In his book Drive: The Surprising Secret About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink writes, “The science shows that the secret to high performance isn't our biological drive or our reward‐and‐punishment drive, but our third drive—our deep‐seated desire to direct our own lives, to expand and extend our abilities, and to live a life of purpose.” Pink goes on to say, “Humans, by their nature, seek purpose—a cause greater and more enduring than themselves.”
The discord between what social science knows (humans crave purpose) and business does (the carrot and stick) creates a transactional relationship with both employees and customers.
Nowhere is this dissension greater than in sales, where organizations continue to dangle incentive programs, bonuses, and trips in front of salespeople, hoping that it will motivate them. Yet time and again, the incentive programs produce short‐term spikes in performance from a small percentage of people. In most organizations, the top performers remain the same year after year, while the rest of the sales force stays stuck in the mediocre middle.
What's ironic is that many organizations do make a difference to their customers, serving a larger purpose. They just don't talk about it with the salespeople.
We once worked with a security firm that was literally saving people's lives. The executive leaders made a regular practice of describing the meaningful impact their services had on customers to the tech team, the customer service group, and even the accountants.
Yet it was like they developed a sudden case of amnesia when they interacted with the sales department. All the discussions in sales meetings and coaching sessions were about quotas and revenue or product features and rollout plans. They almost never talked about the impact the services had on actual human beings.
This was a huge mistake.
The very people who should be on fire for making the difference to the customers—the sales force—almost never heard the purpose‐driven narrative. Talk about a mismatch.
Is it any wonder that their sales force struggled to maintain margins and was often treated like a commodity by their customers? If all you talk about is money and margin when you're inside the organization, it's only natural that's where things go in customer conversations.
Is it any surprise the company had high turnover in sales and their best people left for a competitor? The salespeople felt very little affiliation for their company, the leadership, or even the customers. It was never about anything but numbers, so when another company started offering the reps the promise of better numbers, they jumped at it.
Purpose drives higher sales numbers and strengthens your team's commitment to your firm and your customers. When your entire organization is focused on making a difference to customers, people are engaged more deeply. They're more likely to innovate because they know they're part of something important, something bigger than themselves.
An NSP solves the great sales disconnect. It combines making money with making a difference. It bridges the gap between internal conversation and external conversation.
What This Book Can Do For You
I want to make this extremely clear: this is not a book about marketing. This is a book about sales. Your NSP is not a tagline. It's a philosophy and methodology that leaders can use at every level of their operation to grow revenue and do work that makes everyone in the organization proud.
The strategic framework, the case studies, and the techniques you'll learn in this book are drawn from 20 years of research and the thousands of hours my colleagues and I have spent studying, coaching, training, and observing salespeople and sales managers.
In addition to observing their behavior, we've conducted in‐depth interviews to uncover their mindsets, attitudes, and beliefs. We draw from our experience and the latest neuroscience and organizational research to create models and processes to activate your NSP and keep it alive in the cadence of daily business. We've spent the last decade testing and refining the NSP methodology with over 200 organizations.
We've worked with some of the best sales organizations in the world like Google, Kimberly‐Clark, and Procter & Gamble, We've also implemented Noble Purpose with lots of not‐so‐sexy firms: people you might not be familiar with, like midsize banks, startups, entrepreneurs, franchise organizations, non‐profits, healthcare teams, and a host of others. Whether you work for a global giant or a small firm that's just getting started, the ideas in this book can be applied immediately.
This book is meant to be practical. I want you and your team to be able to show up in a bigger, better, bolder way tomorrow, not next week. As such, at the end of each chapter, you'll find a quick summary box including “Do One Thing”—a single idea you can implement immediately.
As a sales leader, you have the power to change the culture around you. It may sometimes seem as though your customers, your team, your industry, and perhaps even your boss are working against you. But I promise you this: you will begin to see a shift in the people around you when you start operating from a place of purpose. It almost always happens faster than you expect.
I want to say a word here about naysayers. You're probably hearing a few of their voices in your ear right now. You know, the people who are reluctant to change. People who think this fluffy stuff is just that: too fluffy to matter. Perhaps you're one of those people yourself. If you have some of those doubting voices in your own head, or in your team, take heart. The research proves this works. But you know what else proves this works? The flicker of hope and enthusiasm you'll get when you start talking about it with your team.
I'm going to let you in on a secret: Your life is about much more than just making money. It's about the impact you have on other people. You already make a difference, and I want to help you make an even bigger difference. When you know that your job matters, you perform at a higher level and enjoy it more.
When you love your job, your whole life lights up—and so does everyone around you.
You deserve that. We all do. Are you ready to get started?
Chapter 1: The Great Sales Disconnect
Salespeople who sell with a Noble Sales Purpose (NSP), who truly want to make a difference in the lives of their customers, outsell salespeople focused on internal targets and quotas.
| Transactional sellers | Noble Purpose sellers |
| Think short‐term | Think about long‐term customer impact |
| Fail to connect the dots between product and customers' goals | View product as an opportunity to positively impact customers' goals |
| Have a default response to lower the price | Sell at a high margin because they enable the customer to see the value |
In traditional sales organizations, the sales ecosystem surrounding the sales team (CRM, recognition, manager interactions, etc.) points toward internal targets instead of customer impact. When targets and quotas are the primary organizing element of a business, the result is mediocrity at best. Instead of making more money, you make less.
Aligning a sales force around a Noble Sales Purpose (NSP):
Brings the customer's voice to the front and center of the conversation
Provides an organizing framework for planning and decision‐making