Читать книгу Media Selling - Warner Charles Dudley - Страница 40

Chapter 9 in Daniel Pink’s 2012 book titled To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others is titled “Serve.” Pink writes: “[Servant selling]…begins with the idea that those who move others aren’t manipulators but servants. They serve first and sell later.”¹³

Facebook does not have a sales division; it has a partnership group. The difference is that a pre‐Internet‐era media sales department handled transactions, but the Facebook partnership group works with advertisers and marketers to educate them on the best way to use Facebook’s ability to micro‐target consumers on a wide range of behavioral, psychographic, gender, and preference dimensions.

A serving‐the‐customer, partnership approach means that both the buyer and the seller are interested in enhancing the growth and profitability of each. They are on the same side and have the same mission, goals, and strategies for growth and, most importantly, are not adversaries who are trying to maximize just their own profits.

The concept of selling as serving, or helping, customers is vital in the digital era. Media salespeople must take the approach that they are helping marketers be successful. Media salespeople help advertising agency buyers get what they want for their clients and help advertisers get results as advertisers define results.

The importance of the perspective of selling as helping others is reinforced dramatically in Johann Hari’s 2018 book, Lost Connections, in which the author recaps several scientific studies that show that often people are happier when they do something for someone else than when they do something for themselves. This unexpected conclusion comes from studies by evolutionary biologists that suggest homo sapiens became the dominant species on earth primarily because we learned to cooperate, to help others, to be primarily concerned about the welfare of the tribe, or the community, rather than to be selfish and primarily concerned about our own, individual welfare. We learned to share, to cooperate, in order to survive.¹⁴

Thus, many people (not all) are happiest and feel more fulfilled when they are helping and serving others. They get more intrinsic value from connecting with people and helping them. Also, when you sell local media advertising, you are helping to fuel the economy and enabling your community to remain prosperous by helping local businesses be successful.¹⁵