Selling with Noble Purpose: How to Drive Revenue and Do Work That Makes You Proud

Chapter 16

Lose the Boring Slides

Sales Meetings That Inspire Action

The tribe is hyper-aware of what’s being celebrated, and when you celebrate those that are moving in the right direction, you create a powerful push in that direction.

—Seth Godin

Sales meetings represent a great opportunity to ignite your Noble Sales Purpose (NSP). Unfortunately, most organizations do just the opposite.

At a typical sales meeting the program is usually about sales results, new products, or announcements about the incentive program and other internal issues. What do all those things have in common? They’re all about what’s happening inside the organization, they’re not about the impact that the sales force has on the customer.

Compare the conversation at your last sales meeting to what former Nike chief executive officer (CEO) Phil Knight did during a recent conference.1

Knight asked all the runners in the room to stand. Then he asked those who ran more than three times a week to stay standing. A good bit of the room sat down.

Looking out at the people left standing, Knight said, “We are for you.”

“When you get up at 5 o’clock in the morning to go for a run,” he continued, “even if it’s cold and wet out, you go. And when you get to mile 4, we’re the ones standing under the lamppost, out there in the cold and wet with you, cheering you on. We’re the inner athlete. We’re the inner champion.”

How do you think the Nike people feel at that point? My God, I feel like Phil Knight wants to help me run ...