Daniel Pink teaches that sales and persuasion are universal skills backed by research, not manipulation. Waitstaff who repeat orders verbatim earn 70% more in tips. The most successful pitches invite the other party to co-create rather than pitch at them.
We're all persuading all the time. Sales and persuasion is part of our lives. It's like the weather. No matter what you do, you are in sales. I've spent the last 20 years researching and writing about 2 obsessions in my life: persuasion and motivation. Persuasion is not some kind of magical thing that we do to manipulate people. It's not about tricking people. It's actually more beautiful than that. Whether you are an entrepreneur trying to raise money, whether you're an employee trying to convince your boss, whether you're a parent trying to persuade your kid, I'm gonna show you how to do that. This approach is built on science. I wanna show you how our brains work. There's a lot of research on mimicry. Waiters and waitresses who repeated the order back word for word earned 70% more tips. More tips. Mimic people's language and you'll see a difference. I think a lot of people approach pitching in the wrong way. 2 scholars went to a whole set of Hollywood pitch meetings to see what was effective and what was not. If you look at the research, it is overwhelming. The pitches that were effective invite the other side in as a collaborator. Period. Full stop. A cognitive bias is a glitch in the human mind. We all are subject to it. We have to watch for it because 99 times out of 100, it's gonna lead us astray. If you think about sales and persuasion and influence in a fresh way, you can be extraordinarily effective and do something really important for the world, other people, and ultimately yourself. I'm Daniel Pink, and this is my MasterClass.
