Dan Pink Offers 'Access' As A Reward For Helping Promote His Book
from the interesting-ideas dept
We've written about Dan Pink's last work, Drive before. It's a fascinating book that explores some counterintuitive concepts about how money incentivizes people. His new book, To Sell is Human appears to build on these concepts, as it specifically relates to salespeople (who many people assume are only incentivized by money). An HBR article appears to summarize the thesis:Some things in life we know are true. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. A body in motion will remain in motion unless acted on by an outside force. And the best way to motivate salespeople is by offering them commissions.Either way, it should come as little surprise that Pink is also trying unique ideas for the selling of his own book, including recruiting a "launch team" made up of 96 people who promise to share the ideas in the book (and, no, I'm not a part of that). He's offering up "rewards" for people who are willing to do this:
But what if we’re wrong, at least about that last one? What if paying salespeople commissions is rooted more in tradition than logic? What if it’s a practice so cemented into orthodoxy that it’s no longer an actual decision? That’s what a handful of companies have begun discovering. To the surprise of many, these firms are showing that commissions can sometimes do more harm than good—and that getting rid of them can open a path to higher profits.
- Advance galley copy of To Sell is Human – there’s only a couple hundred of these ever printed.
- Signed 1st edition hardcover of To Sell is Human.
- A public Thank You on my blog along with links to your website and Twitter.
- Exclusive access to me – and each other – via a private Facebook group.
What do people have to do in order to be included? Well, first they have to apply (and applications close tonight at midnight eastern) and be chosen. But then, it's pretty straightforward:
- Spread the word about the book on your platform during the weeks before and after publication.
- Leave a short, honest review of To Sell is Human at Amazon.com or BN.com on December 31.
- Join us in the Facebook group to brainstorm and share ideas on how we might spread the word about To Sell is Human.
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Filed Under: access, connect with fans, dan pink, incentives, motivation, selling
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Dan Pink, making the obvious clear to the blinded
Take commissioned sales, for example. There's a very good case to be made that they, not complex banking instruments, are the fundamental culprit responsible for the housing crash.
If this sounds strange to you, consider the following: Every house sold, every bad loan made, was made by a loan officer working for some bank somewhere, and most involved a realtor as well. The loan officer and the realtor both receive a commission for their work, a percentage of the sale price of the house.
The higher the price of the house, the higher the commission, and also the more likely it will be that the loan turns out to be unpayable in the end. And if the loan turns out to be unpayable--even if it is obviously, blatantly so at the time of the signing--the commission is not revoked or taken back. Think about that for a second, and you'll see that this means that the people with all of the financial leverage in a home sale have no incentive to create loans that are easy to pay off, and every incentive not to! It's a blatant conflict of interest: their financial incentive is directly aligned against that of the buyer. (And also against that of the seller, but Freakonomics has already covered that side of things pretty well.)
If we truly wanted to ensure that the financial crisis we've been through never happens again, one simple rule would guarantee it:
Do that and suddenly the interests of the realtors and loan officers are in harmony with the interests of the buyers, instead of being opposed. Ridiculously high housing prices would never come back, and the 30-year mortgage, one of the greatest evils of modern society, would just about vanish overnight. And the only people who would be harmed would be the parasites that got us into this mess in the first place.
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Re: Dan Pink, making the obvious clear to the blinded
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Re: Dan Pink, making the obvious clear to the blinded
Doesn't sound strange to me at all. In fact , during a recent drive across the country I heard radio commercials in four different towns in four different states (over the course of three days) from the dude of some program called Flip This House, saying they were looking for people to flip houses (and thereby artificially jacking up the price of real estate) and that their market was "the" perfect market for this sort of activity. (You could even clearly here the differences where the respective regions were dubbed into the boilerplate pitch).
BTW, I like your suggestion. Sound like a very useful rule. Of course that goes against the New American way of most amount of money (and least amount of money for everyone else if you can also manage it) for the absolute least amount of work you can manage.
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Meh.
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Re: Meh.
(For those that haven't, salespeople are notorious for being willing to do anything--and promise anything to prospective clients--in order to close a sale. Sometimes they'll promise features that are literally impossible. Other times they'll promise features that are so technically difficult or unfeasible that it costs more to create and support them than we'd be gaining from the contract, which means that the commission system even puts their interests directly at odds with those of their employer!)
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to sell is human.... yes right..... dream on....
compared to most other human activities SELLING IS ONE OF THE LEST HUMAN THINGS DONE..
humans buy far, far, far, far, far, far, far more then they EVER BUY..
oh yea, do not do everything, or anything FOR MONEY,, another BULLSHIT !!!
most people buy, very few sell, for every sale you need a buyer, (and a seller), for every seller, you need a buyer (sellers buy stuff too, and have to usually buy before they can sell)..
most people see money as a tool to allow them to buy things, some people will use that money to buy things and them sell those things..
everyone buys, very few if ANY ONLY SELL..
why would I want to buy a book that is based on a false assumption ???
when was the last time you had a good time with a $50 dollar note ?
or is it true you had a good time, buy BUYING things with that $50, things you could use and enjoy.
money itself is not that fun, (you can fold it in certain ways, and it's looks nice!!) BUT ITS NOT FUN as money.. and people dont want money, they want what that money allows them to do.
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Re: to sell is human.... yes right..... dream on....
Don't you ever get tired of having the intelligence of a shitstain, you gasping waste of space?
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Been there, done that
It bred trust and customer loyalty like nothing else.
We were also instructed to look after our existing customers before trying to look for new ones.
Dead company now, but for different reasons...
Ian W.
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Dan Pink and Commissions in Selling
Our best salesmen (LONG term) were on a salary, and really cared about the company - that's what we ended up with, by the way.
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Not sure what I think about this
That tends to attract a group of people who don't normally have clout themselves and see this as a way to participate in the team effort. They are usually younger fans who have more time and enthusiasm than high level connections themselves.
Seems like Pink would likely attract the same type of people (i.e., those who don't normally have access to Pink and who aren't such important book reviewers that they would normally get a review copy anyway). Is Pink planning to deny review copies to the normal outlets?
I'm also undecided about paying for access, whether with money or with hard work. On the one hand, I think people who do something out of the ordinary (whether to put out lots of money or to work hard on behalf of your hero) deserve to get something in return for it. But on the other hand, from observation I have seen that people who aren't truly insiders aren't treated as such. If you have paid for access or if you are perceived as a worker bee or worse, as a groupie, you tend to be treated differently than if you are a close friend, a trusted confident, a paid consultant, and so on. In other words, having to do something to get access tends to mark you as having lesser status.
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experiment
I personally think its an interesting experiment - and it will be interesting to see how it goes, and how the book sells.
Some people will do anything for a freebie, and a mention so I would imagine he will have, or has had no trouble getting people to join his team.
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