Everyone knows the power of a great story as a tool of influence – but there is something even more powerful …

In his book Pick A Fight, my friend David Burkus explores how great teams find a purpose worth rallying around – the secret is to engage them in a quest. People don’t want to join or buy from a company – they want to join crusade. 

There are really only a few main types of crusades – rescue the helpless, right an injustice, make something or someone’s situation better or fight for survival.

Your team need to know what the crusade is that they are fighting for on behalf of your customers, and your customers need to know the quest they are on that you are on a crusade to help them with.

This is a fundamental shift of positioning. Many companies want to be the hero to the customer. But what if you make the customer the hero in their own quest and you become the source of sage advice, wisdom and strength in that crusade.

How powerful is it when the client knows that as they climb their mountain you’ll be there, equipping them along the way?

Everything shifts when that happens.

How are you positioning with your clients right now, as their hero, or as the provider of sage advice to them as they go on their crusade as their own hero?