Dan Pink Reveals How to Become a Sales and Business Development Ninja

<p>Dan Pink, New York Times best selling author of To Sell is Human, discusses the power of sales and why most people have the ability to become master sales people even if they believe selling is not for them. He also breaks down the science behind perfect timing and why small wins everyday are more powerful than the occasional home run when it comes to business development.</p> <ul> <li>Dan Pink tells the story of how he first became a New York Times best selling author and how even successful authors encounter self doubt.</li> <li>Snowballs can be both good and bad. An emotional cascade with small things going wrong consistently creates a negative momentum that can completely derail your life.</li> <li>Everybody struggles in some way. Writing a book is extremely difficult and everyday the Resistance is there trying to prevent you from doing what you know you should do. Dan keeps a card on his desk with the words “Beat the resistance” to keep him motivated.</li> <li>When you’re in a hybrid sales and business development role it becomes very easy to fall back on the delivery work and let the resistance to focus on business development beat you.</li> <li>We’re all in sales in some sense, whether we like it or not. The common perception of selling is that it’s duplicitous or underhanded, but research shows that effective selling is nothing of the sort.</li> <li>We are now in a world of information parity where buyers and sellers have the same information, instead of the information asymmetry of the past.</li> <li>In the B2B sales world, buyers are gathering more information before ever talking to anyone in sales. There is a premium on expertise as well, with B2B sales basically boiling down to management consulting. The world of B2B sales has become much more intellectually sophisticated and draws on a whole array of different skills. Gone are the days where a good handshake and a good golf game could close a deal.</li> <li>Leadership literature in the 1970’s changed the way we think about leaders and introduced t