MBA1163 Must Read: To Sell Is Human by Daniel Pink

Let me tell you about Intuit QuickBooks. When I was starting out my business, I remember sitting at my desk late at night not working on my business but cleaning up numbers, tracking and reconciling payments and wondering how this became my life. But once I automated the admin side of things of my finances, those nights had disappeared and I felt a whole lot better. Outdo it with intuit QuickBooks QuickBooks is the trusted end to end solution that businesses rely on for getting paid, managing finances, paying employees, finding new customers and more. QuickBooks provides a team of AI agents and trusted experts, so doing it yourself no longer means doing it alone. Their payment agent gets you paid faster, their customer agent finds leads, follows up and secures more sales, and the accounting agent automates and categorizes transactions. Get your critical business jobs done with QuickBooks on the Intuit platform.

Ready to save on new tech? It's time for Dell Tech Day's annual sales event celebrating our customers with fantastic deals and benefits. Product perks include Dell Rewards, free shipping, premium Support and more. PCs like the Dell 14 with Intel Core Ultra processors will help you do more faster and with a premium suite of monitors and accessories, you can upgrade your whole setup with amazing savings. Visit Dell.com deals.

Hey O welcome to the Hundred Dollars MBA Show Business Insights to power you through the day every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar mba, a complete business training and community online and today's episode is a must Read episode. On our Must Read episodes I share with you a book that I've read that has greatly influenced me as an entrepreneur, has given me some insights and I share with you those insights and takeaways with you on the show. Today's Must Read is to Sell Is Human by Daniel Pink. Selling or sales has a stigma in our head. We think of a door to door salesman even though the door to door salesman days are long gone. Selling is a big part of our job, our job as entrepreneurs, our job as business builders. We need to sell our ideas to others, convince them that they should work for us. We have to convince our team of our vision. We have to convince our customers that our product or service is worth their time and money. You're constantly selling selling your ideas. This book is all about how to embrace this concept and be the best salesperson you can be in this world, in this life, in your job as an entrepreneur in today's Must read. You'll learn why anybody who wants to be better at influencing, persuading or convincing people can do it. It also talks about the new ABCs of selling, an acronym in sales that's very well known, Always be closing. As well as how to not sacrifice who you are as a person to become better at sales. Can't wait to share with you some of the takeaways from this book and how you can apply them in your life and business. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. To Sell as Human by Daniel Pink reminded me of a piece of advice that I heard in another book, Total Recall, which is the autobiography of Arnold Schwarzenegger. At the end of the book, Arnold lists what he calls Arnold's rules. And one of those rules is that sales is a part of everything. You have to sell people on everything. Even as an actor, he had to sell producers and directors, that he deserves a role. He had to sell the movie when he would go out and do, you know, junkets and press conferences. When he became the governor of California, he had to sell his ideas to the people of California so he can be elected. So he talks that you can't shy away from this. You have to understand that sales is a part of your life, it's a part of your business, it's a part of your success. You can't just pawn it off and say, oh, I'm just going to hire a sales team to take care of sales. Yeah, that's going to help you get revenue for your products and services, but that doesn't help you in terms of selling people on your ideas. If you can't convince others on your vision of what you're trying to build, of why you're building it, it's going to be very hard for you to build a solid team around you. In fact, in this book, Daniel Pink gives the example of if everybody understands this concept in your business that they have to have some idea of sales and how to sell their ideas, then there is real no reason to have a whole sales department. It gives the example of Atlassian, which is one of the largest tech companies out of Australia. And he says back in 2011, they had over $100 million in revenue just in that year without a single dedicated salesperson. It was a job of everybody, engineers, designers, customer support staff. They understood they had to sell everybody on Atlassian. This concept of we are all in sales, it's not the job of one person alone. And that's a good mantra to have because if You're a startup if you're starting right now. If you're bootstrapped, you can't afford to have a sales department. You need everybody who joins your team to be on board with this concept. He also points out that research shows that the average person spends 40% of their time at work doing so called non sales selling. This means persuading, convincing, influencing other people. In other words, they spend almost half their time working on trying to move people to do something. Non sales selling is probably one of the most important soft skills that you can cultivate not only in yourself, but in your team. Daniel Pink then goes deep in this book in a chapter where he talks about honesty and service are the new tenants of sales. When most people think about selling, they think of some slick used car salesman, right? It's distinctively a negative image. Unfortunately, the salespeople of the past have tainted the name of a salesperson. Luckily, the Internet has radically changed this dynamic. Looking to buy a new Toyota Corolla, you can go online, do a Google search and learn about the car's values, its technical specifications, the reviews of the different dealerships. You can buy your Toyota. It's very easy to kind of expose a dishonest car dealership. So our understanding of a salesperson of the past no longer can exist. So what's left is being honest, transparent, and giving great service. Because anybody can buy anywhere. Whatever your product, whatever your solution, whatever your services, they have choices. Most people have choices. When it comes to your marketplace, why are they gonna buy from you? Because one, they feel like they could trust you, and that's where the honesty point comes in. And two, they enjoy the experience, buying from you and continuing to be a customer from you. And that's where the service piece comes in. That's how you differentiate yourself. If you feel like sales are stagnating, focus on these two things, focus on the service you're giving your customers, and word of mouth and repeat buyers will come organically. Daniel Peg then examines how you can become a good salesperson, how you can convince people of your ideas, how you can influence people to see your vision. And he says it starts with understanding the perspectives of others. You have to understand where people are coming from, why they're thinking the way they're thinking, why they're opposing you, what their fears are, what are the some of the things that are kind of blocking them from saying, yes, I agree with you. What are their objections? Basically, you can't just try to drill your ideas home without understanding the other people. The other person's perspective and everybody's gonna be different. You have to adapt. Sometimes just acknowledging their perspective, acknowledging the fact that you understand and you hear them when it comes to their worries, is enough for them to say, let me listen to this person. They get me. The worst thing you can do is close your mind because that's gonna cause them to close their mind. You wanna open up their mind to, to see your perspective as well and allow you to have a convincing argument. Again with the stereotype. With salespeople, it's like this fast talking person, no, a great salesperson is actually a great listener. They're listening to what your issues are, what your problems are, so they can solve those problems, those specific problems to you. Daniel Pink also talks about when you're trying to understand somebody's perspective and try to get them to meet you where you're at, you have to kind of match them physically, you don't have to imitate them, but if they're at a certain energy level, you have to match them at that energy level. If they're standing, you should stand. If they're sitting, you should sit down. If you can agree, even just on a physical level, it can influence on an emotional and mental level as well. Daniel Pink then goes into talking about great. Salespeople are persistent. They overcome rejection. They understand that it's going to come, people are going to say no. People are going to disagree with you and you should expect it and understand that, hey, this is just a setback. I can overcome that. When you're faced with no's, with challenges, with opposition, it's important for you to understand that this is a roadblock and ask yourself, how can I fix this? How can I make this better? How can I get closer to selling them on my ideas? Most people, they stop at a no. They say, yes, great, I sold them on ideas or sold them on my product, wonderful. They say no, I just never see them again. Or I just close the subject. No. A no is just no for now. It just means they haven't convinced them yet. So figure out how you can convince them so they can become a yes. And by the way, a yes is not just a yes. It's not a yes forever. You gotta continue to earn their trust and earn their business and earn their loyalty. He also talks about how you can help your team, how you can help people that you manage become better salespeople by helping them through their problems. So say, for example, you run a software company and your developer has an issue, they can't overcome this problem. There's a bug that they have to fix. It's your job to help them see the problem more clearly, give them a different perspective. The point is to keep them actively trying to solve the problem and be sold on your leadership. Be sold on, hey, I can trust this person because they have my back. They want to see me succeed, and when I kind of need some help, they're there for me. Even though you don't solve the problem, as entrepreneurs, we always want to solve problems. You may not solve the problem, you may not have the skills to solve the problem. In this case, as a developer is faced with a challenge, but you can help them see the problem more clearly, see it from their perspective if you just reiterate. Okay, from what I understand, this is the problem you're having with this bug. 1, 2, 3, 4. What we need to do is this. This is the actual destination. This is the goal. What are some other ways we can do this? Even just asking the questions aloud in a meeting can help. I've done this tons of times with our team. I might not come up with a solution. Most of the time I don't. By just kind of voicing the problem, voicing the challenges and the goal we have in solving that problem, that teammate or teammates collaborate and say, hey, I think we could do this or this, we could try that, or why don't we do this? Happens all the time, but it's not going to happen on its own. It's your job to. To do that, to help them see their problems clearly so they can find solutions. Daniel Pink goes into pitches as well, like sales pitches, where you're kind of pitching to investors or pitching an idea to somebody or pitching an idea to your team, like a new feature or a new release. He says. Back in the day, a pitch for an idea can be an hour. He says nowadays, no, people can't take an hour. They need short, engaging pitches. 3 to 5 minutes. Expressing your ideas, expressing what you're trying to do, and selling people on your idea. The shorter the pitch, the better because it allows them to retain. Retain the information, understand and remember what you said. Be totally 100% engaged the whole time and leave enough room for them to ask some questions and feel that they're a part of this idea. It gets them on board.

Does it feel like it's getting really hard to figure out the best way to save for retirement? Fidelity can help you find clarity, so you can save the best way for you. With a free personalized plan, goal tracking and timely insights, you'll be set to take on retirement your way. Get started@fidelity.com future expenses charged by your investments and other costs and fees associated with trading or transacting in your account. Apply Fidelity Brokerage Services member NYSE SIPC if your team isn't using ClickUp, you're wasting time and data proves it 61% of knowledge workers manage work more than doing it. Switching apps a thousand times a day? That's work sprawl and costs millions. ClickUp replaces 20 apps with convergence, uniting projects, docs and chats while AI super agents handle the busy work. Join 4 million teams using ClickUp to finish work 30% faster. Try it free and get 15% off AI upgrades@ClickUp.com podcast that's C L I C K-U P.com podcast I want to.

Share with you a couple more takeaways from today's must read To Sell as Human by Daniel Pink. He talks about how to borrow techniques from the theater from improv theater to be exact. He says that just like actors in the theater, salespeople used to be rely on pre prepared sc. Each sales call will follow a set course that had a predetermined result that they're trying to that a predetermined result. In some companies, even the body language of the salespeople was scripted. But today's dynamic is complex. You have to think on your feet. You can't have everything scripted. A script is handy so you know what to fall back on, but you gotta go unscripted a lot of the times. And that's where improv comes in. One of the basic tenets of improv is listening for offers. Often we're so focused on what to say next, we don't listen half the time. So you need to listen for things that you can talk about that you can address that you can solve. Don't feel the need to constantly educate or over educate your team, your clients, anybody you're selling to find out what their problems are and then think on your feet on how to solve them. The other improv lesson is in improv you always have to say yes and you never say no. You never say but. So if somebody comes up with an idea or says something when you say something, you say yes. And so say for example, one of your teammates says I have an idea to do X. If you have an opposing idea or an idea that you want to do to improve upon it, you can say yes. And we can do this by saying yes. And it creates an optimistic environment. It also gets people to say yes when you hear, yes, yes, yes. A lot of times you. You're just feeling in the mood to say yes. And the same goes with customers. Lastly, he talks about how successful people move people on a personal level. It's purposeful. What I mean is that if you want to move and motivate your team, if you want to convince your team or your customers or whoever, you have to find out what motivates them personally, what matters to them, what gives them meaning, and address those, say, hey, I get it. These things are the things that you value, and I want to help you reach those things by doing xyz. This is incredibly powerful because it automatically makes people feel like, hey, this person gets me. They have my back and they see my best interests. Clearly. Most people don't receive that. Most people don't have that experience. Everybody's out for themselves. But when you say, hey, I get it. This is what you want, and I want to help you achieve it, that's incredibly motivating for people and it's incredibly refreshing. Guys, thank you so much for listening to today's episode. That wraps up. Today's a must read. I highly recommend you check out this book by Daniel Pink to Sell is Human. It's a great book that distills all these big ideas of sales into simple, practical ideas that we can digest. Ideas that we can say, yeah, I could do that, and I can do that on a regular basis. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. A buddy of mine and a buddy of the show, Donald Kelly, he's a great salesperson. He has a great podcast called the Sales Evangelist. And he said something once that really resonated with me, and I wanted to share it with you, and that's if you have something you're selling, something that can help people, can change your life, change their business, can improve the quality of their life in some way, it's your responsibility to tell them about it. If you come from that perspective, you feel like, hey, I'm helping people. I'm doing what is just moral, what I should do the right thing instead of trying to feel like, do people really want to hear from me? Yeah, of course they do, because you can help them. It's kind of like you're at a theme park with your friends, and one of your friends say, hey, do you have an aspirin? And you have an aspirin in your bag or your purse, you'd feel obliged to give them that aspirin, right? Because you can help them. Same thing in business. And for the most part. People are happy to pay you money for that solution. Thank you so much for listening. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. See you then. Take care.

ADP knows anything can change the world of work. Like what if a blocked shipping port caused a worldwide coffee shortage? Suddenly, businesses are scrambling to manage an increasingly drowsy workforce. Productivity slips 20% just due to the extended time it takes to conduct a job interview while yawning. Anything can change the world of work. From HR to payroll. ADP helps businesses take on the next anything. ADP always designing for people.