Recently, I was privileged to observe a series of training sessions at Microchip. My friend, Mitch Little, kicked off the session with some introductory comments. One sentence captivated me, “We change the world…”
That has been occupying my thinking since I heard Mitch make the statement.
Sales people have the opportunity to change the world!
Think about that for a moment, what we do impacts our customers, organizationally and individually. It changes them, even if in a very small way.
- We help customers solve problems, improving what they do and the results they produce.
- We help them discover opportunities they might never have discovered otherwise.
- We help them drive dramatic improvements in their businesses, ultimately enabling them to help their customers.
- We incite them to change, where they may not have recognized the need, or the opportunity to change.
- We help them individually, whether it’s helping them get sanity in their lives, get a promotion/bonus, spend more time with their families, or even keep their jobs.
- With each engagement, we have the opportunity to change the world through what we help our customers achieve.
We help our own companies change.
- It may be the competitive insights we discover and share internally.
- It may be the intimate knowledge of our customers businesses and changing markets that enable us to help drive our companies’ strategies.
Collectively, more than any other group in our organizations, we have the opportunity to change the world. However small it is, it’s through what we do in helping our customers and companies grow and thrive that drives changes in them, changes with their customers, changes in the markets, changes in competition.
Every day, we have the opportunity to change the world.
Yet too often, we fail to recognize that we are changing the world. Instead we focus on our products, leaving the customer the challenge to figure things out. Or we fail to provide feedback within our own organizations, to help them change.
In doing so, we don’t create the value we can and should create. We don’t take the opportunity to change the world, albeit, one step at a time.
What we do is important! We have a huge impact on our customers and our companies! We can never lose site of this!
Great sales people have the opportunity and obligation to change the world! Mitch, thanks for reminding me 😉
David,
What a great post and so needed! As a teenager, I read books that put sales and salespeople in the best light–they were the movers and shakers, the ones with the vision and the passion to say, “Let’s create something great together.” All work is meaningful and noble, but sales is unique because salespeople are disruptors and change agents. Thriving in sales requires vision and deep levels of self-respect and self-value. Thanks for giving salespeople worldwide reasons to value themselves and their work.
Alan
Thanks Alan