Today, we’re all in sales whether we realize it or not.

No matter what your job title is if you honestly analyze what you really do you’ll probably find you spend upwards of 40 percent of each day persuading, convincing and cajoling others to part with their resources in exchange for what you’re trying to do. Trying to move others is selling pure and simple.

At first glance, the idea of being in sales may be repugnant – particularly if you’ve always viewed salespeople as sleazy types who glide through life with polished shoes and a smile – but fortunately, sales isn’t what it used to be. In fact, selling has changed more in the past ten years than it did in the previous hundred years and many of the assumptions which people have always had about selling have crumbled.  Today selling is all about asking the right questions; not just answering them.

Like it or not, we’re all engaged every day in influencing others to trade something they’ve got in exchange for what we’ve got. In other words, we’re all in selling now – so the smart thing to do is to figure out how to get better at moving others to your way of thinking. It really is the most valuable skill-set of the future.