The Challenge of Finding Your Purpose (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Drexwell Seymour discusses finding your purpose. Drexwell Seymour is the author of Rise Up and Take Your Position.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

Why people find it so challenging to discover their purpose
How to find your purpose quickly and easily
Why it is essential to start working on your passion today

Find Your Purpose

The need to find purpose is not only a common topic of conversation but the foundation of people’s success in business and personal life. Many people nowadays understand that finding a purpose is important, but they still struggle with finding it. Drexwell believes that everybody has a purpose, although some people may not recognize it.

The good news is that we probably don’t need to look far for our purpose; we can find everything we need to do to fulfill it right within our reach. One way to identify your purpose is to think about the one thing you are passionate about; you go to bed every night thinking about it. This is a sign that you are onto something.

Focus on Your Passion

A lot of people would like to focus on things they enjoy and put them center-stage in their lives, but they have many other responsibilities to focus on, so they push their passions to the side. So, how do you go about not just identifying your purpose but starting to make it work for you? Drexwell says we should not put aside things we’re passionate about because these things could transform our lives.

Of course, everybody wants to make money, but this should never be the priority. Instead, everybody should be doing what they like. Too many of us work in positions we do not enjoy, so we first need to invest in what we like and take it from there. Once we do this, we often get rewarded, not only in compensation but also in making a difference in people’s lives.

Start Today

Pursuing your passion may take a long time if you have a full-time job and many obligations, but you should start anyway. We keep putting things off and procrastinating, but if you do that, you will never get anywhere.

Start now, even if it means staying up in the evening and doing a second job to support your passion. This is a great strategy to give yourself a safety net before going headfirst into something you’re unsure about.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

How To Live And Lead On Purpose (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Amy Wong discusses how to live and lead on purpose. Amy Wong is the founder of Always on Purpose, a speaker, executive leadership coach, and facilitator. She has just released a book entitled Living on Purpose: Five Deliberate Choices to Realize Fulfillment.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

What it means to live on auto-pilot and why so many people do it nowadays
How to harness the superpower of choice to live a more fulfilled life
Why we must first wake up to be able to live freely

Living on Auto-Pilot

Many people today let life happen to them instead of taking control or having a purpose. This has to do with the fact that people are feeling more and more disempowered with all the crises that have been happening recently.

We are all on auto-pilot, living by default. We’ve got this passive engagement going on with life, primarily due to the overwhelming inputs coming towards us at a crazy rate and intensity. When this is the case, it is easier to deaden and numb ourselves and go on “mute.”

Superpower of Choice

When Amy wrote her book, it was vital to her to distinguish between the definition of something happening on accident and something happening on purpose. She uses “purpose” in this book more as an adverb than a noun. She talks about being “on purpose,” which means to be fully awake in our moments.

When we’re fully awake, we can harness our superpower of choice. Conversely, when we’re on auto-pilot, letting life happen to us, we’re not exercising choice. We’re letting things happen, but we’re not choosing them. So, one of the most significant parts of living on purpose is deciding to wake up.

Waking Up

Many of us have fallen asleep at the wheel because we think it’s just easier, and sometimes it can be because there’s too much coming at us from all sides. But falling asleep at the wheel comes at a cost.

To truly live on purpose, one must fully wake up, and feel alive, with eyes wide open in each moment, harnessing that space between the stuff of life and how we respond and live with it. Viktor Frankl said that there is space between stimulus and response; in that space lies our response, and in our choice lies our freedom and growth.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

How We Can Use Cognitive Science To Design Better Brand Experiences (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Sandeep Dayal discusses what is wrong with the old way of branding and how cognitive brands are different from traditional ones. Sandeep Dayal is a seasoned marketing and strategy leader at Cerenti Marketing Group. He serves as a counselor to C-suite executives and board members at Fortune 500 companies and has helped blockbuster brands around the globe. He is a contributor at Marketing Management, McKinsey Quarterly, Strategy & Business, and he released a book in December entitled Branding Between the Ears: Using Cognitive Science to Build Lasting Customer Connections.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

How we can use cognitive science to design better brand experiences
How to design future brands using cognitive keys
How connectedness ties into the B2B side of sales

Cognitive Branding

All of the information that we process is processed by our brain. Sandeep’s book is called Branding Between the Ears because it leans into the understanding of different cognitive sciences about how exactly our brain works, specifically about making choices, and branding is all about making choices.

This leads us to better understand how to design brands, brand experiences, etc. This book’s entire focus is on how you can use that information from cognitive sciences to create better brands and brand experiences.

Cognitive Keys

The brain makes choices by relating a situation to previous experiences or fantasies. So, in essence, if you want to understand how to design future brands, you want to see how those brands can serve as cognitive keys that can trigger sensations of those past experiences the prospects have had in their lives.

Alternatively, the brand should make people feel like it would get them a step closer to realizing those fantasies or aspirations that they have in their minds.

Connectedness in B2B

The way our brain works doesn’t go away when we go into B2B sales. When doing these, you must connect with the buyer — most B2B salespeople will tell you this firsthand. This means having shared chemistry and understanding how they feel about their challenges and struggles.

When your partners feel like you understand them, your B2B sales become more straightforward. This all ties into the connectedness piece of the future-brands puzzle.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

How to Pivot In Your Career Successfully (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Nick Collins discusses starting from scratch. Nick Collins is the founder and CEO of Sartoris Digital, founded in 2013 to help companies identify and execute high-value web and mobile software initiatives.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

How Nick Collins has had to pivot in his career
How focusing on a single technology stack limited his options
Why he chose to approach his work from a user-experience perspective

Pivoting

Nick Collins has had to pivot twice in his life with his career and then take a different approach to digital marketing. His first big pivot came when he started his business back in 2013. Back then, Flash used to be the leading technology for multimedia on the web for a very long time, and Nick spent almost 16 years of his life specializing in it.

Unfortunately, Steve Jobs decided not to allow Flash on iPhones or iPads, which led to a massive shift in the industry where people like Nick Collins went from being in extremely high demand to essentially being pariahs in the industry, unable to find work anywhere. This entire shift happened over two months or less.

Tech Agnostic

At this point, Nick had to figure out what to do. If Flash was no longer an option, what could he do next? He wondered if he should go strictly mobile and learn how to create iPhone or Android apps or make a 180-degree turn and look elsewhere. He sat down and thought about where the industry was going.

Eventually, he decided he would be agnostic to technology and embrace everything, focusing on the core principles of good software development and user experience. He would then use whatever technology best suited his clients’ needs.

Flipping the Script

It would be an understatement to say that pivoting from technology-based to experience-based was a steep learning curve. User experience was always part of the equation for Nick and his company, but it was almost an afterthought. He and his associates would decide on the technology stack they would use and figure out the user experience based on the technology choice.

Flipping that entire script required a different way of thinking about things; needless to say, it took a little adjustment. However, it has made for a much more efficient approach to servicing customers.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

The Future of Work, Inclusive Growth, and Changing Skills Demand (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Matthias Oschinski discusses the future of work, inclusive growth, and changing skills demand. Matthias Oschinski is the founder and CEO of Belongnomics and an empirical economist with extensive experience in applied research and statistical analysis. He is also a senior lecturer at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, teaching at the undergrad and grad levels.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

How our education models need to change to serve the modern workplace better
Why a willingness to keep learning is one of the most important skills today
How we can help those most vulnerable stay afloat during crises

Old-Fashioned Education Model

Many jobs that today’s high-school graduates will end up doing haven’t even been invented, or people haven’t even considered them. However, we’re still stuck in very traditional modes of education.

The pandemic, in particular, has accelerated the adoption of digital technology and automation because of remote work and the changing workforce climate. This has been another factor in accelerating the change in skill requirements that has already been going on in the last 10–15 years.

Willingness to Keep Learning

Regarding education, especially high-school education, we must emphasize teaching students to remain willing to keep learning. Many of Matthias’s students often talk about how happy they are to be graduating from university because they won’t have to study anymore. He believes this is the wrong attitude in today’s fast-changing world.

What will happen for most of us in our lives, especially the younger people, is that we will see a much higher requirement for continuous learning, lifelong learning career changes throughout our lifetime. This requires a different attitude to learning and teaching a different perspective in high school and even in undergrad studies. It’s no longer about giving people the skills to join the job market and stay there for the next 30–40 years, but more about giving them the skills to acquire new skills in the future.

Helping the Most Vulnerable

We must equip people to be flexible, to try different things, instead of boxing them in. If the pandemic and technological advances have taught us anything, it is that these boxes can fall apart very quickly.

Matthias focuses much of his work on helping the most vulnerable create more resilient career paths. He often finds that crises mainly affect minorities, women, immigrants, and other vulnerable groups.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

The Misconceptions Surrounding The Sales Profession (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Kevin Snow discusses sales as a conversation and the misconceptions that still surround the sales profession. Kevin Snow is the founder of Time on Target, a sales expert, technology geek, and entrepreneur.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

The misconceptions surrounding the sales profession
How Kevin Snow changed his approach to sales
Why getting closure is more important than closing

Misconceptions

People still labor under the misconception that you have to be highly outspoken to be a successful salesperson; you have to be able to develop relationships immediately, dominate conversations, and overwhelm your charm. It is still widely believed that salespeople are born, not made.

Kevin’s approach to selling goes against this idea and is one that any personality type can be successful at because he looks at sales differently. He is an introvert, so he naturally had to learn to sell differently. He tried to sell like the extroverts, being loud, verbose, and using all the power-closing techniques, but he couldn’t do it because it was not authentic to his personality type. That’s when he decided to change his approach.

Changing the Approach

Kevin realized that to remain in sales and make money; he had to figure out how to do it. It took a while, but the one thing he now tries to share with as many people as possible is to stop focusing on the close and concentrate on getting closure for the conversation you’re in.

If all you are focusing on is getting the prospect to say “yes,” you will push them too hard, too fast, more often than not. This will typically result in them not feeling too happy about the outcome, which means it will be harder for them to say “yes” next time.

Closure vs. Closing

Whenever you have a conversation with your friends, family, or romantic partner, that conversation always ends with the next steps. Sales conversations have to be the same way. When you get to the end of that conversation, there must be closure, and both sides must be happy with how the conversation went and ended.

If you try to get them to say “yes,” no matter what, you’re not getting that. Focusing too hard on closing puts you into that salesperson-prospect dynamic instead of two peers talking to each other.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

The Great Resignation and Building A Company On The Same Model (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, John Briggs discusses the great resignation and what is driving people to keep building companies on the same model as the ones they chose to resign from. John Briggs is the author of the book Profit First for Microgyms: A Simple System for Healthy Cashflow, and he has another book coming out next year. The current working title of that one is The 80% Capacity Framework.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

The reasons people keep creating companies on the same model over and over
The fact that each new business is a huge opportunity for cultural changes
Why it is important to include your employees in the decision-making process

Cultural Memory

We’ve heard a lot about the great resignation and people going out and starting their own businesses. People have always done this, but it seems like more and more people are doing it now because the tools are there to make it very easy for you to set up the infrastructure for a business.

The question is what is driving people to resign from their full-time jobs in the first place? On a related note, how do budding entrepreneurs avoid losing people once they start hiring and building a team?

Opportunity for Change

A lot of people fall into the trap of building a company on the same model as the one they just left because that is just what they’re used to. Unfortunately, this means people keep creating the same company culture that they hated.

This problem permeates all industries, and it has been happening for the last several decades. People need to understand that leaving a big company and starting a new business is a great opportunity to make a change and create a culture in which employees thrive.

Giving Up Control

Your team wants to feel heard. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they want their idea to always be implemented, but it means they want to feel like they have control over what they’re doing and the direction in which their work is headed.

If you’re coming in as the owner with ridiculous project deadlines, or the systems you have in place encourage this approach, you’re taking control away from your employees. You want to build a system in which your employees can take ownership over the deadline because they’re part of the decision-making process.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Leading In Turbulent Times (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Eric McNulty discusses leading in turbulent times. Eric McNulty is a seasoned business writer, speaker, and thought leader. He is the author of the widely published and widely quoted book ” You’re It: Crisis, Change, and How to Lead When It Matters Most”.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

The increased rate of disruption in our lives and how it is affecting leaders
How grounding yourself can help you become a better leader
Why stillness is the key to getting the best out of your team

Constant Disruption

It seems we will have to get used to these recurring crises of one magnitude or another coming along in more regular intervals. We had the underlying conditions for relative stability for most of the second half of the twentieth century.

As we moved into the 21st, things started to shift rapidly, from demographic changes to climate change to the rapid advance of technology, making us more tightly interconnected. We are seeing disruptions happen more frequently, and their impact is felt worldwide much more rapidly than ever before. So, we live in turbulent times, and it seems we will continue to live in them for the next several decades.

Grounding Yourself

With the fact that we live in turbulent times in mind, it is becoming an increasing challenge to lead. People have always looked to leaders for reassurance and guidance. Still, leaders are now operating with less information, less certainty, and fewer facts than ever, precisely because of how fluid day-to-day life has become.

It isn’t easy to be a successful leader when you need to pivot and adapt at any given moment, but you can do it if you ground yourself. You can ground yourself in your values through basic practices like meditative breathing, which will calm down your heart rate. The idea is to get your feet on the ground and feel solid.

Stillness

Once you’ve “come out of the emotional basement” produced by the latest crisis, you want to begin to take action and help your team also ground themselves in this way. The best way to do this is to ensure people feel engaged and productive because once you feel productive, the panic response goes away.

The first things that people look for in a leader are confidence and stillness. If you’re panicking as a leader, everyone around you will panic. So, settle yourself down, settle down your team, and figure out what you can do about the situation.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.