This week we will dive into Shiftability and reach a bit of a personal conclusion on PURPOSE. Next week I will wrap this all up with a key point summary and actions that YOU can take to put this to work….

OK, LET’s ROLL!

Mitch

From Shiftability comes more about PURPOSE…

Understanding the Purpose of the Client

When you have aligned your understanding of your purpose as a sales professional with the corporate purpose of your company, with your individual purpose at the core, it is easy to make the leap to understanding your client’s purpose – because they are operating in the same threefold context.

You are working with individuals who are trying, just like you, to align and serve their individual purpose with the purpose of their role and the purpose of their company.

The opportunity is for you to start with understanding their purpose in all its dimensions both personal and professional and then work to provide insight and solutions that will serve all facets. Here is one example of what that looks like in action.

In Mitch’s company, one of the Field Apps Engineers had been working with an industrial control company in the Midwest U.S. They had done many projects with the design teams over the years and another large project was coming up for a sourcing decision. Mitch’s team did all of the technical and systems analysis and worked hard to understand the business issues that were being faced. The team proposed a solid answer that delivered on solving the business issues and handled all of the technical needs. They won that project.

Following up with the client’s engineering team sometime later, Mitch discovered the REAL reason they had won. It seems that the head engineer had a young son and he was coaching that young son’s little league team that summer. Experience with Microchip had shown that engineer that their resources and team could be counted on to help keep the project rolling smoothly which meant that he could easily leave work at 4:30 on those two days each week that his son’s team had practice. The personal win was the difference-maker. We will come back to another story a lot like this in a later chapter and see how understanding and operating from purpose deeply influences your ability to deliver personalized insight.

Living and Working On Purpose

Understanding and embracing our purpose will energize and direct everything we do.

Keeping anchored in your purpose is going to be essential to your success in implementing the skills we are going to talk about. It is going to help you overcome fears and obstacles, give you the courage to try new things, and keep you going when things get tough.

Our purpose lies at the heart of what motivates us.

When you ask salespeople why they have chosen this profession you will likely get a wide variety of answers. Almost always when you dig deep it is not the love of competing or greed for money that is the most compelling factor. What truly comes out is the higher-level simple love of helping people. All of the other motivations are in play, but the really big tug is the desire to help people in some way. This really does point to having a purpose and pursuing it.

Operating from a sense of purpose does require a shift in understanding. Understanding why you really do what you do, not just for income. We need to understand why the companies that we work for truly exist and the higher purpose they serve. And then seek understanding about your client’s purpose. You may even end up shifting how they think about themselves and help them see the greater purpose that they serve.

Further, in our discussion of PURPOSE, we are going to take a look at corporate purpose. This is the focus of doing big things for the greater good, not revenue, not profits, not stock price. Doing good for humankind. This is where we step out from our internal perspective and look externally. Not always an easy task for most corporations. The first paragraph of this section of Shiftability uses a quote that tells the story. I am personally quite proud of the corporate purpose that Microchip (where I work) has created. Ours is…Empowering innovation that enhances the human experience by delivering smart, connected, and secure technology solutions. It paints the big target and tells HOW we will do it. There are lots of great examples of this, just look around and dig and you will find them…then ask yourself what your corporate purpose is. Don’t have one… maybe you should lead the effort to create one!

OK… LET’s ROLL!
Mitch Little

From Shiftability comes……


Understanding Corporate Purpose

Nikos Mourkogiannis argues in his book Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies that purpose is crucial to a firm’s success: it is the primary source of achievement and reveals the underlying human dynamics of any human activity:

“Purpose is crucial for all truly successful enterprises. Let others play with ‘strategy’ and ‘tactics’ and ‘management’. Purpose is the game of champions. Only strong-minded men and women – adults with powerful intellects and real character and spines of steel – are suited for it…Purpose is bigger than ambition or greed. Purpose is bigger than strategy. Enron had strategy – indeed it had many strategies. But strategies are about means; they cannot be an end in themselves. An end is a reason. Enron lacked a reason – it lacked Purpose.”

For a company to truly make a difference over a long period of time it must have clear directions by which it makes decisions and views its challenges. Good times and bad times are best guided by a clear understanding of both the company’s values and its true purpose. A purpose that is BIGGER than revenue, bigger than profits, bigger than the return on working capital, and all the other very key metrics of corporate financial success.

However, profits are key to the life of the corporation. One of the Value Statements at Mitch’s company is “Profits provide for everything we do.” If you do not maintain a steadfast focus on creating and delivering profits, whether you are a public company or a privately owned company, the value that you deliver to your clients will simply not survive.

But profits are the outcome of actions, not the driving force. Purpose is built on a higher plane than profitability and it feeds that never-ending hunger for more profits. Defining and focusing on purpose is actually highly profitable.
A truly effective corporate purpose statement should compel the soul to action. It should emotionally touch the humanity in each person such that we clearly know why we are working hard on the behalf of others.

We highlighted Apple’s corporate purpose statement above. Here are some more examples from other companies:

All of these statements appeal to our humanity. “Nourishing thriving families” is far more inspirational than increasing our share of the breakfast cereal market would be. And “making the world a safer place” is a far more noble purpose than selling more insurance.

What is the corporate purpose you are working towards?

Mark Twain’s quote below must make us all stop and think. Personally, professionally, at home, and at work…. WHY are we doing what we are doing?

This section of Shiftability steps in to help us all explore WHY we are involved in this very complex, very trying, very perplexing, world of “selling stuff”. Over the years as I have had chances to talk with literally thousands of individuals that are professionals at what we do, I most typically find that the REAL reason that they all get up and face the myriad of “no” responses that they may face, they actually do so because deep in their heart their greatest desire is to “help others”. Keep digging, beyond all of the other “reasons” and you will most likely get to this crux of the matter. So the paradigm of serving vs selling is an easy shift to help “salespeople” make. Those that truly understand what we are all up to understand very clearly that our highest success rate and biggest impact for EVERYONE is through “serving”. Back to the deeply seeded roots for making a difference…

CUSP
CARE greatly
UNDERSTAND deeply
SERVE endlessly, with
PURPOSE

So let's dig into our personal PURPOSE discussion. Next week we will explore corporate PURPOSE and what that all looks like.

From Shiftability comes….

Understanding My Purpose as an Individual

Mark Twain said, "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why."
Wondering why we are here is fundamental to the human condition. It’s a profound moment when we start to catch a glimpse of just what our purpose might be. This discovery is the starting point of living an intentional life aligned to your purpose.

Many authors are wiser than we are have written extensively on the notion of personal purpose and living a purposeful life. There’s a lot to be said – more than we will attempt to cover here. But there are a few points we would like to make.

As a sales professional, your sense of individual purpose is central to your success and effectiveness. If you don’t have an understanding of your own purpose, you need to take the time to identify and define it for yourself. Understanding your purpose is not just a process of discovery and recognition; it’s also a process of declaration and decision.

For some, there is an obvious natural gifting and calling to be stepped into. For the rest of us, the purpose is more about choices and determining how we want our story to play out. Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich wrote, “What a different story men would have to tell if only they would adopt a definite purpose and stand by that purpose until it had time to become an all-consuming obsession!”

We like this simple diagram that illustrates how the different spheres of your existence overlap and intersect. In this perspective, your purpose is found at the intersection of your passion, mission, profession, and vocation.

These are some common elements of individual purpose:

This last point brings us back to Spence and Rushing’s definition of purpose being a statement made about the “difference we are trying to make in the world.”

Jackie Robinson said, “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”

What kind of difference do you want to make? This is a question you should ask both personally and professionally – because you can make a difference as a sales professional.

Understanding the Purpose of My Role

William Damon, Director of Stanford University's Center on Adolescence and leading scholar of human development, defines purpose as "a stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at once meaningful to the self and of consequence to the world beyond the self.”

Moving out from purpose at more of an existential level, we come to the purpose of the role you are in. You likely have more than one role. You may be an applications engineer or salesperson but likely you are also a parent or a spouse or a mentor or caregiver and so on. Your purpose is of consequence beyond yourself.

The nature of functional purpose is often more concrete and more easily defined than our existential purpose. You can start with your job description. Why were you hired? What expectations do you need to meet?

Here are some elements of purpose in a sales professional role:

This is perhaps the most important question to ask: How can you help both your clients and your company serve their purpose?

I ran across an individual this week that was struggling during our Covid challenged times with why they were doing what they were doing. They said that they were struggling with feeling a sense of purpose these days. It felt like they had lost their real reason for working so darned hard. We spent a lot of time on the topic. I will share a few pages of my book SHIFTABILITY that dig into this very critical perspective. And rather than dump it all on you at once I will cover this over the next few weeks… (please remember that ALL of the profits from SHIFTABILITY, on Amazon, are given to charitywater.org to create clean sources of water for those folks that do not have that)

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction – Jonn F Kennedy

For hundreds of years, navigators and lost souls have found their direction using a compass. At its simplest, a compass is a floating magnetized needle that aligns itself with the magnetic field of the earth to point north. Once you find north on your compass, and knowing that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, you can then find the direction you need to go to reach your destination.

As we navigate our way through life and business it is easy to lose our way, especially when the world we have known is in upheaval around us. We need a compass that keeps us aligned with our true north and moving in the right direction. Discovering our purpose and keeping that purpose in our sights will help us navigate. Our purpose is our true north.

On Purpose

The question of purpose is a very central conversation in business today. Companies are talking about it, managers are wrestling with it, employees are seeking it. But while this is a current discussion, it is certainly not a new one.

Humanity has wrestled with the question of purpose since the dawn of time. Why are we here? What are we supposed to do? We are wired for meaning and driven to find it, not just in our personal lives but also, and perhaps especially in our professional lives or our vocation. Our personal sense of purpose and our professional purpose are inextricably intertwined. However, for the purposes of this book, we are going to be mainly talking about purpose in the context of your work as a sales professional.

Understanding purpose in the workplace is central to success in selling and a core element of this quality of shiftability that we are exploring. Our work is driven by purpose, defined by a purpose, and ultimately serves a purpose. Our desire for meaning and to serve a greater purpose fuels (energizes) our activity; our understanding of purpose in our context determines how we engage and the moves we make; and ultimately, what we do and how we do it should all aim to serve a purpose. What that purpose actually is will be unique to the context in which you operate.

As a sales professional the context of your purpose is threefold – your individual purpose, the purpose of your role (functional purpose), and the purpose of your organization (corporate purpose). The alignment of these three frames of purpose is where you can make a powerful difference.

But before we dive into understanding these three frames of purpose we are going to clear up some potential confusion between purpose, vision, mission, and values, and take a look at the big picture of purpose and selling.

The Difference Between Purpose, Mission, Vision, and Values

Sometimes we think we are talking about purpose but we are actually talking about mission or vision or values. These are all very distinct ideas with important but different implications and applications.

Mission: What We do and Who We Do It For

A mission statement describes the type of work you do, the clients you serve, and the level of service you aim to deliver.
Example: “We are in the business of providing world-class logistics software to medium-to-large firms in the manufacturing industry.”

Vision: Where Are We Headed?

A vision statement describes where an organization wants to be in some years ahead and sets long-term goals. Vision sets a future context for day-to-day thinking – will the actions we are taking and decisions we are making today move us toward where we want to be? Vision statements are often aspirational: to be the best, to be the leading company, to have our product in every home, etc.

Example from Amazon: "Our vision is to be earth's most customer-centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online." (I personally feel this needs a LOT more color and details to be a GREAT Vision…. But that’s just my perspective – Mitch)

Values: How We Do Things

Values describe how an organization operates. They set out the desired culture and serve as a compass for conduct.
Example: “We are committed to client satisfaction and serve our clients with care and compassion. We operate according to principles of accountability, sustainability, and responsibility.”

Purpose: Why We Do What We Do

Mission explains what we do and whom we do it for, vision tells us where we aim to be, values direct how we do it, and purpose tells us WHY. Simon Sinek, the author of Start With Why, has said, “All the great organizations in the world, all have a sense of why that organization does what it does.” Understanding why an organization exists informs everything else. Purpose statements are generally more outward-looking and consider the impact an organization or person has on the world around them.
Example from Apple: "To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind."

Purpose-Driven Selling

Selling without a clear purpose is like driving across the continent without a map. It can certainly be done. A lot of people do it. But it is NOT the most effective way to cover the distance and reach your destination. And like that cross-country journey selling takes a lot of support teams to make it happen.

If you start the trip without clearly defining your destination, you can still get somewhere. The question will be – is that where you really want to go? How do you know? How can you tell?

Just “winging it” and “flying by the seat of your pants” in the sales jungle was once the brave thing to do. Now it is just stupid. Now it takes a clear understanding of what you are aiming to accomplish, it takes tons of planning and preparation, and it takes diligence in execution. You can no longer serve the needs of today’s information-savvy client by just showing up with the latest product brochure in hand. Now you must have a deeper understanding of the customer, their market, their products, and their business challenges, and the implications of those challenges. And you must start all that with clearly understanding what you are aiming to do from a higher-level perspective of purpose.

And while the noble cause of making a profit may in fact be a fine goal, in this case, it does not qualify as a purpose.

A company’s core purpose, as defined in Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, is “the organization’s fundamental reason for being. An effective purpose reflects the importance people attach to the company’s work – it taps their idealistic motivation -- and gets at the deeper reasons for an organization’s existence beyond just making money.”

From both a corporate and a personal perspective, we like the simplification of this idea that Roy M. Spence and Haley Rushing have in their book It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For. In their book they give the following as their simplest way to explain purpose: “Purpose is a definitive statement about the difference you are trying to make in the world”.

Both books clearly show that purpose-driven organizations are amongst the most successful in the world and that leaders who clearly understand the power of purpose drive these organizations.

Understanding and having a clear purpose may not be the answer to everything needed to be successful. Without it, however, the battle to succeed is made more complex and many times more likely to be lost. The choice is yours. Lead and sell from a clear purpose – or not.
Selling with purpose, or purpose-driven selling is about creating value for people through understanding what they need as an individual in their corporate role and then providing solutions. This requires understanding your own individual purpose and your functional purpose for why you sell and understanding the corporate purpose for what your company stands for, not just what it sells. All wrapped together, purpose-driven selling provides a unique client engagement level that everyone, client included, values more.

When we start talking about purpose, the term “selling” can be understood in a different way. When you are fully engaged in purpose-driven selling you are not actually selling. You are helping someone buy, or acquire, whatever it is that they need to fulfill their purpose at that time. Again, a subtle shift in thinking makes a big change in how we communicate and how we engage with clients. Selling is simply a transaction that enables purpose – your client’s purpose, your company’s purpose, and your purpose.

More on individual purpose to follow…

Really. Is that the best question we can ask? Sure seems like it. I chat with other sales leaders and gurus in our occupation and I hear a term that makes me shudder… Deal Review. Now, I have been around this world for nearly 7 decades, and this term is not new to me. Sadly, it is still used in today’s complex sales environment. The conversation sounds something like this…

The setup… an account rep is in front of a whole gaggle of corporate executives trying to change their “situation”. Often times this is at the end of a month or a quarter and the corporate folks are doing everything they can to squeeze blood from every stone and meet those financial commitments that they made to the street.

The conversation is a seemingly benign one with a simple question… “So, Salesperson X, we see this really large deal that is in your funnel is still not done… what will it take to “CLOSE THE DEAL?. And this is the same routine that they are going to go through endlessly with each salesperson with a desperate attempt to counter the fact that there actually has not been any real client value created and the possibility of “CLOSING THE DEAL” will come down to deep discounting, extending payment terms, offering a value-added element for FREE, or otherwise giving away the family jewels in desperation. Sadly again, this process seems to be institutionalized by many selling organizations and even the clients know it, so they wait till selling desperation sets in and go for the big money discount payoff. And it works!

Sound familiar? It’s a disease that is almost everywhere. Giving things away out of desperation and in an attempt to cover up the fact that the true value creation job has not been done. Salespeople are used to it. Sales leadership builds it into their DEAL REVIEW process. Corporate management is the worst.. they drive the dialog out of an even bigger desperation perspective and it is all well oiled by individual commission systems that simply do not care about client value, only revenue dollars.

What is an out-of-the-box thinking person to do here? It’s not terribly difficult. We must change our view of serving a client and NOT closing “deals”. We know we still have objectives that are important. We don’t ever get to ignore that. My perspective is that, like “sales”, we are the revenue engine for our corporation. A task that is not taken lightly. Our deeper objective is the continual GROWTH of revenue, at or above corporate gross margins. We don’t discount, and we don’t give things away. Both of those actually erode the client value and commoditize valuable relationships doing much more harm and setting the tone for a relationship that has you seen as a “vendor”, not an asset.

Our role with a client is to co-create value that THEY recognize AND get rewarded for doing it.

Let’s kill the words DEAL REVIEWS. Let’s build a process and a dialog that focuses on the client-recognized VALUE that we have co-created and that THEY have acknowledged. Only by shifting our focus away from the very weak perspective of the DEAL do we open up the total dialog to a much higher plane around CLIENT VALUE. My suggestion is that we rename this entire thing to CLIENT VALUE REVIEWS! Words matter!

DEAL REVIEWS… may you rest in peace!

Long live CLIENT VALUE REVIEWS!

Now, let’s go demonstrate the value of this to all those old souls in our ranks that are still stuck in pre-COVID time. Evangelists are always needed to help those less open to seeing the new light.

OK, LET’s ROLL!

Mitch

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