Drive = Quality of Pipeline - Envy

There's many a way you could remix the mantra of English comedian, Jimmy Carr.

Hugely successful in his field. Yet when he ventures beyond the funnies, here's his significant contribution;

Happiness = Quality of Life - Envy

You can see him explain it in sixty seconds via a tweet below.

I'm not big on all this 'life coach' stuff. Nearly all of it rubbish.

I've seen too many an 'opinion leader' in their space fall spectacularly when straying into such realm. To the point it consumes their entire output. That's never good.

The hubris that strikes where someone highly achieving in one pursuit, thinks they can in any. They are seldom, if ever, right. After all, as Physics giant Richard Feynman observed in 1955;

"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy - and when he talks about a nonscientific matter, he will sound as naive as anyone untrained in the matter."

Still. There's something in this guiding principle though.

The 'envy' of the formula, as in the 'minus' of it, is a fascinating window.

Countless times I've needed to re-calibrate salespeople I know can do it. Yet their fixation on their colleagues' performance, pipeline, products is making them spin. Needlessly holding them back.

It can distract from true focus, waste precious selling time, and seriously deplete our energy.

For starters, our only 'competition' is us and our quota.

Speaking of which, there can be a valid angle in Enemy Building.

Which is slightly different. Where we pick something we must be better than. Usually an actual competitor. But again, this approach needs careful managing.

As but one example, the number of early-Noughties Enterprise 'software' solutions that placed Microsoft in that spot was huge. Many of them went on to win. Big. I know, because I not only met them, I was one too.

For this post's title, I swapped out 'happiness' for 'drive'. We solution sellers are only as good as our next deal. Real winners - those with sustainable, repeatable long-term results - are prone to less celebrate a client order than to crack on with replacing the now 'gap' in our funnel. But for salespeople, having the drive is us in our happy place. Where we are primed to achieve.

Then I switched up 'life' for 'pipeline'. For our forecast is our life. The central theme around which all our thoughts revolve. And a pipeline that produces, period after period, is one where the understanding of process and its refinement is core.

Maybe you'd keep this adaptation. Maybe you can craft your own. Either way, it's a creed we'd do well to heed.