Why I do what I do
I just had the honor of being interviewed by one of Sage’s thought leaders, Ed Kless.
(Get it on the Sage Advice library here)
Ed brazenly pushes us as Sage business partners to critically evaluate our approach to work and focus on what the customer finds valuable as the primary indicator of what we’re creating. He is relentless about evaluating the business based on the profit you create for your customers. I think for Ed it’s about really working to understand why you’re in business and what you’re really doing for customers.
If you think you’re doing everything right, let me disabuse you of that notion…
Why we like Ed’s approach to business
His ideas are applicable to lots of different companies- not just Sage business partners, and that is why I think he gets so much traction. For example, Ed’s sessions at Sage Summit are always well-attended. I think that’s because we crave this kind of critical engagement with our work and Ed provides that space. Ed synthesizes some of the most interesting business writing out there and presents it in such an engaging style, bringing us all along with him as he points out how outdated some of our own ideas might be. Ed pushes us all to consider things just a little more thoughtfully because he wants us to be more successful. This is also why partners trust Ed. So as a regular front-row attendee and academically inclined nerd, it was delightful to get the opportunity to do an interview with Ed. Thank you Ed for hosting me!
The Interview
Get the interview here.
The reason this interview was fun has to do with Ed’s questions. We talked about why I do what I do for example, which reminded me of the awakening I had during Simon Sinek’s TED Talk which posits, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” I’ve also talked about this idea at our customer conference and blogged about it here. For me the answer to that question has been a long time coming. I’ve felt for a long time that it’s important to do good, ethical work. But when I was working on starting a business, and then being a part of the DataQuest world, I felt good about the ethics and quality as a baseline. But it took longer for my limbic brain to reveal the real WHY behind it all, and I talk about that process in the podcast. Ed is just a fun person to speak with and is such a sharp business mind in our industry. It was a joy to work together creating the podcast and I hope you like it.