Just because every sale you've seen involved lying doesn't mean that selling requires lying. There are completely truthful ways to sell. It's in some of the stuff you've written. If a bartender can buy a pound of coffee beans for $3 and sell the coffee he makes from those beans for $5, then it is still possible to strike a deal with him to sell him coffee beans at $3 per pound even if you tell him that it costs you $1 per pound to get the beans. There are ways for you to avoid getting commoditized.


The sticking point for someone like David is that actually going around and pushing these deals through is not fun. Even if someone could provide him with a very effective presentation, lined him up with a series of highly receptive bartenders who could each move millions of pounds of beans annually, and was willing to pay him $1 per pound commission for each deal he closed, my guess is that he would rather do what he's doing now.