Book review: To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink

by Daniel H. Pink
Riverhead Books

Daniel Pink is a master of stating the obvious. To Sell is Human, which claims to offer a new philosophy of sales and salesmanship, instead simply informs readers what humankind has known for centuries: that it's useful to know how to be persuasive if you want to get what you want in business.

The book relies heavily on the author's own speculative assertions, and he cherry-picks research and data to back up his claims.

The book is divided into two sections: the first part outlines Pink's new theory of sales, and the second part purports to explain how you can draw practical examples from his ideas to improve your selling.

Pink spends the first part making the point that we spend a good deal of our time trying to persuade family, friends, colleagues and strangers to do what we want, and it might come as a shock for the author to discover that this is hardly an original observation. Pink uses this to justify his assertion that, deep down, we are all selling something. This is hardly a new idea.