Your job is hard. Waking up every day with the responsibility of driving revenue for your company can be stressful. The constant ups and downs can challenge anyone’s emotional grit. There isn’t a silver bullet to making our craft a walk in the park, but there is something you can do to help slow down the rollercoaster of stress – define the purpose of your job. I completed this exercise almost four years ago while at the PSA Convention in Destin, FL. I had some downtime and a beautiful setting, so I took out my notepad and pen, and developed my Professional Purpose. That one exercise has made all the difference.
Do you have a Professional Purpose? If not, I highly recommend that you take a couple hours and develop one. My Professional Purpose is to inspire and teach the sales professionals and leaders in the electronic security industry to invest in, embrace, and improve their selling capabilities. This is bigger than any bad day at the office or slow month of business. Fulfilling my purpose will be at least a 25-year journey for me – that’s quite a perspective that launches me out of the rut of a long day.
Ok, I know it sounds daunting and you’ve got enough to do; which is why I’ve developed a simple three step process to defining your Professional Purpose as a sales pro…
- Block off two hours away from the office with no internet or phone. If you want to do research on purpose statements, do it ahead of time and print out the material. Do not allow any distractions. Two hours is plenty. Anything you define after two hours will be fluff – you don’t want fluff.
- Make it real. Although the equipment and services you sell could save lives, you don’t save lives – so don’t make that your purpose statement. Your job is very important to the livelihood of your business and the safety of your customers, so a Professional Purpose that is real and grounded will be inspirational. You don’t need to exaggerate.
- Make it short – less than 200 characters, including spaces. Mine is 144 characters, including spaces. You want to be able repeat your purpose to yourself every day. If this exercise creates a few words on a PDF and stays hidden in some lost folder on your PC, then it’s useless. You want to know your Professional Purpose and be able to rattle it off in your head as you’re turning on the computer to finish that proposal after you family has gone to bed.
If you’ve read this far, you don’t think this is some new-age-hippy-type of advice (or maybe you do, but you’re a new age hippy, and that’s ok too). You realize that you might have a gap in your day-to-day work and need something to fill that gap. A Professional Purpose will fill this gap and enable you to attack your sales activities every day with vigor and energy.
If you’re interested in learning how we can help you and your entire sales organization with their Professional Purpose, please click here.
