[Music]
- If you want to convey an idea with passion and with purpose, this is the book to read.
- To Sell Is Human isn't just about selling, it's about sales being an important part of
what life is.
DEBBIE MILLMAN: Any time Dan Pink comes out with a book, I always make a bee-line for
the bookstore.
They're more than books.
They're like primers for life.
JEAN CHATZKY: He takes in an awful lot of information and spits it back out in a way
that makes it more, not less accessible.
CATHY SALIT: I don't know whether Dan would say this, but one of the ways that I read
the book is that it's about relationships.
MIKE RUGNETTA: This idea that selling is part of being human, I very much disagree with.
I think I was really excited to read it, but maybe because of how skeptical I was.
DOV SEIDMAN: Dan Pink really understands the world we now live in.
How it's changing and how it means for us to turn these changes into an advantage.
DEBBIE MILLMAN: To Sell Is Human is about how to move people with authenticity, with
passion, and with purpose.
MIKE RUGNETTA: Daniel Pink splits the book into three parts.
The first part is the Rebirth of a Salesman.
DANIEL PINK: One day, I went back, I looked at my sent emails, I looked at my calendar,
I looked at the tweets that I've sent.
I realized that an enormous portion of my time involved selling.
Not only selling books, but just convincing people, persuading people, cajoling people.
I had this bizarre realization that I'm a salesman.
DEBBIE MILLMAN: The book truly cemented the suspicion that I've had which is, we're living
in a world now where we're all salespeople.
DANIEL PINK: One in nine American workers earns their living trying to get someone else
to make a purchase.
But those other eight in nine—they're in sales, too, in what I call non-sales selling.
They are pitching at meetings, they are asking their boss for a raise, they're asking people
out on dates.
MIEK RUGNETTA: I don't think I buy the idea that we're all in non-traditional sales selling.
I don't see the world that way, so I think to cast everything in the sales light—I
feel like it cheapens it.
DANIEL PINK: You tell people I'm in sales, you're in sales, we're all in sales now and
people's reaction to it is, oh God.
- When I think of salesmanship, I think somewhere between an infomercial and a car dealership.
DANIEL PINK: Sleazy, smarmy, cheesy, slimy.
It's like these are the new seven dwarves, right?
I thin that view of sales is a description of the past.
DEBBIE MILLMAN: The old, old-school mentality of ABCs, always be closing, was despite any
resistance, always close the deal.
We're living in a very transparent world now.
The modern day salesperson can't be selling via manipulation because it's too easy to
see through that.
MIKE RUGNETTA: I think the Internet has done a lot to change the way that people behave
both as salespersons and as consumers.
The connection between consumer and producer is now direct and it makes both of those people
a lot more powerful.
DANIEL PINK: Until very recently, the seller always had more information that the buyer.
And so the seller could rip you off.
In the last ten years, that information asymmetry has started to end.
CATHY SALIT: Now what's required to be affective is to be more collaborative and more democratic.
DOV SEIDMAN: It's not just selling something to somebody, but rather investing them in
a relationship.
CATHY SALIT: Dan's saying, look, the world has changed and we need to grow.
We need to shift our mindsets and here's some things to do to help you along.
CATHY SALIT: Dan puts together research that other people have done and he himself does
really interesting research and gives us a new way to see something that we think we
completely understand but we now have an entirely new way to understand it.
DANIEL PINK: One of the things I talk about in the book is the move from ABC, Always Be
Closing, to what I think are the new ABCs which are Attunement, Buoyancy, and Clarity.
Attunement is about seeing the world from someone else's perspective, which is the prelude
to actually helping them out.
Buoyancy is how do you remain afloat when you're dealing with rejection.
Clarity is how you help people make sense of murky situations and solve problems they
don't realize they have.
DEBBIE MILLMAN: In his sort of ABC of selling, Dan sort of gives you the tools to convey
a message that's actually going to move somebody and not manipulate them.
JEAN CHATZKY: I really like the how-to aspect of the book.
Do these couple of exercises, try X, Y, & Z.
DOV SEIDMAN: We're building new muscle, new mindsets, and new habits of relating to others
and he does give us the gym to go to and build that new muscle.
DANIEL PINK: One of the exercises is a test that social psychologists use to measure prospective
taking called the E test.
JEAN CHATZKY: Y'know what, I did the E test.
I failed.
I was so sure that I was gonna come out on top, but it really bothered me that I failed.
DANIEL PINK: You ask the participants, snap your fingers 5 times quickly.
[Snapping] Then, on your forehead, draw a capital E. There are two ways that I draw
a capital E. The first E, the one that looks like this, I'm taking my perspective.
This E, I'm writing it so you can see it.
I'm taking your perspective.
One of the keys to persuading, influencing, selling other people is to see the world from
their perspective and so if you do this test and you're always going like this, you're
gonna have a problem persuading people.
For me, the exercises are integral because I want this book to translate into action.
CATHY SALIT: I'm thrilled that he wrote this book.
It isn't just about selling.
He's teaching us something about sales being an important part of what it means to be human.
DOV SEIDMAN: Whether we like it or not, we're all in sales and if we come to appreciate
sales as a human endeavor, we'll bring forth our best humanity and that is to our mutual
advantage.
DANIEL PINK: This sleazy, smarmy, cheesy, sort of sales can become more humanistic and
if we do it more like human beings, we end up doing it better.
And, you can sleep at night.
Hi, I'm Dov Seidman.
My name is Cathy Salit.
I'm Debbie Millman.
I'm Mike Rugnetta from PBS Idea Channel and you're watching THNKR.
And you are watching THNKR.
I'm Daniel Pink, author of To Sell Is Human, The Whole New Mind, and Drive.
If you like what you're seeing, subscribe to THNKR.
You should subscribe to both of our channels, Idea Channel and THNKR because both of them
are awesome.
And we're friends.
I'm gonna high-five the cameraman now.
Yes.