Why are you here?
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Not a question I often pose to people — it’s often quite clear why someone is where they are.
But Tuesday morning at the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, those were the first words out of my mouth in front of the group assembled to hear me “speak” (more about that in a minute). In downtown San Francisco on a gorgeous Bay Area summer morning, these sales professionals had given up over two hours of their time (plus commute) and cash out of pocket.
It’s a relevant question.
The answers were equally relevant, and equally interesting. Some of them will be captured in another post — but the striking thing to me was the similarity and the symmetry: everyone wanted to get better at what they do, and was willing to invest in order to achieve that goal.
Now “listening” to me isn’t any guarantee. But just as I asked them to jump in and get working right from the start, everyone was equally engaged in sharing their own successes and challenges with the group. They were willing to “give” in order to get. Some of the best ideas came from their examples, as they always do. If we want to get better, emulating the best practices of the most successful of others in our field is always a great start.
Why are you here?
Why take the time to read a blog entry? What drove you here, and what do you hope to take away?
For my part I’ll assume the same motive. We all want to get better at what we do. Sales has evolved to being a team sport, and we want to improve our position on the team as well as improve the performance of the team overall. The message of the day in San Francisco kept ringing over and over: the judge of performance, and the judge of results, is the customer.
That’s why I’m here.
It may sound altruistic, but I’m here for the customer. I’m here for the customer’s success: for them making their numbers, and beating their competition. If I do that successfully, I’ll make my numbers every year — and I won’t have any competition.
Why are you here?
Bob Hatcher
July 29th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Why are you here? Boy does topic have a lot of applicability.
A long time ago, when I worked at Lotus we had a huge push to eliminate meetings. We found that most of us were in back-to-back meetings all day, every day. Then someone came up with the notion of “If you don’t know why you are required at that meeting, don’t go!” For most of us the time spent in meetings was cut in half.
For us in sales, it’s really important that when we meet with people we both know why they are there. That’s one of the great uses of a Valid Business Reason and why we use it at the start of a meeting. It sets the stage and reinforces to the prospect why they are there and why it’s important and why they should pay attention!
In our own personal lives I know that sometimes I say to myself “why am I here? What am I trying to accomplish by being here.” I am working hard at using the old Lotus framework to reinforce for me why I should go somewhere of do something.
I suggest we all start asking ourself “Why am I here?” more often.
Bob