DUTY: The Wednesday Word of The Week #WednesdayWisdom

Hey remember last week’s word? Well, this week’s Wednesday Word is duty.

Duty (noun)

a moral or legal obligation; a responsibility.
a task or action that someone is required to perform.

It’s very important that we understand what words are all about.

What about if you’re a police officer? You are on duty or you are off duty. If you’re on shift are you on duty or off duty? Right?

Duty is a free form assignment of responsibility

So in these definitions of duty we’ve already seen two familiar words pop up in here. Responsibility and obligation.

Let’s use this word duty to just sort of bring this all home.

Etymology; the history of words and where they came from gives a lot of insight into the hidden meanings and why they’re so valuable.

Late Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French duete, from Old French deu (see due).

Now, if you’re in sales, which is where I want to take this. We’re looking at success as a duty, an obligation and a responsibility. If that’s the case what are the duties you have? Let’s just take this and look at the sales cycle…

Everything is your duty!

Looking at the sales cycle:

The Greeting. When you greet a customer whether that’s on the phone, face to face or on the internet okay you have a duty to deliver a very, very specific experience. One that’s gonna make them want to engage with you, one’s gonna want to make them call you back if you’re leaving a message and one that it’s gonna make them want to engage and move the process along.

You have a duty to give the best possible greeting you can

Fact Finding. If you are in the investigative stage and you’re doing some fact-finding then it’s your duty to do it with poise and ask questions and not just be interesting but legitimately be interested in them.

The Presentation. If you’re presenting the product you, have a duty to do a kick-ass presentation of that product

Proposal Stage. And if you’re gonna bring them inside to have a look at numbers you have a duty to do it in a way that they’re comfortable and they’re excited about seeing what it’s gonna take to bring the car home.

Closing. When you’re closing a deal you have a duty to close the deal why because if you don’t close what was the point, right??? You didn’t help them at all if they didn’t take the car home. You didn’t serve them fully.

What is your duty?

What are the regular things that we need to do every single day? Make a list of all the steps that you do at wrk each day.

Greet somebody, figure out what’s important to them, help them select a product, present the product, drive the product, bring them inside to look at figures close the deal, follow it up, find customers… These are all duties that you have.

How are you gonna execute your duties?

Are you going to do it a little bit or are you going to play full-out? You know which one is the right thing to do. Put your whole heart and soul into it. I mean really, how are you gonna do it? Because at the end of the day you when you look back, that’s that. It’s gone and it’s the only day you had.

So when you go to sleep at night, when you put your head on the pillow, did you execute your duties to the best of your ability?