To Sell Is Human

Key takeaways

• Whatever your job title, you spend much of your day persuading others
• Modern selling is about attunement, buoyancy and clarity, not pressure
• See the situation from the other person's side before you speak
• Ask yourself whether you can, instead of telling yourself you can
• Finding the right problem is now worth more than pitching a solution

Inside this bit

1. Everyone sells, all day long

   Think about your last working day. You persuaded a colleague to back your plan, convinced your child to finish homework, or talked a landlord into a repair.

2. Attunement: see it from their chair

   Attunement is the ability to step out of your own perspective and into someone else's. Pink argues this is now the most important selling skill, and he offers 3 ways to build it.

3. Buoyancy: staying afloat after no

   Anyone who moves others hears no far more than yes, so Pink's second quality is buoyancy, the ability to keep going without sinking. He breaks it into before, during and after.

4. Clarity: find the right problem

   When customers had less information than sellers, the seller's job was to solve problems. Now, Pink argues, the valuable skill is finding problems the customer has not noticed yet.

5. Pitch, improvise and serve

   Pink closes with 3 practical abilities. The first is the pitch, and he argues the elevator version is dead because nobody has 2 uninterrupted minutes.

6. Put it to work

   This week, before an important conversation, spend 2 minutes writing down what the other person wants, fears and already believes, then open with that rather than with your request. Swap your pep talk for a question, asking whether you can pull this off and listing the reasons you might.