Cheers to our first installment of Bravado Book Club! Originally I was hoping for us to discuss all of Part 1, but due to the difficulty of have a discussion on 3 separate chapters and takeaways, I think it will be best to discuss one chapter at a time.
Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on Chapter 1. Or maybe, thoughts on each others takeaways!
Part One titled " Rebirth of a Salesmen" first chapter was titled "We're All in Sales" with a summary and a takeaway. Would love to hear people's inputs
Daniel Pinks "To Sell is Human"
Chapter 1: We are all in Sales Now
Summary:
Starts off telling the story of the last Fuller Brush salesman, who at the age of 75 walks into offices to sell various office supply products. Pink tells the story of how Fuller Brush used to be a staple of Americana Culture. Disney even had Donald Duck be a Fuller Brush salesman, Lucille Ball was a Fullerette. However sales person of Fuller Brush have basically disappeared and in 2012 the company filled for Bankruptcy. Pink then talks about "Death of a Salesman" and why so many companies with large sales forces have failed due to large companies streamlining their procurement process and pits vendors against each other to find the lowest price. On top of that, the internet was making the sales person less valuable since prospects can easily find out who the information they need to make an informed purchase.
Then Pinks changes his tune, now discussing the Rebirth of a Sales Person. 1/9 Americans make their living in a sales related profession. Due to the implosion of the global financial process and the Internet, Sales has resurged into the 2nd largest profession, which is only behind Office Administration. The Internet which in the beginning people believed will be the end of sales, caused an explosion of sales related roles. Even as economies have transformed over the past decade, sales continues to be a massive part of the labor market.
Pink ends the chapter discuss how even those without sales in the job title, 40% of their role is spent on Non-Sales Selling (persuading, influencing others). And people consider this the most important part of their role.
With or without Sales in your job titled, everyone is in sales now!
Takeaways:
I really liked this chapter discussing even with innovations like the Internet, that were supposed directly/in-directly eliminate the sales role, sales people have continued to thrive.
After reading that, it made me think about AI. There were hundreds of posts here talking about how AI will replace us. However, right now, I bet there are more sales openings now in the labor market due to AI companies needing the capture market share.
Also the 75 year old sales person is a bad ass and made me feel grateful for the MANY TOOLS we now have.
Members only
9 comments