This is the final of of three posts taking a look at Dan Pink’s “To Sell Is Human.” Pink brings a new look at the art of selling and explains why although statistically one of nine Americans work in sales, so do the rest of us.
In section one, Pink discusses what he calls the “Rebirth of a Salesman.” In section two, discussed in this post, Pink provides a new twist to the ABC’s of selling which historically has stood for Always Be Closing, by discussing Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity. In section three, he discusses the way we should be selling in today’s environment – The Pitch, How to Improvise and How to Serve.
Pink provides his three abilities that matter most.
PART THREE – WHAT TO DO
7. PITCH
Pink provides his six successors to the elevator pitch:
- 1. The one-word pitch – Simply put – pitching one word that provides the impact or curiosity for more.
- 2. The question pitch – Ronald Reagan campaign “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
- 3. The rhyming pitch – Johnnie Cochran Simpson trial “If it doesn’t fit; you must aquit.”
- 4. The subject line pitch – Make the subject line in your email about the reader and get a better open rate.
- 5. The twitter pitch – Yes the twitter pitch … anything you want to say in 140 characters or less.
- 6. The Pixar pitch – Once upon a time_____. Every day,_____. One day _____. Because of that, _____. Because of that, _____. Until finally _____.
8. IMPROVISE
Pink discusses the first principle of improvisation – hearing offers – depends on our ability to really hear what is being said. He states that “we must rethink our understanding of what it is to listen and what constitutes an offer.” He goes on to describe an exercise he took part in where one person would share some personal detail and the other had to wait fifteen seconds to respond. Cathy Salit, the original facilitator of the test put it this way “take in anything and everything someone says as an offer you can do something with.
I think the basic idea here is that when we do a better job listening, we will have more information to improvise in providing a response instead of simply reacting to what was said.
9. SERVE
Pink finishes off the book by comparing selling to serving. Pink suggests that improving another’s life and, in turn, improving the world is really what it means to serve.” Thus is you want to be a good seller, you better be a good server. He goes on to ask the simple question … “If the person you’re selling to agrees to buy, will his or her life improve? When your transaction is over, will the world be a better place than when you began?”
I have been guilty of using the phrase “upsell” in the past but Pink has a better word to use – “Upserve.” He defines it as “doing more for the other person that he expects or you initially intended, taking the extra steps that that transform a mundane interaction into a memorable experience.
So by now you should realize that no matter what you do you are probably in sales. Now that you know, how do you plan on Upserving your client or customer?
Next week we will start a new series on “The Impact Equation” by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
To Read Part One of “To Sell Is Human” click here
To Read Part Two of “To Sell Is Human” click here
Find out more about Daniel Pink and “To Sell Is Human” at www.danpink.com
***********************************************************************
Don’t miss a single post in this series from Building What Matters by subscribing at the top left of this page.
Help support us by clicking here and Liking our facebook page
Barry Smith www.buildingwhatmatters.com 3/13/13 photo courtesy of Amazon
