2024 rolled up on us fast, and before I knew it an entire quarter had passed without us posting a new Drift. Like a pebble in my shoe, the choice of what to write about and how to break the drought was always present.
And then yesterday at 3:26 pm, on the shore of Lake Champlain staring at the dark side of the moon during totality, I found something truly worthy to share. What kept repeating in my head was. Tell them to start looking at it from the other side.
Our celestial moment has, of course, passed for now. No second bite at that apple for another 20-plus years. But we can all immediately start looking at our jobs, our goals, our relationships, the things we build and do from the other side of our careers.
Now in my mid-60s with 30 years in digital and 40 years in media and advertising, I see things through a different lens; a view that I wished I’d been able to access in my 20s, 30s and early 40s. On that side of one’s career it tends to be all about the striving, about what may be, what may come from it all. On this side, there’s a certain clarity about what has ultimately mattered, what and who have withstood the tests of time and circumstance.
To those on the other side of the career spectrum – and even for some closer to my own arc – here’s what it looks like from this side.
With every conversation and interaction with your peers, you are building your legacy – one way or another. Considering how you want to be truly remembered and valued years from now is a great way to make your choices today.
Own your intent and assume good intentions from others. Doing something just to win the point or to make someone else feel less than will never lead you to the best moves. Have an honest conversation with your inner voice.
Love the excellence over the victory. A successful sale, a monster quarter, even a killer IPO represent a handful of fleeting moments over a career. As victories go, they are transient and short-lived at best, pyrrhic at their worst. Excellence happens every day and the pride you take in your work – and the work of others – nourishes and sustains.
Your career is a network. Tend to its connections with care and generosity. While we must drive outcomes, we do not have to be transactional. Show up when you’re not expected. Put good stuff out onto your network not because of what will come back, but because it will make your whole ecosystem healthier.
Make the Choice. Be the change. Choose to be the teammate, the friend, the colleague, the mentor that you would like to have more of in your own future.
Once your would-be customer has vanished into the mist, it may be too late to do anything about it. They’ve likely disappeared because they either weren’t serious about your offer in the first place, or for some reason no longer are. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get closure. And it certainly doesn’t mean you couldn’t have prevented this from happening in the first place.
To be a seller is to advance a sale, not to go through safe, predictable motions. To visit a customer only hoping to be Top of Mind for some future hypothetical buy is to suffer the subtle bigotry of low expectations.
If there’s too much anxiety, disappointment, disconnection, blame and short-term thinking within your sales organization – or within your own personal sales career – you’re not alone. But the answer isn’t better management or oversight or organization. It’s leadership. From everyone.
Will you end up seeing any interim revenue If you form a proactive "bridge plan" for a key account in transition? Will these steps rescue your original buy? Can’t say. But the choice between proactive service and worried helplessness ought to be an easy call. Treat this current disruption as just one chapter in the relationship – as an opportunity to serve – and you’ll be making its foundation stronger. And how can that be a bad idea?
You can get anxious about the gap in your quarter. Or you can get busy. You won’t always close the gap, but how you go about it will always make you a better and more complete seller.
Perhaps there’s a friend in your life who shows up for you; not just with a kind thought or a supportive word, but ready to work. He’s someone you know will keep showing up, keep serving and doing for others, but he’ll do it with such humility and grace that … well, you might not completely appreciate him fully until the day he’s not there. For me that friend was Nick Johnson. And that day was today.
Too often, we not only ignore the implications of complexity, we actively conjure it up. We share dazzling flow charts and demos, packed with cylinders and data sources and lightning bolts. Terabytes of this and nanoseconds of that. We let our geek flags fly… and unintended consequences follow. It highlights what we know vs. what they don’t. It makes the customer feel unprepared, under-resourced. Complexity is the petri dish where doubt grows.
Want attention? Then pay more than your share. Do the work up front to really understand those on the other side of the screen. Engage in pre-meeting communication and planning to really align with their needs. Greet people when they show up. Have a second question to ask and really care about the answer. I’m going to work to be Attention Neutral going forward: for all I get, I’ll try to put back that much and more. I won’t just listen as much as I talk; I’ll care as much as I want to be cared about.
In my career I’ve seen about eight of these economic pullbacks, six of them in the digital era. No one can say exactly how long, precisely how deep, or specifically which companies come out better. But I’m confident in offering one blanket prediction and one bit of universal advice.
We here at Upstream appreciate the hard job you do. May a look at this list give you the extra lift you need in a moment of challenge.
Most of us show up for our hard-to-book C-Suite interactions with an agenda that’s far too junior and tactical, and we get swiftly delegated or – worse – ignored. It's because we don’t fully realize what the C in C-Suite stands for.
Too many of us plan meticulously for much of the meeting, but fail to do any planning for how it will end. Too much time is spent early on exposition and data, and too little is left for the disciplined closing process that could actually lead to a sale. Another mad, disorganized packing job ensues. And the probability and next actions we post in our CRM are little more than educated guesses. It doesn’t have to be this way.