“Follow your passion!” We have heard this for a generation. From personal development “gurus” and schoolteachers to parents, friends and even celebrities, fulfillment comes, we are told, from pursuing your dreams.
“Follow your dreams and you’ll never work a day in your life!” the internet meme screams out at us. But heeding this popular admonition has contributed to more business failures and personal financial struggles than any other flawed career advice.
“What’s wrong with passion?” you say. There is nothing wrong with passion, as long as there is a solid business model behind it. Alas, for most, there is not. That burning need you have to share your story, advocate for your cause or overcome your troubled past has nothing whatsoever to do with the reasons that most people want to buy.
To be clear, this isn’t a capitalist manifesto. It’s a wakeup call that the rest of the world feels no obligation to help you live your dream. The world needs to feed their families, pay their bills and invest in their future. While you or your teens may be eyeing that college degree in philosophy, I don’t think a lot of philosophy firms are hiring right now.
As a professional speaker, I see countless aspiring colleagues led astray by well-meaning friends who encourage them to “get out and tell your story.” And while I appreciate that you survived cancer, you need to know that over 15 million cancer survivors are currently living in the U.S. alone. Nearly 4,000 people have successfully climbed to the top of Mount Everest. More than 12,000 former NFL players are still alive today and 2 million Americans have lost at least one limb. Passion is not enough.
Focusing on your passion is a luxury reserved for the wealthiest among us. The rest of us need to focus on a solid business model of trading value for fair compensation. We need to take out passion and have a clear target for who, with money, needs what we are offering. We must have a way to find contacts and turn them into leads, and leads into legitimate prospects and prospects into paying clients.
Pragmatism trumps idealism. Of course, my three idealistic Millennials will disagree with me on this point, but they have that luxury as they don’t have to pay the bills…yet.
Make no mistake, there are some very successful idealists, and the successful ones are impacting millions because they have a solid business model that generates real dollars. Your passion will certainly help you get up in the morning, but your business savvy, competitive advantages and hard work will feed your family.
Instead of focusing on your passion, focus on your business model. Work your tail off. Be strategic, diligent, persuasive, different and frugal and demonstrate your value better than others who are competing for your audience. Craft your words, authentically connect with your buyers and close that sale!
Make no mistake, I am passionate about my work on stage as a business speaker and my impact on my consulting clients. My focus, however, is on building and promoting my business, supporting my employees and my family. With my priorities in place, I can follow my passion for the rest of my days.
How to Keep Customers
David Avrin, CSP, is a popular international speaker on marketing and customer experience and the author of It’s Not Who You Know. It’s Who Knows You! and Visibility Marketing. He will be presenting “Blink & They’re Gone: How to Keep (or Win Back) Customers” at the MPI World Education Congress (WEC), June 2-5 in Indianapolis.
More about the session: Today’s customers are inundated with good choices. Outdated notions of loyalty and service are ignoring the profound market shift that is driving too many customers to your competitors. So, how do you win their business when patience is short and alternatives are only a short drive or a click away? In this hard-hitting and entertaining presentation, Avrin will shine a light on this monumental shift in buyer behavior and expectation, while showing your team everyone’s role in eliminating barriers, engaging prospects and creating customer experiences worth sharing.
Learn more and register for WEC at www.mpiweb.org/wec18, and learn more about Avrin at www.DavidAvrin.com.
