Here are some concepts about sales that I found helpful. They are drawn from Daniel Pink’s new book, To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others.
The whole article is here.
Below I’ve listed the 17 ways in bullet point format.
- Yes, you are probably a salesman. Almost everyone is engaged in “non-sales selling.”
- You can’t motivate people with weak or false information in a knowledge economy.
- To gain another’s perspective, give up some of your power.
- It’s easier to persuade people by moving their brains than by appealing to their feelings.
- Subtly imitate the behaviors and responses of the person you’re selling to.
- Find the middle ground between being too extroverted and too introverted.
- Ask yourself questions instead of trying to psyche yourself up.
- Show positive emotion rather than using your poker face.
- See rejection as specific and temporary, rather than as a personal attack.
- Offer a few compelling choices instead of a massive array of them.
- When selling yourself, talk about potential, not accomplishment.
- Make sure you always give a detailed “off-ramp” for people to actually act.
- The elevator pitch is dead; try the one word pitch, the “subject line” pitch, or the Twitter pitch
- Find a way to make it personal.
- Tap into other people’s desires to do good.
- Kill the commission, or at least reduce it.
- In the end, the best motivation and tactic involves asking two questions: “If the person you’re selling to agrees to buy, will his or her life improve?” and “When your interaction is over, will the world be a better place than when you began?”
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