Tom Rath
Author of StrengthsFinder 2.0
“Lisa McLeod is the expert in sales leadership. McLeod has coached top‐tier sales teams at Apple, Kimberly‐Clark, and Procter & Gamble, where we both began our careers. She shows you what it takes to drive growth.”
Jim Stengel
Former Chief Global Marketing Officer, Procter & Gamble
Author of Grow
“Selling with Noble Purpose is eminently practical. I strongly recommend it for any leader or salesperson. McLeod is right about the big picture and gets down to the nitty‐gritty of how to make it happen.”
Steve Denning
Forbes
“Follow McLeod's teaching and—not only will you be hugely more financially successful—you'll LOVE what you're doing even more!”
Bob Burg
Author of The Go‐Giver and Endless Referrals
selling with noble purpose
How to Drive Revenue and Do Work That Makes You Proud
Lisa Earle McLeodwith Elizabeth Lotardo
2nd Edition
Copyright © 2020 by Lisa Earle McLeod. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data is Available.
ISBN 9781119700883 (Hardcover)
ISBN 9781119700920 (ePDF)
ISBN 9781119700890 (ePub)
Cover Design: Wiley
Author Photo Credit: Jon Rizzo Photography
For Jay Earle:a man who believed work should be meaningful and fun!
“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
—Antoine de Saint‐Exupéry
Introduction
What Is Selling with Noble Purpose?
Hearts are the strongest when they beat in response to noble ideals.
—Ralph Bunche, winner of the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize
“The words selling and noble are rarely seen together. Most people believe that money is the primary motivator for top salespeople and that doing good by the world runs a distant second. That belief is wrong.”
When I first wrote those words in 2012, I had no way of knowing the first edition of Selling with Noble Purpose would upend traditional beliefs about sales and spur a global movement. At the time, the notion that you could galvanize a sales force around something more meaningful than money was a new, and not always welcome, idea. Thankfully, times have changed. At least in part.
We started writing this new edition of Selling with Noble Purpose before the COVID crisis began. By the time we were finishing this book, the weight of the crisis was upon us. Markets had become volatile, businesses were closing, and people all over the world were afraid. They were afraid for their health, afraid for their livelihood, and afraid of what the future might hold.
We are experiencing a reset like never before. Business norms are being challenged, and teams are being called upon to innovate, reinventing what they sell and how they sell on daily basis. A growing chorus of customers are asking: Is your sales team here to help me? Or are they just trying to close me?
Here's what we know to be true: amid disruption, one thing that can keep a salesforce motived and committed to delivering the highest results is a sense of purpose.
The teams you'll read about in this book use their purpose as a North Star to guide them during times of uncertainty and unrest. Purpose enables them to make quick decisions and to put their highest ideals into action.
Over the last five years, purpose has become a hot topic in business. Organizations proudly announce their purpose across social media. Leaders talk about their purpose during the annual meeting. Yet what the COVID crisis has revealed with stark clarity is that purpose must be more than a mantra or management technique: during disruption, purpose is a lifeline to your customers and your team.
The core idea of this book is that sales teams with a noble purpose bigger than money—whose aim is to improve life for customers—outsell transactional teams who focus on internal targets and quotas. During a crisis, the contrast between transactional sellers and noble purpose sellers is on display.
It's long been assumed that sales teams are primarily driven by economic incentives alone—when in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
We stand in a place and time where the role of business in the world is being questioned. The pressure for short‐term