You, Inc.
The Art of Selling Yourself
by Harry Beckwith and Christine Clifford Beckwith

Sixteen Candles And Shrewd Waitresses:
What People Buy

It's easy to dislike selling, or even the very idea of it.

From childhood, you are conditioned to dislike it. In frontier tales of snake oil salesmen, plays like Death of a Salesman and Glengarry Glen Ross, and movies like Boiler Room, the images of salespeople radiate gloom. Selling is dishonest, dehumanizing, and cruel, and only the slick survive.

For a time, some do. But let?s skip that momentarily. Let's deal, instead, with an easily overlooked fact:

Living is selling

Start from childhood, and remember all the sales calls you made. You worked up a sales pitch to get your parents to take you to Disney World, raise your allowance, and extend your curfew. You pitched them on sleepovers, a nicer bike, perhaps your first car. For that matter, you sold them on the accident that "Wasn't really my fault" and on a report card that seemed to suggest some backsliding. And on and on.

Your childhood sales career prepared you for adulthood, when you tried to sell your college on admitting you, an employer on hiring you, and the car dealer on dropping $500 from the sticker price. You sell your friends on going to your favorite restaurant. A husband and wife sell constantly: What movie shall we go to? Who takes the dog to the vet? Who?s going to get the groceries?

And on and on.

The question is not, are you a salesperson? The question is, how might you become more effective? Just as important, how might you make your life richer?

As it turns out, the answer to each question answers the other.

Life is a sale. And the path to success at both living and selling is the same.

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