At this time when so much is changing in the world
comes a little book with a big idea.
For entrepreneurs looking for a way to be different and
make a difference.
An excerpt from the Preface:
Hillary Clinton asked a question during the 2008 political primaries that would be bandied about right till the end: “Who do you want answering the White House phone at 3 a.m.?”
In these profoundly changing times, I believe a riff on this question will be asked by people the world over: “Who do I want answering my 3 a.m. call?”
This is a time in history when tumult describes virtually every facet of human life. Nothing is certain. Nothing is secure. People are losing loved ones. They are losing homes, jobs (unemployment at the time of this writing is the worst in seven years), and life savings every second. Everything we’ve known is turning on its head. We are witnessing breakdowns in virtually every corner of society--business, financial, political, religious, family. And it’s causing deep changes. When people are stripped of their tangibles, as they are being stripped right now, the only things left are the intangibles. They will become the new “must-haves”: trust, connection, fulfillment, hope, belonging. People need to know whom they can trust, and are searching for signs of what is trust-worthy.
A demand for depth and meaning such as we’ve never known is seeping into the psyches of everyone we brush past, look at, talk to, live with and work with.
As a business leader, you must pay special attention to this change because your prospects and clients are making a very different kind of call than they’ve ever made before, and they’re expecting a very different kind of answer.
A bold, transparent, inspired one.
Can you answer their call?
This much I know: yes, you can. And furthermore, when the call comes, I believe there is an answer you can give that has, as Goethe once said, “genius, power and magic in it.” This answer has always existed in you, waiting for the right time to emerge.
That time is now.
An excerpt from chapter 4, The Plain Sense of It
As material abudance diminishes in coming months and years, people will come face to face with new values and will be asking for more. They will demonstrate this shift in their purchasing. We’ve known that people do not just buy products or services; they also buy the feeling that those products and services evoke. Now people will be buying more than that: the message behind the products and services, for the feeling that it evokes. People express their identities through their purchases. As purchasing habits change, in the course of a changing world, so, too, will their identities. People will be different. Those who don’t find a business who matches their new self-understanding will move on, perhaps not knowing why; just knowing that they need something more.
To stand apart, you must know what they need and how to answer their call
If you tap the emerging longing for what money cannot buy--community, meaning, security, trust, connection--by engaging prospects with a message that touches and inspires them; if you give them a business that touches a feeling in them the product or service does not on its own—they will not just be loyal customers. They will be the carriers of your vision, taking it further than you ever could—and with it, your reputation and your sales.
What you believe matters and it can change the world—and it will change your business.
Will You Answer? How to Respond to the World's Call for Bold, Inspired New Leaders