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I have started reading “To Sell is Human” by Daniel H. Pink. The book is 233 pages and gives advice on sales in the new age where information is readily available to a buyer.
This book is not just for the salesperson, but for those that own small businesses or need to persuade co-workers frequently.
Daniel Pink has created his own A-B-Cs of sales, and not the Always Be Closing from the past. Pink talks about Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity.
What I like most about his book is he references a lot of research and case studies that are relatively recent. About the only thing that bothered me was why the author needed a Mnemonic Device for what makes an effective seller in today’s world. Especially since the C had little to do with his word choice – Clarity.
Attunement is defined as “to bring into harmony.” Think of tuning a piano. I’m sure there are many better words, but Pink needed an A to replace the old ABC sales method.
As a seller, being in harmony with the buyer makes since. If you’re in harmony, you understand the buyers wants and desires and you both benefit from the sale. Win-Wins are the best way to have a long term relationship with a customer.
Daniel Pink asserts the best way to become in harmony with a buyer is to have a face-to-face conversation with them. Find their needs and don’t focus on your features unless they specifically address the buyer’s needs.
One definition of Buoyancy is resilience in spirit. Sales is hard and comes with a lot of rejection. Even when I was doing well in sales, I still got a lot of rejections and powered-through. The problem was I would have enough and stop calling on potential clients for a while.
Daniel Pink explains the Positivity Ratio as they relate to positive and negative emotions.
- Positive emotions: amusement, awe, compassion, contentment, gratitude, hope, interest, joy, love, pride, and sexual desire.
- Negative emotions: anger, contempt disgust, embarrassment, fear, guilt, sadness and shame.
You need to have a ratio of 3 positive emotions to every one negative.
Back in 2004 and 2005 I sold life and health insurance. Although I did well, I did not have the right personality for it. I bought 30 “warm” life insurance leads for a little over $30 each per month, I set up about 10-12 appointments from those, and closed about 50%. I also did cold calls in between appointments for health, disability and other supplemental insurance. When I worked the system, I made good money, but I got 2 not interested for every appointment and over 90% rejections on the cold calls. All those “no” responses wore at me. I took every “no” personal and left full time insurance late 2006 and permanently in 2010.
“To Sell is Human” specifically mentions a study that followed new insurance salespeople and concluded:
Salespeople who saw rejections as temporary rather than permanent, specific rather than universal, and external rather than personal sold more insurance and survived much longer.
One of the definitions of Clarity is the quality of being certain or definite. I think you should have clear goals and expectations, which is where I thought the author would go with this. Pink’s book description focuses more on potential, which was a little confusing to me. The case studies after the chapter made more sense. I really liked the “Find the one percent” section.
After explaining what it takes to be an effective salesperson, Pink goes on and gives samples of what to do. There is definitely enough in this book to help you in your career and increase your sales. This book is not a manual of sleazy scripts and closing techniques. I recommend highly.
Other books by Daniel H. Pink
