A short transcript of Simon Sinek explaining that interpersonal interactions—whether a date or a sales call—are fundamentally similar. Using a hypothetical character (Mike), Sinek shows that leading with self-promotion (wealth, fame, success) fails to create connection and is a poor strategy both in dating and in sales.
Chapters
For me, interacting in a relationship, whether it's a sales relationship or going on a date, it's all the same thing. So what's the difference between a sales call and a date? Right. You're sitting across from somebody and hoping to close the deal, right?
Yes. I mean, you know, how have you defined deal?
Right? And so think about. So.
Let'S take a hypothetical character. We'll call him Mike, right?
And let's send Mike on a date right now. Mike. We set Mike up. His friends set him up. And the way they sort of pitched the girl to him, they said, you're gonna love her. Like, she's gorgeous and she's super rich and she's super famous. You're gonna love her, right? And you're like, I'm in. Right. So we send Mike on his date and he sits down across the table and this is how the date goes.
I'm really successful. I'm like, I've done really well and I've got a great, beautiful house. You really should come by sometime. And you know, I'm good looking, which is great because I go on TV all the time and I know a lot of famous people, you know. Now the question is, is Mike going to get a second date? Right. Yeah. And it's so obvious that that's not a good way to go on a date. Now let's pretend it's a sales call. You know, we're the largest company in the market.
We've got amazing offices. You really should come by sometime. You've probably seen our TV commercials, you know, very, very successful company. So if we know inherently, instinctively that that date was appalling, why would you think that's a good sales call? Yeah. Right.
Now let's send Mike out again. Except this time, Mike's going to start with why, Right? He sits down, he goes, I gotta tell you, I just got here from work. I mean, I love, I love my job. I get to wake up every single day to inspire people to do the things that inspire them. That's my work. Like, could you think of anything more fulfilling? And here's the craziest part. Like, I made a bunch of money because of it, and I got a big house because of it. You should come by sometime. And I got to meet, like a whole bunch of famous people. It's just been an amazing journey. Profoundly different. Yeah, all the stuff is still there, but profoundly different, simply because you started with why? Why? And the joke is, is you were both of you, both you and the person you sat on a date with were both told about the stuff when you agreed to go on the date. Like, somebody said, you shouldn't meet with this company. You know, they're really big in the market, you should. And people say, sure, I'll take the meeting. But that's not what makes people want to connect with you and do business with you. And so there's multiple ways to have a good sales meeting. When you start with why, number one, you could talk about yourself. You say, I love this company. Let me tell you a specific story that happened to me, why I love this company, right? So people resonate. When you have passion for the thing you love, you can say the company's why, right? So let me tell you what we stand for, which quite frankly, is a great way to get out of bed in the morning, like to work for a company that cares about that before everything else. Let me tell you. Pretty inspiring, right? And you can tell even if you don't have the words, even if the company hasn't properly articulated the why, or you don't actually know your why. You can tell a story. You can tell me. Let me tell you this one time, when to exemplify it, to capture the love, the emotion, and then all the stuff can come out afterwards. But the people who will fall in love with doing business with you, they believe what you believe. That's why they want to do business with you, and it's why they're loyal to you. You're always going to attract people who do business with you because you happen to show up at the right time, you happen to be the right price. You happen to have this. That's the commodity stuff. Those people are not loyal, right? They're just. They're just looking for the lowest common denominator. Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don't. What makes companies great are the loyal ones. And the loyal ones, it's always based on the relationship with the people and with the.
