Review: To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others

To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others by Daniel H. Pink
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The premise seems to be the whole “Everything you do is selling. Even if you’re not directly selling a product/service, you’re trying to convince someone of something, so you’re selling”. This is similar to a recent book I read on negotiation that stated everything we do is a negotiation. I imagine you could make the same argument re: marketing. In fact, I could probably make it re: management, operations, etc. 

Some of the usual topics for my business book bingo card: Prisoner’s dilemma, behavioral economics (No Daniel Kahneman, but Richard Thaler was mentioned), shoutout to other authors (Cialdini, Heath brothers, etc.), that study where the customers were given fewer choices at the supermarket and bought more products (I forget the details, but it’s always the same study). 

But that doesn’t mean it didn’t have interesting aspects. I appreciated the criticism of Joseph Girard. I remember we had to read his book for our marketing class, and it already seemed outdated back then. Nowadays it has probably lost all relevance if no one updates it. 

Some of the notes I took (for my use. In other words, as his points pertain to my business):

Get rid of extra choices being offered on the website

List the positive but then add one small negative at the end.

Don’t emphasize what you did, but what you can do (i.e. this could be the next big thing)

Show a clear way to get it done (i.e. clearly detail the next steps to take in order to get it done). 

Find a slogan that rhymes

Find 1 word to describe the business

The Email subject should be very detailed (on cold emails)

Don’t upsell, but “upserve”

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