“Like It Or Not, We’re All In Sales Now”.

📅  16th July 2020 | 2020/21 Sales Book Reviews

Pink has his own mnemonic for ABC. “Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity”

Published in 2012, Daniel H. Pink’s “To Sell Is Human” has received wide acclaim. And rightly so. He expresses what I have been expounding for some time now – sales has irrevocably changed and the internet has been the catalyst for this change. We are now in a business environment where caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) has been superseded by caveat venditor (let the seller beware) as Pink explains.

 

The Good

One observation that will please many salespeople is that one doesn’t have to be a larger than life, table-pounding, over-confident individual to make it in sales. There’s no evidence to suggest that this is true. Pink illustrates this diagrammatically and proves that it’s the ambiverts who are the most effective.  There’s a test you can take to see where you are on the introversion-extraversion scale. It’s at http://www.danpink.com/assessment

Pink takes empathy to a higher level. By considering what buyers maybe thinking as well as how they feeling can make or break a deal. This is known as perspective-taking and is a sister to empathy. A good question to ask yourself is “what biases exist with a certain buyer?”

A couple of pages are dedicated to strategic mimicry. Years ago I was taught to use “word reflection” and to copy, or mimic a buyers body language. At first this seems like poking fun. But it’s nothing of the kind. This is a normal and effective way of having a conversation and you’re doing it to elicit information from the other person.

Refining your various pitches (elevator, e-mail headline) is also covered as is having a ‘slow’ day. Make one day a week less hectic than other days. The intention is to improve your listening. Pink advocates that you learn and practice some improvisation techniques and recommends some books on the subject.

Finally, I like the way Pink shows us why many people who are engaged in broad commercial activity are selling. Whether you’re a lawyer, accountant or even the archetypal funeral director, we are all in sales. Each of us has a selling instinct and the author does a good job in teaching how and what to do. A kind of guide to sales for the non-selling person.

The Bad

This book isn’t the first and it won’t be the last which has “No. 1 best seller” emblazoned across its front cover. I have no doubt that To Sell Is Human has also sold “2 million copies worldwide”, probably over 3 million by now – but why mention it at all? I find this additional self-promotion debases the seriousness of the content inside.

Right at the back of the book, Pink asks us the reader to ask themselves two questions. The first one is “If the person you’re selling to agrees to buy, will his or her life improve? and the second is “When the interaction is over, will the world be a better place than when you began? Pink then suggests that if the answer to either of the questions is no, then you’re doing something wrong. I see where Pink is coming from but I disagree. People buy for all sorts of reasons and not always just to make things better within their firm. An individual business person may upgrade his or her car. I think there’s plenty of anecdotal and firm evidence that the buzz of getting  a new car declines very quickly after acquisition.

The Ugly

Years ago, a certain Mr Tony Nottage said I should learn what “ABC” meant – always be closing. The mantra of selling at one time.

In the 2020’s that is now old hat. Pink has his own mnemonic for ABC. “Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity”. To a degree, I’ve covered the “A” and in re-reading the various passages on this concept, it’s clear that we are back to the blindingly obvious need for empathy and understanding. Buoyancy is all about bouncing back after a streak of bad luck. Other authors write about resilience and mental-strength. Clarity, on the other hand, is about finding problems rather than solving them. Reading between the lines, it’s using your commercial experience to get to the nub of a customer’s concerns.

 

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In hindsight, I should have read Daniel Pink’s other top selling book, “Drive” to get a better understanding of his style. I found To Sell Is Human uplifting and insightful and yet, I was saying to myself “show me something I don’t already know”.

Tags: sales training

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