Going werewolf hunting?
I ran across an old term the other day that had been “reborn”. A salesperson was talking to a product person within their company and they were asking for the product person to simplify things for them and give them the one “silver bullet”. Now, that is an old term that had not been used much lately it felt like. Then I noticed that the term seemed to crop up in every sales/product conversation that I was participating in. Seems like it must have cropped up in social media somewhere and it had morphed to become the question of the day. So, what is it? Wikipedia defines silver bullet as…
In folklore, a bullet cast from silver is often one of the few weapons that are effective against a werewolf or witch. The term is also a metaphor for a simple, seemingly magical, solution to a difficult problem: for example, penicillin was a silver bullet that allowed doctors to treat and successfully cure many bacterial infections.
Now, going back a bit, I know that a silver bullet was also the calling card of the famous Lone Ranger (not sure who he is…. Check the web).
And in the early days of technology and massive technical product innovations that happened daily (then, not now), a silver bullet was the ONE THING, of a technical specification or feature that made that product truly unique and stand out from all else. When new products were introduced the marketing folks doing the intro work would often highlight the “silver bullets” that were key in each product introduction. In theory, the silver bullet was on its own so compelling that the products would sell themselves.
So, in the real world, forgive me as I burst that bubble…. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A SILVER BULLET. Not in the realm known as selling at least!
There is no easy answer, there are no simple solutions that are of value, there is not ONE THING, that will differentiate what you have to offer your clients versus every other supplier of stuff in the universe.
You co-create value with the client that stems from a deep understanding of their business challenges, their own resources, their own marketplace, and their own clients. You dig deep to understand them on all levels. Only when you can achieve that “place” do you deserve to open up the conversation to solutions. No room for easy answers here. Not ONE thing! Many elements to making a difference that matters to the client and that they acknowledge.
You have to do the HARD work. Unless you simply want to peddle products and compete on price and delivery, and that’s OK too… your choice!
OK, LET’s ROLL!
Viva la CUSP!
Mitch Little
Closing the concept of PURPOSE, we offer up some fundamental summary thoughts about what it REALLY all means. How do you make this personal? How do you serve your clients with INTENTIONAL PURPOSE? And with all things SHIFTABILITY in nature we make it actionable… something specific to go DO!
OK, LET’s ROLL… and do it with PURPOSE;
Mitch
…………from the SHIFTABILITY books comes…..
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.
Key Takeaways
Shiftability Mindset
Shiftability Action
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…
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.
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……
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….
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.
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?
