BTS #2: The Future Belongs To POV Experts

⚡️ Today’s level up ⚡️

Today’s edition shares insights around the changing nature of work, the economy, and sales…and how you can shape it in your favor with five key skills.

Let’s go!

The monumental shift is underway

Okay breathe…

By the time you’re reading this, there’s still a lot happening outside of your immediate control and tons to process. My goal with today’s edition is to help you take a moment to step away from the chaos happening around us and zoom in on areas you can begin controlling to shape the future you desire (and deserve).

At Sales Success Summit in Austin, Texas, I gave a presentation around Purposeful Performance. I laid out the case that we are in the midst of an economic paradigm shift from The Knowledge Age to The Intelligence Age.

As I have written about before, and brought to life in more detail in Austin, revenue generators who have gained experience selling to large companies have an unfair advantage in leading this next era. And the best way to navigate this shift (which includes high degrees of uncertainty, challenges, and opportunity) is being highly purposeful with your performance.

No matter how fast things are changing, evolving, and developing, the same resources that were persistent through each era prior remain intact as we enter a new one. These resources are Time, Energy, Attention, and Money.

Even though these are resources we know well, we have to be more mindful of how to leverage them effectively. We also have to define what success in this era looks like. I proposed this to 65+ top performers in Austin and a 100% of them agreed:

The goal is to do what we want, when we want, where we want, with who we want… without any financial pressure.

The most ubiquitous tool we all use to define what we do, when we do it, where we do it, and who we do it with is the calendar. But to thrive in this shift to The Intelligence Era, Purposeful Performers are turning their calendars into game consoles.

With these resources in mind as the context for what we need to transform our calendar from a tool we’re burdened by to a place that feels like a fun game to play, I define Purposeful Performance as this:

Intentionally transform your time, energy, attention, and money into valuable assets that yield the life you want.

To make sense of this journey, you’ve read about the three main levels:

• Level I: Apply effort to gain skills

• Level II: Use skills to gain leverage

• Level III: Turn leverage into complete freedom

When using the calendar as the benchmark for measuring progress on this journey, it looks something like this.

As I’ve been teasing for months, and something I’ll get more specific about over the coming weeks, this newsletter is going to go through a transformation of its own. In fact it will no longer be “just a newsletter,” it will become an actual product. It will be called The Purposeful Performer and it will include 52 editions of strategy guides, breakdowns, and playbooks designed to help you ascend through this journey and turn your WORK into PLAY.

Each year will have a theme, and the theme for 2025 will be Empowerment. I can’t wait to share more with you in future editions.

Where do you fit into this new economy?

Whether it’s modern politics, business, or social media influence, the “currency” that’s being heavily “traded” is content. More specifically, content that is driven from a specific point of view.

As I was making my own transition three and a half years ago from Level II to Level III, I was fortunate to be asked by my old CEO to co-chair an internal mission, called Project Beehive (a contributor, by the way, to why I am so fond of the bee) where I worked with Peter Block, Charles Holmes (a social anthropologist and process change facilitator), and a handful of executives and inspired colleagues to focus on designing how to make our 1,300-person company a fully distributed, async-friendly company.

The lessons gleaned from this project were more profound on me than any major deal I won and was a catalyst for retiring from the corporate world to do my own thing.

I was reminded of these lessons last Friday during a conversation with one of my Diamond Program members. We talked about the changing nature of work, sales, and navigating success during this tectonic shift in the economy.

This discussion is based not only on my experience in going through this journey, but also on a recent keynote my client attended in Chicago led by Rishad Tobaccowala, author of the upcoming book Rethinking Work, which I’m really excited to read.

Below are key takeaways from that keynote and five key skills to stay mindful of as we enter this new era. What you can count on going forward is:

• Change is inevitable

• Change will be constant

• Change will happen faster than ever

Let’s be sure you are ready to ride this new, massive wave like a master surfer.

Key takeaway #1: The three questions that matter

Rishad has worked with over 150 major companies over the last five years. He opened his keynote highlighting the three key questions every executive is asking:

1. Is my business model relevant for the future?

2. Is my organization designed with the right partners and suppliers for the future?

3. Am I still relevant for the future?
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How do you stay relevant? Both Rishad and I agree: You always keep learning.

This is why finding the right executive influencer and sharing compelling commercial insights are a key function as a strategic revenue generator. The more you teach, the more you will close.

Key takeaway #2: Work is a part of our identity

According to psychological research on life stressors—such as the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, which measures the impact of various life events on stress levels—the top three most negatively impacting events are typically:

1. Death of a loved one: This is often considered the most stressful event, as it can lead to profound grief and emotional turmoil.

2. Serious personal injury or illness: This includes major injuries like the loss of a limb or severe illnesses. Such events can drastically change one’s lifestyle, independence, and emotional well-being.

3. Loss of a job: Unemployment can cause financial strain, loss of identity, and stress about the future.
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The point here is that work is still a really important factor in our personal identities. It matters to you and the executives you’re engaged with.

Keep this top of mind as you work on your next opportunity. Help your executive leave a legacy versus just getting a job done.

Key takeaway #3: The rise of fractionalized workers

According to research from Rishad, “76% of Gen Z want to work for themselves and next year, there will be more people with a 1099 than a W2 in the U.S.”

Going through Covid has shown us that “life doesn’t fit around work, work needs to now fit around life.”

I tried to make this move myself while still employed at LivePerson. I made a pitch to move to a contractor role after coming off my biggest earning year there in 2019. Due to complications around working out the logistics on healthcare, RSUs, and Covid hitting, it didn’t quite materialize.

But the idea of top sellers moving into more contractor roles will happen. The companies that want to transform their top revenue generators into entrepreneurs will be the leaders. That I am certain about.

Key takeaway #4: The office will be unbundled

Those of us in sales who have been working remotely for years know how silly the RTO mandates are. That’s not to say we don’t see value in in-person connections, as those are necessary. But the focus should be less on using the office for everything and more about optimizing around “people connections.”

Want to be more creative, innovative, or think strategically, that should be at an offsite. Want to build relationships, that can be done at a restaurant or a bar.

It’s less about the office, and more about the connections.

Key takeaway #5: Machine-Human coexistence

Rishad shared an interesting anecdote in his keynote: “In 2019, most companies thought they had 2020 technology. But in March of 2020, they realized they had 2019 technology.”

This is why there is a mad scramble by large organizations to make sense (and ROI) of the massive investments made in technology, particularly AI. What I am discovering across every coaching session with enterprise and strategic tech sellers is it’s not the tech that will drive the true transformation, it’s the people.

Rishad shared an interesting perspective that I encourage you to adopt which is to think about AI not just as a machine but as a different species. How we as individuals, as companies, and collectively as society figure out how to harmonize the two species will be the vast opportunity ahead of us.

The skills necessary to navigate this future?

They aren’t all that complex, but it will require thoughtful use of your own Time, Energy, Attention, and Money. Think of these together as your TEAM to ensure you become a leader, not a laggard, in this new era. Here they are:

1. Curiosity: Keep learning

2. Creativity: Not necessarily being creative, but able to “create new experiences”

3. Collaboration: Nothing great is achieved alone

4. Convincing: Make your ideas clear, understood, and actionable

5. Communicate: “If you can’t write or present well, a machine will take your job!”
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My client and friend said it well:

Today, an executive can't ask AI to map out a vision for their organization and understand which tech partners will help enable it. Human judgement and point of view based on experience is still necessary. And in the next era we are entering, a requirement to stay relevant.

These takeaways and these skills highlight that the future of sales belongs to those who can tell a story. Those who are experts at crafting a distinct point of view that elicits change and helps executives leave a legacy. Those who stop selling and start designing a buying experience for busy executives (where buying a transformation isn’t a part of their day job).

And once you do this well, you will rise to the top of Level II and the only natural next move is to transition to Level III.

Where are you on this journey? How well equipped are you to play (and win) this game?

Stick around. I’ll be breaking down in detail exactly how you can with The Purposeful Performer. I’ll share more about this and how to join the movement in future editions.

See you next week!