To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others

“Putting content curation into practice is part art form, part science, but mostly about daily practice,” writes Kanter. For more, see her “Content Curation Primer”: http://www.bethkanter.org/content-curation-101/.

In other words, the salespeople with an optimistic explanatory style—who saw rejections as temporary rather than permanent, specific rather than universal, and external rather than personal—sold more insurance and survived in their jobs much longer.

As a result, framing a sale in experiential terms is more likely to lead to satisfied customers and repeat business.

negative events can clarify positive ones. They equip Hall not with weak-kneed dreaminess but with tough-minded buoyancy—the proper balance between downward and upward forces.

Irritation, he says, is “challenging people to do something that we want them to do.” By contrast, “agitation is challenging them to do something that they want to do.”

Perspective-taking seems to enable the proper calibration between the two poles, allowing us to adjust and attune ourselves in ways that leave both sides better off.

“People usually know themselves way better than I do.” So now, in order to move people to move themselves, she tells them, “I need your expertise.” Patients heal faster and better when they’re part of the moving process.

America’s sales force outnumbers the entire federal workforce by more than 5 to 1.

Cannon-Brookes draws a distinction between “products people buy” and “products people are sold”—and he prefers the former.

But today, these salespeople told me, believing leads to a deeper understanding of your offering, which allows sellers to better match what they have with what others need.