their real problems. That’s what modern salesman need to do. Find the right problems to solve. Don’t just be problem solver, but be the problem finder instead.
Daniel Pink’s books (I am reading his ‘A Whole New Mind’ now) are quite simple and clear in structure. Basically, this book is trying to show us the problem in modern selling and how the environment has changed, and then how to be good at selling and what to do.
How to be good at selling is represented by new ABCs. Not ‘Always be Close’, the old paradigm of sales, but :
Attunement – Try to see a problem differently, especially from your counterparts perspective or point of view. That way, you will be able to empathize more. Pink research also found that the best salesperson is neither extrovert nor introvert person. It’s the ambivert person, person who knows when to be extrovert and talk much, when to silently try to listen well.
Buoyancy – This is refer to quality of a person to stay afloat from rejections, how to stay positive to yourself. It is said that rather than to make statement like ‘I will be able to achieve this’, human will be better in dealing with interrogative self-talk, ‘Will i be able to achieve this?’ because it will force your mind to think, how can you achieve that goals. Maintain your positivity is also important too.
Clarity- In information age, unfortunately, we were overloaded by information that mostly we don’t really need. Furthermore, we lost our focus in what our main problems are. We need a clarity, including the clarity of our problems. That’s why it’s important for us to find the right problems of others and offers right solutions, rather than just give solutions they can easily get through internet.
And next, what to do to become good at selling:
Pitch: related to how you can propose well and efficiently and sell what you want to sell. Pink give several tips, including practices such as make one-word pitch, twitter pitch, email subject pitch, etc.
Improvise: Improvisation is a good way to make an offers that is not just ‘script-based’ conversation, as happened in old-style marketing/selling way. You can also hear ‘hidden offers’ within others response, or give alternatives rather than reject the idea. This improvisation reference came from theater performance which we can see so many individuals improvisation there.
Serve: Make it personal and make it purposeful to your ‘customers’. It’s the way your offers will be easier to be accepted by other people. Another tips, don’t just up-selling (offers another goods after ones), but try to up-serving, ask what else can you do for your customer. Maybe, your additional serves will bring much more sales to you 🙂
After all, this book is really good in giving us the understanding of the new selling way, especially for those whose job is not closely related to selling sales. But, we must understand that we do sell everyday, from physical and tangible products to make others do what we want them to do.
So, for your deeper understanding in selling, would you want to read this book? 🙂
