Lessons on Moving People Forward

I just finished Daniel Pink's latest book To Sell is Human. In this excellent, insightful material is just the right amount of stories, studies, and easy to remember principles. If you're not a reader or your reading list is already stacked to the ceiling, the next articles I write will give you a good overview of the main principles and practices he gives. If you are not in sales (he points out that 1 out of every 9 workers in the U.S. is directly involved in sales and it is approximately that if not higher in other countries), you will still gain great benefit from it because it covers so many important issues in communicating ideas, helping people, better listening, and other skills that will help everyone. Especially people who want to make a difference in the world through their lives, businesses, and ministries.

As a matter of fact, he starts out the book making that exact point. Everyone needs to learn how to communicate their ideas well if they really want to help people. If you believe what you are offering is important, and I hope you do, then learning how people respond and how to communicate is really important. Mr. Pink rightly makes the case that even people who are not working directly in sales spend a great deal of time trying to influence, move, and persuade others in order to help them. From teachers to doctors to parents to counselors, just about everyone is trying to communicate in a way that helps people move in a positive direction.

If you have a negative picture in your mind of sales, you are not alone. Surveys indicate that the second lowest ranking profession in American society are politicians with the lowest being used car salesmen. Many people associate words like "pushy, dishonest, manipulative, self-serving, and cold-hearted" with sales people. Pink makes the point that in the past, that was sometimes the case, but in today's cultural climate those tactics do not work well anymore. Because today, information is so available and how people act (good or bad) is so quickly and easily broadcast, pushy, dishonest sales tactics are not as easily rewarded.

I'll give you more powerful insights the next few times but here are a few to get you started:

According to Gallup Polls:

1. People spend an average of 40% of their work day involved in non-sales selling: persuasion, communication, etc.
2. People consider this aspect crucial to their professional success.
3. More and more people are getting involved in entrepreneurship and that means learning to share ideas and sell.

He includes several studies, polls, and comments from top business experts and forecasters showing clearly that the number of micro-businesses and solo-businesses will do nothing but increase over the next years. According to Harvard University labor economist Lawrence Katz middle-class employment of the future won't be people working for large corporations but rather "self-sufficient artisans."

More to come next time, but the encouraging news for those of us who don't consider themselves natural salesmen is you can be very successful in presenting ideas and helping people move forward by learning some key principles and practices.

I would love to know what you think?