Pleasure & Excellence

Solution selling often requires creative and deep interrogation to uncover the real drivers of prospects. Especially when they deliberately keep their cards close to their chest. Here’s a quote as recalled by Plato from the mouth of his teacher, Socrates:

“In every one of us there are two ruling and direct principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead;
the one being an innate desire for pleasure,
the other an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence.”

It seems that the inventor of philosophy may indeed have something for us here. If he is right, then at the core of every endeavour, to genuinely earn fulfillment we must pursue an outcome of pleasure or journey towards excellence.

This struck me as a fascinating way to understand the underpinning motivations of a prospect. With any project you propose, what will make the eventual smile so satisfying? Which areas of distinction will move nearer to being achieved?

There’s also one delicious, logical spin-off from this. If you fail to isolate enough (or any) evidence for the existence of either driver, then you have to seriously ask yourself why the enterprise is taking up airtime in the first place.