Arrived from Amazon (new) a few days ago.

I have watched all of Daniel Pink's "Crowd Control" on television. This series examines how to change the behavior of large groups of persons. Although I didn't find all of the techniques to my liking, I like the idea of using what we know about moving others to get them to behave differently.

In "To Sell is Human", Pink takes that concept, moving others, further, but focuses on what one person can do, usually in a one-on-one situation - like selling. His major point is that people engage in "selling" all the time. We sell ourselves, we sell our ideas, we sell actual products, we sell the ideas of others. In most cases, we can do it better.

Pink wants us to change our old ideas about selling. At times he stretches his new concept a bit far, in an effort to make a pithy point. For example, he takes the old selling "ABC" - Always Be Closing - and changes it to Attunement, Buoyancy, and Clarity. Just falls right off the tongue, right? No. It's ridiculous, even though the concepts behind the words do make sense. He moves on from those three to direct advice: creating a "pitch", improvising, and serving. Of them all, I found myself liking the "serve" direction best. Always be thinking how you can serve the "customer", whether she is literally a customer or not. I believe that this point of view can change not only how well you sell but also how you see yourself. If you can't see that what your selling will truly benefit someone else then you might want to look more closely at that product.

I felt the book had enough good insight and solid direction to warrant giving a copy to my daughter, who is currently engaged in actual selling. It's easy to read, sometimes fun, and doesn't use a lot of words to get to the point. A good handbook.

In rereading the above, I see that I wrote "If you can't see that what your selling..." It should read "If you can't see that what you're selling...". I must have been in a hurry.

In the book box.