Purpose Driven Expert
When we think of an expert, the definition below seems to suffice, knowledgeable, skilful probably sums you up quite nicely.
So what about a Purpose Driven Expert…
It is not enough to simply be knowledgeable or skillful, it’s the way in which you deliver your skills or knowledge…
As a purpose driven expert, we are autonomous, we are self-governing and self-determining…
Which means, we don’t look to outside vehicles for our lifestyle, our freedom or our retirement vehicle.
You will come to the understanding that everything you want is within reach and you don’t need to look elsewhere.
My concept of a Purpose Driven Expert derives from the convergence of several principles that I know to be true, and therefore can be built on from the stand point of solid foundations.
I don’t believe any of us want to devote our time, energy, money and any other resources at our disposal into an endeavour where the foundations are not solid.
But before we even get to the principles, strategies and tactics, you must be clear on the vision you have for your business, your life and your retirement, what would your business look like if you ‘click your heels’ all “Dorothy” like? (showing my age here with that reference)
It’s only when we have a clear vision that everything flows from that, so as you read down this page start assembling some ideas of what you want, what you would like your life to look like…
The how is irrelevant at this point, just get the cogs moving…
You see, without a clear vision, you could find yourself having false starts…
At this stage, we just want to know we are moving in the direction of our ideal lifestyle, where only slight course corrections are needed each time, not back to the start line corrections…
Does that make sense?
Let’s get into that strategy convergence I mentioned…
If your actions go through each of these principles, almost like filters, I can almost guarantee that your future success is guaranteed, but hold on to your skeptism until you read them and see what you think…
It is only when I have seen people go against these principles that their long term term foundations seem less solid.
Management consultant, author, and educator Peter Drucker observed an enormous distinction between doing things right and doing the right things.
Systems theorist, author, and Wharton School professor Dr. Russell Ackoff took Drucker’s idea to its logical conclusion, saying, “the righter you do the wrong things, the wronger you become.”
Peter Drucker & Dr. russell ackoff
The first is a strategy that is one of Jay Abraham’s cornerstones, the strategy of Pre-Eminence, in essence becoming the trusted advisor of ‘your people’, when I say ‘your people’ I mean the people who you have decided to serve.
And ‘service’ is the key here…
Unless you are fully committed to service then nothing on this site will help. But before you can serve, to need to understand you customer almost better than they know themselves…
The image below is a snippet from the Strategy of Pre-Eminence (SoPE) transcript I mentioned above (well worth reading) in which Jay lists the first pillar as ‘Enormous Empathy’, this is where we need to start in our goal to become a Purpose Driven Expert.
If you have no desire to do this and are looking for short term ‘get money as fast as I can’ tactics, then sorry, I’m not your guy, I can wish you a fond farewell and my best wishes for the future and ask you to click the X at the top right of this page.
On the reverse of that coin, if this is beginning to stir feelings of excitement as it did for me, then let’s dig a little deeper into Pre-Eminence…
Once we fully understand our customer, we need to position ourselves as different from everybody else out there…
We are guides, we are trusted advisors, we act in their best interest always…
We understand what the fears are of our customers, what don’t they trust?
If I ask you to picture a used car salesman, what imagery comes to mind, what feelings are stirred up?
All markets have this, we need to understand the fears and concerns of our customers and seek to eradicate them with trust, guiding with empathy…
The image below is another passage from the same (SoPE) document…
Can you see the distinction?
We are not a commodity in the sea of mediocrity out there, we are different…
Jeff Bezos would have you list your services on the marketplace and let everyone barter on price and compete in a race to the bottom, we are not playing that game…
We are playing a higher level game…
The statement below sums it up nicely…
If you can’t, honest to God, fall in love with your client, you’re in the wrong business, or you don’t appreciate your business, or you don’t appreciate your worth. If you appreciate it, but your team doesn’t, you’ve got to fall in love with your team and help them, lovingly but unflinchingly, and almost relentlessly see how to fall in love with the clients with you. It’s got to be a combined love affair.
I’m not being metaphysical. I’m being so bottom-line serious, it’s unbelievable. I’m giving you the secret to richness in life at a level your pocketbooks and your heart will never imagine.
A massive change will occur in your whole mindset when you can see your business as interacting and enhancing people and their lives. It’ll change totally the way you see things.
jay abraham
Strategy of Pre-Eminence
So, if we’re going to fall in love with our clients, we have to be very specific on who these people are…
Which brings us to…
The second principle, Dream Customers Only!
You have to know ‘who’ it is you want to serve, know their problems and their concerns inside and out, and be committed to helping them solve those problems.
You simply can’t be all things to all people, if you think you can serve everyone, you end up becoming a commodity to everyone, no one will value your gifts and you’ll be drowned out by the noise…
Once you know your ‘who’, and you know what keeps them awake at night, you then need to be able to communicate with them well enough that they ‘know’ you are ‘their guy’ (or girl)…
I’m sure you can rattle off some of the conversations you’ve had recently with your customers…
What are their fears, what language did they use, can you remember?
If you start making notes of their language, what they say, how they say it, you can start using this in your messaging, and your dream customers will think ‘he/she really gets me’…
From this point on your ‘who’ is ‘your dream customer‘, and these are the only people you serve, you simply haven’t got the time or resouces to have mixed messages…
Once you have a firm grasp of their problems and how you can help them, why would you allow them to go anywhere else for their other problems that may arise.
That’s not what a trusted advisor would do who has their best interests at heart, you can’t take that chance in the hope they may be treated satisfactorily elsewhere.
You’re the only one who has their best interests at heart in relation to your expertise.
Which leads us nicely to…
The 3rd principle of my concept is one of Lifetime Value focus…
This principle naturally sits well with the first principle in that if you are taking your dream customers on a journey from their current pain or frustration to their ideal situation, their ‘dreams come true’.
This journey is never with one solution…
A Purpose Driven Expert has a bigger idea of the possibilities they can offer and plays the long game…
When you have a clear understanding of what their ‘dreams come true’ looks like, how you can help them achieve this, then short term transactional value seems meaningless.
The final foundational principle is taken from the late, great business success coach Zig Ziglar, in which he so famously said “Help enough people get what they want, and you can have anything you want”…
This has been requoted some 6 billion times throughout the internet that it is beyond reproach as a principle, and has been one of my early guiding lights before I introduced the other 3 through my decades of experience.
So there you have the four foundational principles that govern our actions as Purpose Driven Experts, and as you go through the manifesto, you will see how you can rise above the noise of ‘attention seekers’ with their diluted, shallow content vying for your attention.
When we fully ‘get’ our customers, their pains, their frustrations, their dreams and aspirations, and can convey to them that we care, that we want the very best for them, competition seems irrelevant.
We show up differently, and they ‘feel’ that…
You won’t even feel like you have competition, you’re playing on a different level…
You are playing ‘your game’, by your ‘rules’…
Below shows the image of this convergence…
Your work takes on a whole new meaning, becomes totally fulfilling and the paths that your marketing leads them down becomes exciting…
In an age where attention is the new currency, we have to rise above the daily tsunami of content mediocrity…
We have to become a voice worth listening to, and when we do, attention is commanded instead of demanded.
I get that it can all seem a bit overwhelming right now… it’s normal…
Take a breath…
We take one step at a time, knowing that it’s in the ‘right direction’…
We introduce one system at a time, knowing it’s having a positive effect.
Earlier I quoted Dr. Russell Ackoff on how doing the wrong thing right, makes you wronger over time…
Here’s another about how systems work together for the overall performance…
“It’s the way the parts fit together that determine the performance of the system, not how they perform taken separately.”
Dr. russell ackoff
Systems theorist
You see, as a Purpose Driven Expert you are not doing anything that you are not already doing, you are just putting it all into a series of systems that will improve the overall performance…
When you take these 4 principles to heart, your dream customers will feel your heart, and business and satisfaction levels will increase exponentially…
That is the elegance of the convergance…
You’ll be building a valuable asset, you’ll have multiple entry points into ‘your world’, you’ll have multiple revenue streams, and you’ll have a retirement revenue stream in place, all within your business.
No need to look anywhere else for your lifestyle and retirement goals…
It’s all within reach, following the right principles and implementing the right strategies…
So that’s a brief breakdown of what a Purpose Driven Expert is, for the high level details on how to transform your business, you can read the manifesto where I break the details down more or you can grab the blueprint here.
Become purpose driven…
– Mark