If you consistently do what needs to be done, people will understand your true character and trust you for it. Though having experience in your field is important, David asserts that learning new ways of doing things, and quickly, is paramount.

Books and people are your best resources for this. David gives lots of suggestions for growing in competency. Be humble and teachable. Join a circle of professionals who can help you grow. Stay current with ideas and trends through reading. Prioritize time to learn and reflect. People trust you when they know you are an expert in your field. To be an expert, you have to keep learning.

When your staff see your tenacity even in the worst conditions, they understand the depth of your commitment. And that makes them more willing to become fully committed, too. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be the lone genius.

Achieving Preeminence: The Seven Pillars

Opening up our office doors and working with others will develop trust within our company and with our customers. David points to an unlikely collaboration between fierce competitors GM and Ford as an example. Whatever product you deliver, there has to be an expected outcome. You have to perform. It has to work. You can be kind, compassionate, and have a good character, but you need these qualities as well as outcomes. A salesperson with a compassionate heart needs to sell.


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A weight-loss product with clear instructions should melt away the pounds. A budget service with the latest software must manage your money. David says they also need to be quantifiable — specific, measurable and time-dated.

Yet traditional approaches to marketing may not be the best choice for high-consideration sales, such as many technology offerings. Customers choose vendors based on confidence and trust built with time and education. That becomes your marketing focus. Your sales team, both technical and business oriented, must be able to efficiently facilitate a profitable transaction. There is a major difference between product training — what you talk about — and sales training — how you talk about it. You support this with technology and education. Would you be willing to send your VP of sales into a customer to do some troubleshooting?

If so, then make that part of your value proposition. When you combine this cultural torch with servant leadership, it really illuminates. Leaders who are true servants have a mindset that no task is too small or too big for them.

Successfully manage the seven pillars of your – and your customer’s – business

They can make the big speech and on the same day, carry boxes in the production room. Such leading by example helps create a greenhouse of learning inside the company where ideas and people constantly flourish. This focus provides clarity— clarity of judgment and purpose. And they are not distracted by their success. The focus and aim for excellence never waver. Nothing is taken for granted, as they remain humble and hungry, gracious and ambitious.

CDN Magazine

These organizations strive, stretch, strain, and, in persistent fashion, succeed. They are laserlike in the areas that deliver results for their customers and for their bottom line. All in all, narrow and deep is their focus— not wide and shallow. Also, pre-eminent organizations place tremendous focus on teams, with awareness that a healthy organization is about everyone, not just someone. They have a real focus on building a team of teams and creating a sense of esprit de corps that makes a difference in the growth of teams and growth of the business as a whole. Pre-eminent companies have all these traits and then some.

They eschew the path of least resistance. They are able to withstand the peaks and valleys of the marketplace and endure the challenging headwinds around them, eventually turning these strong winds of adversity into helpful tailwinds.

The 8 Pillars of Trust that Will Make or Break Your Business

This commitment reflects immense stamina, like that of an Olympic marathon runner, and leads them to develop durability. A durable brand goes together with a durable competitive advantage in the marketplace. I have dedicated myself to studying the concept of pre-eminence over the past decade, and these are the pillars I have observed through countless interactions with brands and the people who make them what they are. Simple, yes, but not to be underestimated.

And not to be taken lightly. Easier said than done, too. Strength for the journey. Trust Stephen Covey is spot on. Relationship building It is the complete opposite of networking.