passion statement | No Smoke and Mirrors

Do I need a Passion Statement for my business? Take the short quiz…

6 Comments

As I discussed in my post : Want to Jump Start Sales and Morale? Write a “Passion Statement” For Your Business…. A passion statement will jumpstart your sales and improves your team’s morale. Business leaders often spend a great deal of time on mission statements, their unique sales proposition as well as their stated team values. These are all needed , however nothing unties a team and inspires your buyers to buy like an authentic passion statement.

So how do you know if your organization needs a passion statement?

Please answer the below questions with the first answer that comes to your mind.

What I am looking for is your feeling more than an answer you spend time rationalizing.

Do your customers perceive your product as a commodity?
Has your overall gross profit as a % of sale decreased in the last 6 months?
Do your team members work 9-5, no more, no less?
When you work with salespeople in the field do you discover your key accounts are purchasing products from competitors because they were not aware you carried them?
Has 50% or more of your sales team missed their goals over the last 6 months?
Do your competitors always seem one step ahead of you with new products or services?
When you launch new products, do they miss their ROI targets?
When you review the performance of your last 3 new products would they be categorized as “evolutionary”? ( instead of revolutionary)
Is you employee turnover greater than 20%?
Have you lost one or more of your Key accounts in the last 6 months?
Has your AR increase by 10 or more days to collect?
Do your salespeople complain your products are significantly priced higher than competitors?
Are salespeople listing features you must build into your product to make the next sale?
Are you frustrated that your team does a good job of identifying roadblocks, but fails to develop plans to break through them?
Have you ever said…” I am frustrated; I want my team members to act like owners and not just employees”.
Have you lost a key employee over the past 3 months unexpectedly?
Are you having difficulty identifying and recruiting new team members?
Do your team members have more than 3 key performance indicators you evaluate them on each week?
Is more than 3 hours of your week in meetings?
Do you feel the need to create weekly objectives and activities for your subordinates, and “manage” them closely?

Here’s the deal….if you said “Yes” to more than 5 of the above you and your team need a quest, you need a passion statement to jumpstart your business.

If you answered “Yes” to 10 or more you are already on the slippery slope of becoming a Market Loser.( take corrective action now!)

How does your organization answer the above questions?

Based on your answers do you need a passion statement?

How do your clients describe your team and your products when you are not around?

Want to Jump Start Sales and Morale? Write a “Passion Statement” For Your Business….

6 Comments

Business leaders for years have been taught to write a mission statement, a values statement , distinctive competence, and their Unique Sales Proposition. Leadership teams are sequestered off to three-day retreats to write these statements only to often return and go right back to practicing what prompted the retreat in the first place…Why? The reason is far too often is the “work” they did at the retreat was all “head work” and lacked “heart work”.

The quickest way to jumpstart sales as well as the morale of your team is to create a “Passion Statement”.

So what is a passion statement? A passion statement is something I help my clients to create that explains;

what problem your product or service solves?

who do we solve it for? Who are our buyer personas?

what emotion does our solving the problem create in our clients?

what emotion does solving our clients problems create for us?

If you study companies who have become market leaders they very seldom set out to build huge profitable companies. In the majority of the cases they saw a problem that someone had and set out passionately to solve that problem. Their focus was not as much a business as it was a quest.

For years we have heard; “fake it until you make it” , unfortunately however you can not fake a passion to serve your clients and your market.Your customers will quickly detect inauthentic commitments to serve.

An authentic passion ( quest) to serve your markets unresolved problems takes your business to another level in the minds and hearts of your market.

Let me give you two examples of companies I have helped. One is a typical stale example without passion often find after interviewing their team and their customers, the other a passion statement we all can rally behind.

Example A

“our business’s purpose is to create wealth for our owners and shareholders. We plan to accomplish this by charging the maximum price the market will bear for our product and service and we plan to hold our employees and partners accountable to this objective…” ( don’t worry once the CEO understood this was his teams’ perception ( and his customer’s) of why they were in business we helped them to change this )

Client Name not shared for obvious reasons

Example B

“Our passion is to helping consumers with physical disabilities from the waist down experience the rush and freedom that results from riding a motorcycle.We are committed to helping our clients connect to their passion or riding”

Mobility Conquest

Which company would you like to buy from?

Which company would you like to work for?

Which company is “selling” you and which company is “helping you buy”?

If you had to state your company’s passion statement today…is it more about what you want? Or is it about serving an unmet need of your customers? ( by the way, I do not mean the statement written on posters, shared in quarterly meeting …I mean the mission your team ( and your customers) perceive it to be)

Who would you rather compete against… company A or B? Why?

Ok …I hear you CFO’s and bottom line driven CEO’s out their saying …”Ya… but…” so let me assure you that if you study the most profitable market leading companies they have a passion statement.

Still not a believer? In my next post I will share the signs that you need a Passion Statement.

So how do you know if your organization needs a passion statement?

Do your customers perceive your product as a commodity?

Has your overall gross profit as a % of sale decreased in the last 6 months?

Do your team members work 9-5, no more, no less?

When you work with salespeople in the field do you discover your key accounts are purchasing products from competitors because they were not aware you carried them?

Has 50% or more of your sales team missed their goals over the last 6 months?

Do your competitors always seem one step ahead of you with new products or services?

When you launch new products, do they miss their ROI targets?

When you review the performance of your last 3 new products would they be categorized as “evolutionary”? ( instead of revolutionary)

Is you employee turnover greater than 20%?

Have you lost one or more of your Key accounts in the last 6 months?

Has your AR increase by 10 or more days to collect?

Do your salespeople complain your products are significantly priced higher than competitors?

Are salespeople listing features you must build into your product to make the next sale?

Are you frustrated that your team does a good job of identifying roadblocks, but fails to develop plans to break through them?

Have you ever said…” I am frustrated; I want my team members to act like owners and not just employees”.

Have you lost a key employee over the past 3 months unexpectedly?

Are you having difficulty identifying and recruiting new team members?

Do your team members have more than 3 key performance indicators you evaluate them on each week?

Is more than 3 hours of your week in meetings?

Do you feel the need to create weekly objectives and activities for your subordinates, and “manage” them closely?

How does your organization answer the above questions?

Based on your answers do you need a passion statement?

How do your clients describe your team and your products when you are not around?

The quickest way to jumpstart sales as well as the morale of your team is to create a “Passion Statement”.

what problem your product or service solves?

who do we solve it for? Who are our buyer personas?

what emotion does our solving the problem create in our clients?

what emotion does solving our clients problems create for us?

An authentic passion ( quest) to serve your markets unresolved problems takes your business to another level in the minds and hearts of your market.

Which company is “selling” you and which company is “helping you buy”?