I’ve been thinking about the past a great deal recently. This has been a result of spending time in hospital with my Mum who has been in very poor health and suffering from long-term delirium. If you haven’t heard of this cruel condition before it is something which disrupts brain activity. Essentially what is unreal becomes real for that person. Delusions, hallucinations and a belief that those who have long since departed this world are still here and alive.

Such situations not only cause us to reflect on our own mortality but also what the future may hold for each of us based on the lessons from the past. Many of the colleagues who I joined when I started work back in the late eighties are either now retired or approaching retirement – I find that astonishing! Time has a habit of creeping up behind you, slapping you on the head and then accelerating past, doesn’t it?

When I think about some of these good people, I reflect on what made them, in certain cases, become my role models. Was it what they had – the car they drove, the commission they earned or the watch they wore? No, it wasn’t any of those things but rather their conviction that as a professional salesperson, their role was to serve their customers. That customer-centricity was what made them successful and highly valued. Not only did they believe in working for the betterment of their customers, but more importantly lived it out every single day and now in later life, they are reaping the long-term benefits of having had the right focus during their careers. I do hope they would see some of themselves in me.

However, I’m slightly concerned that in 2024 we have all become a little too obsessed by self-promotion, what is happening within our organisations and as strange as it may sound, have started to defocus on our customers. My LinkedIn newsfeed is regularly inundated with pictures of company events folks have attended and self-congratulatory messages of having achieved this or that. Don’t get me wrong I’m not being critical, but have we got the balance right? Where are our stories and acknowledgements of what our customers have achieved - even better our customer’s stories of how we have helped them ?

Is the work you are undertaking for your customers now, creating a dividend you can realise in ten, twenty, thirty years time or are you solely concerned with what you get out of the job you do in the here and now?

I hope it doesn’t sound overly altruistic or self-indulgent when I say that the greatest satisfaction I receive is when I see the folks who I work with, coach and mentor take their performance to higher levels. I see their success as mine.

Just a few days ago, in an all too fleeting moment of lucidity, my Mum looked at me and said you’re a good boy – you’ve taken care of me. Precious words indeed.

What will your customers say about you when at some point in the future they reflect on their relationship with you and what you did for them?