Both good points, Matt and Mark. I agree that some people have always understood sales and marketing, and we always used to say, oh, he's a born salesman. The recent trend in "behavioral" research has studied these methods scientifically and quantified their effects, figuring out which methods work, which don't work, and which work really really well. You see the effects in marketing, industrial design, economics, and politics, so I think it's useful to understand the motivations behind the applications, the theory behind the practice. And for someone who's not a "born salesman" (more like a "born nerd"), it's useful to learn about these techniques to further my own goals.