I’d finish introducing myself, I’d explained what Acumen did—mission, vision, strategy, successes.
The person across from me is focused, intense, and attentive. He nods. He looks me straight in the eye, and says, “That’s great. So tell me, what are the three things you do better than anyone, the three things you do best?”
What a great question.
Not “what do you do?” or “what do you do well?” Not “what motivates you” or “what keeps you up at night?”
Cut through it all and tell me what your organization does better than any other.
You can imagine telescoping this question to multiple levels: your entire organization, your team, your freelance offering, you as a professional.
What are the three things you do best?
You need to know this if you’re going to write a mission statement, or a website, or an annual report.
You need to know it if you’re drafting your budget for next year or your five-year plan.
You can even imagine structuring an open 360 team review this way: get your team together, ask each person to describe what they think are the three things they do best, and ask each other member of the team to answer that question about everyone else, discuss.
On whatever level you choose to answer, it’s a cut-through-the-fat way to explain who you are, what you do, where you shine, and, most important of all, the promises you always keep.
What are the three things you do best?
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Note: one of the three things I do NOT do best (or at all) is figuring out how/whether to migrate my Feedblitz RSS feed to Feedburner, and simultaneously deciding if it’s high time to migrate this blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. If you (or someone you know) does either of these things best, could you email me to let me know? I could use some unbiased advice, especially since FeedBlitz has taken down its migration guide.
This changes the game from the 10-year old questions that many of us keep asking as you stated i.e. “what keeps you up at night” and anyone who can’t answer this needs to reevaluate their position. From a sales perspective, the ability to clearly articulate this answer to your current or prospective customers can also help to maintain the value of your product/services offering.
I couldn’t agree more, Cornelius. And I’ve also found that things that keep me up at night rarely get solved better in the morning thanks to my sleeplessness…!