#06: Green Eggs and Ham: Nobility in Selling
The piece below from Pip artfully highlights that the virtue of selling lies in its conceivable power to bring positivity and joyful change to people's lives. There is some kind of beauty that waits in the unknown, and for me, this piece made me reflect more on the many wondrous new opportunities and possibilities we have at our finger tips each day... We have the choice to merely push them aside...or open our hearts and hands to dig in and try new things. Thanks Pip!
- Amanda
(FROM PIP)
GREEN EGGS AND HAM: NOBILITY IN SELLING
The time and space that my coach Jullien Gordon creates for me each week is such that most anything can happen.
And a couple weeks ago we explored Green Eggs and Ham the Dr. Suess classic ;) I wonder if Jullien years ago would have imagined a career built around such discussions.
So, there we were contemplating the deep nobility in selling as reflected by the unnamed "buyer" and Sam-I-Am (seller).
Why do I care though?
Well, about 20 years ago, I started to consider that selling was equivalent to service and as noble as any other human activity…
…at least… it could be.
When selling is about my helping another human get in position so that THEY can truly consider what THEY think is in their best interest nobility shines. Anything along such a path is exhilarating to me.
If, on the other hand, “selling” merely a ruse to have someone do what I want them to do it ain’t interesting in theleast… and “selling” has this negative reputation on our planet because most people think it might have to do with fooling or tricking another. Buyer Beware.
So in Green Eggs and Ham, Sam-I-Am is a persistent salesman but he NEVER NEVER NEVER grows impatient in the slightest. Never. He is there to serve not “sell”. He is excited but seemingly unbiased.
There seems to be ZERO in this for Sam-I-Am other than Daniel’s joy.
If his prospect were to try the Green Eggs and Ham and not like them I suspect Sam-I-Am would be totally cool with that outcome. I LOVE that.
Maybe all the more spectacular is the unnamed propsect. After ending a long long long long long drawn out perhaps even stubborn stubborn unwillingness to even try the green eggs and ham under any circumstance he finally decides he will give them a shot if only to get rid of Sam-I-Am.
And then he does something so rare in our species of humankind and something I hope I can become really really really good at … he fully changes his mind in a nano-second. He proclaims with joy “I do so like green eggs and ham! Thank you! Thank you, Sam-I-am!"
Wow!
…Pip
Pip Coburn pcoburn@coburnventures.com
More than anything I suspect I am driven by “community”. Across the past 15 years, I have grown to realize that most any success or fortune I have had in the work I do I have re-invested back into my activities such that I spend more and more of my life with people I adore and admire and just loving being around and working on a whole bunch of things that I am incredibly excited about. I like to study monumental change at the levels of society, marketplaces, organizations and most significantly… people. I like to study culture deeply. I like to attempt to create culture. I like processes and helping others advances their processes and being trusted deeply. My wife Kelly is both supportive and probably confused by what I do for a living which makes two of us. And our group has enjoyed the best clients ever. I LOVE the Ohio State Buckeyes. My greatest joy in my work is when I have the chance to draw from two decades of intense work in order to perhaps help someone have a break through.