Pay Attention to What Lasts

There is deafening silence where there was a cacophony of shrill voices shouting down cold calling and singing the praises of what they called “social selling.”

Notice that no one serious about helping people improve their sales results is willing to remove the phone as a medium anymore. Even those who were very late to the party have given up the ghost. At the very worst, they hedge, suggesting that the phone works, but that you should also consider using the social tools—even though the main tools once praised are no longer mentioned (like Twitter, Facebook, and the odd idea that Snapchat would somehow be a significant B2B play). Social selling is down to LinkedIn, and that is turning out to be a mess (and exactly the opposite of what “social selling” suggested).

Have you recognized how little and how uncommon it is to now see the words “social selling” on social posts, where it was once part of every second or third post? The two words, “social” and “selling” are almost never seen together anymore, apparently having lost their mojo over the last couple of years. Like all fashions, over time, they are displaced by a newer fashion, while the core fundamentals go from season to season, never going out of style.

Content Marketing, however, is still having a very good run of things.

The reason this deserves your attention now is because the best way to make decision about the future is to look to the past. Things that stand the test of time only do so because they continue to be valuable.

Honesty and integrity are never going to go out of fashion. If you are going to build a reputation and a career, your character is the foundation on which you erect that structure.

The advice that makes one a trusted advisor is so fundamental and so critical to creating a preference to work with you that it’s as old as any story humans tell, even before stories of the Oracles the Greeks relied upon when making life and death decisions.

Relationships and caring are always going to over-index when it comes to producing results through and with other human beings. If you read history, you are going to find a record of relationships, as will you were you to pick up any biography (which are only written about those who lived lives worth such an accounting).

If you want success, pay attention to what lasts and not what’s now. A lot of what you see that looks like something substantial lacks the foundation to stand the test of time.