Librarians and techs, are you in sales?
Friday, January 3, 2014 at 05:20AM 
I'm probably not the only person who is at best ambivalent about sales people. Ranging from pond scum telemarketers to high pressure car dealers to genuinely helpful (albeit self-serving) equipment vendors, people in sales I am forced to recognize are necessary. But that doesn't mean I want any child of mine to marry one.
Daniel Pink's new book, To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others (Riverhead, 2013) puts a more positive spin on sales and argues that all of us are in "sales." We may not be peddling gadgets or weight loss schemes, but we do sell our ideas, our services, and our educational views on a daily basis.
Librarians, we sell kids on books and resources, teachers on collaborative projects, administrators on the value of our program. Tech integrationists, we sell kids on skillful tech uses, teachers on ways to strengthen teaching and learning practices using tech, administrators on the need for bigger budgets. We sell decision-makers on the rightness of student-centered, project-based, and creative educational practices.
Everyone who wants to make a difference is in "sales." So sit up and pay attention.
Pink devotes the remainder of the book to pragmatic means of working in a sales environment that has changed from "caveat emptor" (buyer beware) to "caveat venditor" (seller beware) with buyers now operating from a position of informational power due to online information now available.
In "How to Be" Pink suggests the new ABCs of Selling are: Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity, taking interesting looks at power (reduce it to sell more), empathy (think intellectual empathy - called perspective-taking), and "ambiversion" (the ability to be both an introvert and extrovert situationally). Good questions are better than good statements in making a sales pitch. Good sales people now curate rather than collect information (Ahem, librarians.)
The final chapter, "What to Do", gets down to details of one-on-one interactions with sections on Pitch, Improvise and Serve. It's the final bit "serve" that sold me on this book (pun intended). We need to make our sales personal, purposeful, and "servant" based. Pink quotes Alfred Fuller (Brush) - "...the successful seller must feel commitment that his product offers mankind as much altruistic benefit as it yields the seller in money." Yup.
Educators, put this book on your list of must-reads if you want to sell change in your school.
Reader Comments (4)
You've sold me on this one Doug....but instead of buying the print, I've put the eBook on hold at the public library. Many topical must reads quickly turn into "once reads" and are best if kept in circulation. That's why I love the library.
As the son of a sales manager who was tossed into my first convention at the tender age of 13-at the Atlantic City Sash and Door Jobber's Convention no less, right next to the Ester Williams Pools - I know I've probably attempted to hide from the word "sales" by holding out "advocacy" as an alternative. But I suspect you're absolutely right that we've much to learn from Pink's ideas about salesmanship that can be used to promote, convince, and win allies for the goods and services we provide. Our school libraries will always deserve the best pitch we can muster.
I was in sales (insurance) before I became a school librarian and I thoroughly agree with Pink's assessment that we are all sales people. I can't tell you the number of times I have to put those sales skills (AKA advocacy) into play. Glad I had the training!
One simple thing I took away from this book...up-serve. The Zappos book has a similar theme, but they don't call it that. I think providing the best service possible is so incredibly essential.
Hi Craig,
Thanks for the response. (The rather snarky comments about salesperson were made in jest, I hope you know.)
I found Pink holds up pretty well over time. I still reference is A Whole New Mind from 2006. But yeah, if you can get from the library, good!
The term "advocacy" still troubles me, and I am not sure why. I think it is because we too often advocate for libraries (self-serving) when we should be advocating for our library's users.
Take care!
Doug
Hi Debra,
A description of your sales skills and how they apply to your current work would make a great guest blog post on the Blue Skunk - or even better an article for a professional journal. Consider it!
Doug
Hi Nathan,
Yeah, the last 10 pages or so of this book were the best. Maybe Pink buried the lead on this one?
Stay warm. We're headed for a high of -17 on Monday.
Doug