Pink: Serving

In Pink’s final chapter about serving as a salesperson, he talks about how the best mindset to have in a sales position is to better the situation of others.  This will cause the salesperson to look out for the best interests of the prospect rather than pursuing his or her own objectives.  When prospects know that their best interests are what the person selling to them is focusing on, it gives a platform to most effectively evaluate pain and come up with the best remedy even if that means failing to close out a deal.  He talks about how the most important aspects of this are making selling personal and making selling purposeful.  These factors will not only help to provide exemplary service from the salesperson but also move the prospect and foster good experiences and reoccurring business, maximizing benefit for all parties.  Pink uses examples such as how one study showed that radiologists performed far better when the X-Rays or CAT scans they were reading came attached with a photo of the person – it made their work personal when they saw the patient’s smiling face looking back at them from their computer and the doctors were more careful and observant when they were reminded of how the image they were reading belonged to a particular person.  It made the situation far more real to them because the scans ceased to blend together in an endless row of cross sections that looked the same as examples from their medical school textbooks.  The group performed far better regarding finding incidental medical issues unrelated to the obvious problem the patient was being specifically treated for.

Pink says that in any situation where one is attempting to move another, in order to do so correctly it is essential to leave the other person as well as the world at large in a better situation than before they were moved.  This is more than just providing additional utility, it is helping people through good social conscience as well.  Economic theory in the Austrian school says that by necessity in a free market environment, any trading that goes on is perceived at the time of the trade to be mutually beneficial by both parties.  If either party anticipated the exchange to diminish their current state of being they would choose not to go ahead with the transaction.  While it is true that this is exactly how acting human beings will behave, Pink is going a step further outside the realm of economic theory.  The proper social mindset is to actually care for the other people and to try to move them having a servant’s hear, not just finding someone who happens to possess a reverse preference of values and is therefore willing to buy a product or service.  This mindset is based on caring for others before oneself and is a valuable point to remember when interacting with other people in all situations.