Business heroes have become larger than life. Entrepreneurs are either bragging about their latest victory, or someone else is doing it for them. Storytelling has become increasingly important for business success. Branding over-sized personalities is equally impactful as marketing their products and services. Nevertheless, these heroes are empty without a cause to conquer. Even successful business people that strive daily at lower levels, need conflicts to overcome. They need challenging goals to conquer so that they can boldly point to their results. Higher levels of success dictate higher challenges as competition. What they need is a super-villain!

Compete
Results-driven business professionals experience success by establishing targets, executing priorities, measuring progress, and rewarding results. But, to create super performance from a super team, they must rally troops to fight. Identifying an obstacle and supersizing it creates a sense of urgency and adventure for the business. Industry competitors fulfill that need. While Bill’s Auto Emporium fights for customers against Crazy Carl’s Customized Cars, business legends emerge from an Android versus iPhone rivalry. To inspire superior performance, competitors must represent a threat to the protagonist’s worldview. Position each significant competitor as a threat to the customer, industry, and everything good in the economy!

Defeat
Successful entrepreneurs identify the competition, then defeat them in the name of decency and humanity. Successful sales efforts have the weight of protecting each customer’s virtue. Benefits like cost-savings protect assets that will make their world a better place. Assigning the best people to deliver complex solutions secures human decency. Each achieved goal helps humanity. Commissions and profits are merely byproducts of a better world. Meanwhile, the super-villain attacks all that is good. Consequently, successful sales professionals acquire new knowledge, study the market place, and deliver services that protect customers’ prosperity. Furthermore, they constantly connect, deliver knowledge, enhance skills, and create value so that evil empires gain no foothold on the sacred marketplace.

Celebrate
In a competitive business environment, the central conflict is not solved in a 30-minute episode that includes commercials. The hero does not always win. But, with thorough preparation, a transcendent cause, and rallying every available resource, victories result. The fundamentals matter. Prospecting tenaciously, acquiring market intelligence, identifying pain points and delivering measurable solutions consistently results in sales success. Nevertheless, realize that competitors have talent also. Sometimes Superman bleeds, yet he keeps battling. So, when the deal closes and the sales professional has saved the day, include celebration in the process. Ringing the bell in the sales department works for more commodity products. Celebratory dinners are more in line with a high touch consulting success. The point is the satisfaction of success must be expressed explicitly so that the operation is eager and willing to save the day again.

Super-villains represent a common, well-known, easily identified, and recognizable enemy. Respect for adversaries is important. Confidence in ultimately winning is more important! Victory fulfils a moral priority. Sales teams must compete with that moral imperative. Success must be that important. Be sure that the sold solution saves the world for someone! Business accomplishments depend on channeling the inner super-hero that dwells within every successful sales professional. It is essential to better storytelling, superior branding, and ongoing profitability. It feeds the motivation to save the day! Where is your super-villain?

By Glenn W Hunter
Managing Director of Hunter And Beyond, LLC