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The single most lethal flaw in selling as a professional happens when the salesperson focuses on themselves rather than their customer or prospect.

That’s a pretty declarative statement. It’s tough to live up to a standard where you put your needs and wants second. We all have bills that need to get paid, food that has to be bought and that can put tremendous pressure on us – tempting us to put the focus on ourselves rather than those who provide us with income so we can pay those bills and buy that food.

The contributions we make to our customers’ lives and careers determine our financial gain or shortfall.

Jim Collins’ article in Fast Company talks about this issue on a bigger scale; companies that are built to be flipped rather than last and contribute. But I think that subject is equally relevant on a smaller scale – down to the individual salespeople who “flip” their customers.

Old school selling calls this “Love ‘em and leave ‘em.” It’s still very common and those who practice that style of selling have no trouble justifying it:

•Clients are too busy to talk to me
•I’m too busy to talk to clients
•It’s a business transaction
•They don’t want to do long-term business with us anyway
•They have my card, they can call me

Sure, we like to make money. And true, the easier it is to make the more many of us like it… but real wealth, Collins argues, comes from hard work and a meaningful contribution.

Collins describes perfectly the pitfall that lies ahead for companies and entrepreneurs who focus only on the goal of getting rich as quickly as possible:

If Built to Flip were to become the dominant entrepreneurial model of the new economy, one almost-inevitable outgrowth would be a rise in social instability. At the heart of the American commitment to democratic capitalism is a shared ideal: From the Industrial Revolution to the Information Revolution, Americans at all levels of society, in all walks of life, and in all occupations have bought into the proposition that the United States offers economic opportunity for all. What we’ve already seen, even in this relatively early phase of Built to Flip, is a growing socioeconomic disparity — and, perhaps most troubling, a perceived decoupling of wealth from contribution. Not only is there an increasing sense that the social fabric is fraying, as the nation’s wealth engine operates for a favored few; there is also a gnawing concern that those who are reaping more and more of today’s newly created wealth are doing less and less to “earn” it.

But here’s the good news: Built to Flip can’t last. Ultimately, it cannot become the dominant model. Markets are remarkably efficient: In the long run, they reward actual contribution, even though short-run market bubbles can divert excess capital to noncontributors. Over time, the marketplace will crush any model that does not produce real results. Its self-correcting mechanisms will ensure the brutal fairness on which our social stability rests.”

The same is true for salespeople who blow through clients. They may make a bunch of money quickly, but they aren’t building a sustainable revenue stream.

You may or may not realize it but your customers and prospects turn to you in part because they’re looking for an expert who can help them get what they want and need. They want you to be more than a sales rep. They want you to be a contributor.

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