Dan Pink's keynote this morning was great! He talked about his new book,
To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
His primary points included:
1. Like it or not, we're all in sales now.
He described what we all know - that most people had negative connotations of "salespeople." Note the word cloud of adjectives generated when 7000 Americans were asked the question.
"When you think of "sales" or "selling", what's the first word that comes to mind?"
2. Sales of anything is not what it used to be.
It's a move from "buyer aware" to "seller beware." The old way, he stated, was like Alec Baldwin's
Art of Selling in Glengarry, Glen Ross.
- A - Always
- B - Be
- C - Closing
Whereas, the new way is about:
- A - Attunement - can you get out of your own head and understand where someone else is coming from?
- B - Buoyancy - can you stay "afloat in an ocean of rejection"?
- C - Clarity - can you curate (edit, distill, determine relevancy of information)?
He also made an insightful point about how power leads individuals to anchor too heavily on their own vantage point, insufficiently adjusting to other's perspective (Adam Gallinsky). And that there is an inverse relationship between feelings of power and perspective.
He suggested one way to increase your effectiveness is by briefly reducing your feelings of power. And that the really sustaining kind of influence is by lessening your "muscle."
When negotiating, it's less about emotional intelligence, but about understanding the other side's interest.