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Loy Machedo's Book Review - To Sell is Human by Dan Pink

229 views · Published 10 July 2013 · 4:53 · Indexed 20 October 2026

Channel: Loy Machedo · 2013 · Education

Daniel Pink's bestsellers - A Whole New Mind, Drive and Free Agent Nation juxtapose themselves to a genre of provocative research, unconventional thinking and Futuristic Analysis. And at the same time they always seem to create crackles of objections and ripples of followers.

Even though this book was about sales it did not regurgitate the overused Stupid & Silly Sales Concepts and Corny Sales Techniques. Rather it focused on logical progression of explaining the etymology of selling, the common and uncommon myths in and about selling and how today sales has become even more necessary with the dawn of the social-networked age.

Here are a few points the author tries to put across.

A - Rebirth of a Salesman
Chapter 1: We're All in Sales Now
• Some 1 in 9 workers still earn a living in traditional sales
• The other 8 in 9 are engaged in "non-sales selling."
• We devote upward of 40 percent of our time on the job to moving others.

Chapter 2: Entrepreneurship, Elasticity, and Ed-Med
• Elasticity in job roles ensures a lot of non-sales selling.
• The fastest growing industries are educational services and health care (ie. Ed-Med.)

Chapter 3: From Caveat Emptor to Caveat Venditor
• The world has moved from caveat emptor (buyer beware) to caveat venditor (seller beware) where honesty, fairness, and transparency are often the only viable path.

B. How to Be
Chapter 4: Attunement
• Bringing oneself into harmony with individuals, groups, and context.
• Extroverts rarely make the best salespeople.

Chapter 5: Buoyancy
• Learn from life insurance salespeople and the world's premier social scientists what to do before, during, and after your sales encounters.

Chapter 6: Clarity
• The capacity to make sense of murky situations.
One of the most effective ways of moving others is to uncover challenges they may not know they have.

C. What to do
Chapter 7: Pitch
• The six successors of the elevator pitch and how and when to deploy them.

Chapter 8: Improvise
• Understanding the rules of improv theater deepens your persuasive power.

Chapter 9: Serve
• Make it personal and purposeful.

Among the many examples presented in the book, I most enjoyed the Blind Man with the Tin Cup Experiment (where he just changed the sign board from "I am Blind" to 'It's Spring Time and I am Blind"), the *last* Fuller Brush man, The complete destruction of the World's Greatest Salesman - Joe Girard's Super Secret Sales Techniques and the Twitter Pitch versus the Pixar Pitch.

As an after-thought, I really appreciate the language and word power Daniel Pink has - which is very evident in all his books. Clearly shows us why he was the Speech Script Writer for Al Gore. So, if in case you are a student of the English language, reading the book will also give you a deeper appreciation for the use of English Language.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Rating - 7.5 out of 10.

Loy Machedo
loymachedo dot com | loymachedo dot tv

Loy Machedo's Book Review - To Sell is Human by Dan Pink

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