To Sell is Human

Introduction: Why Everyone Works in Sales Today

Daniel Pink explains that the nature of work has fundamentally changed in recent years. Most people now spend their time trying to persuade, influence, and move others to take action. This act of moving people is a fundamental part of being human, regardless of a person's official job title.

Pink realized this shift while reviewing his own calendar and noticing he spent most of his waking hours acting as a salesman. He was not selling cars or medical supplies, but he was constantly trying to convince people to part with their time, attention, or effort. Whether he was persuading an editor to change a story idea or encouraging his son to take a shower, he was actively engaged in the act of moving others.

This reality applies to almost everyone today, even as traditional sales roles seem to fade from public view. Norman Hall is a seventy-five-year-old man who travels the steep streets of San Francisco with a leather binder and a bag of cleaning supplies. He is a Fuller Brush salesman, a role that once defined the American neighborhood but has now almost entirely vanished. While the company he represents has faced bankruptcy and the world has moved toward online shopping, Norman continues his rounds, demonstrating the timeless art of persuading someone to part with their resources for something they find valuable.

The decline of door-to-door selling led many experts to predict the total demise of the salesperson. The logic seemed sound, as technology was supposed to sweep the act of selling into the trash by allowing anyone to research products and buy goods with a click. However, the data tells a completely different story, showing that one out of every nine workers in the United States is still employed in traditional sales.

Beyond these traditional roles, a much larger shift has occurred that official statistics often miss entirely. While only a fraction of people have sales in their job title, the other eight out of nine workers are involved in non-sales selling. This process involves influencing people to make an exchange that does not involve a cash register. Research into how people spend their time at work reveals that the average professional spends about forty percent of their day engaged in this type of influence, making it a critical component of professional success.