by Stuart Crawford
Do you have a passion for IT? Back in November 2008, I lost my passion for technology.
The perfect storm of why I hated technology had been brewing for quite some time. We were hiring the best of the worst simply because available great talent didn’t exist, client frustrations were increasing and my love for what I did simply disappeared.
Luckily for me, around May 2010, my passion for IT returned and Ulistic started to focus on helping IT consulting firms, VARs and resellers with marketing support. Today, we also provide coaching and mentoring for IT firms.
Why is this important? I got to talking to a client the other day about the lack of performance of sales teams. After a lengthy discussion on what makes a great sales professional, we determined that it started with passion.
I love the story he told me. I’ll do my best to summarize it.
It started with a painter. Any painter will do, but let’s say a painter of landscapes.
There are two types of painters.
The first is the painter who wants to have everything right and knows all about the types of paper, paints, canvas, the history of the scene he is painting and all the technical details of what he is about to do.
The second is the painter who has a passion to paint. Sure, she may want to know all the details, but the details are not as important as the act of painting.
The canvas, the paper, the technical makeup of the paints, the process involved with the strokes are not as important as the finished product.
Now, let’s look at this from a sales and marketing perspective. I help MSPs around the country with marketing and sales. Many of my clients are running cloud computing events right now. Why? Mainly because I tell them to, and because there is a need for knowledge out there. Many are successful; one is struggling. WHY?
The successful ones focus more on sharing useful information and less on the details of running successful events. Kind of like my READY, FIRE, AIM approach. Or even what I learned from T. Harv Eker when I attended his boot camps. Sell IT before you create IT. The successful companies are just getting out there and learning as they go.
The one that is struggling focuses more on the details of what makes a successful event. Emails and invites have to be exactly right. The venue has to be great. Everything has to be perfect and according to what pundits say make an event successful. All of this refinement and attention to detail makes the invites and calls seem less genuine and more focused on making a sale.
Where’s the passion for IT, for helping others?
For my readers who are Howard Stern fans, this rings true. When Howard was jumping from radio station to radio station across the US early in his career, he wasn’t succeeding because he was hiding his passion for radio behind a mechanical radio-appropriate persona.
It wasn’t until his wife Allison pointed out to him a time when he screwed up and was just himself on the air and let his passion for radio ring through that he truly became great.
So, who are you? Are you the mechanic, or the passionate artist?
