You and I have a wonderful time communicating throughout the year, don’t we? We have a world-wide dialogue throughout each year, traversing the 
interface between sales and engineering. Depending on where we sit around our virtual table, we often see the same things differently.
Folks like you who read this blog, as well as my clients and colleagues, create an amazing learning forum for each other. There’s give-and-take when we exchange ideas. We agree – or agree to disagree – with each other. We compare and contrast our perspectives and our contexts. We collaborate through our willingness to participate in a dialogue which, most of the time, is a virtual one.
You have shared your stories with me, as I have shared mine. We have gotten to know each other pretty well in our journey together each year, haven’t we? In a sense, we never quite know where all of us will be, same time next year. There’s an excitement to that concept, because we know that we are not alone. We are together as a collaborative business community.
There’s a change brewing in business, sales and engineering, isn’t there? The dust of 2008 has certainly settled. We are all firmly ensconced in the digital millennium as a venue for conducting business. Business, engineering and technical professionals are exploring possibilities for nimble and agile business models based on entrepreneurship and lean startup methodology.
These changes in the business development paradigm are beginning to impact the concept of sales and selling. How and why and where you create a revenue stream for small and mid-sized businesses are crashing into a generation where being an entrepreneur and startup CEO are considered legitimate job descriptions, not a grand experiment (although it’s a bit of both, extremely fulfilling and great fun as well).
The bottom line is that there is a greater emphasis on the altruistic and intrinsic value that can be incorporated into the question “What do you do?” Many folks, like me, respond: “I’m trying to make a difference.”
As we round out this calendar year in a few weeks, and head into next year’s journey, together, I thank each one of you for your daily support and inspiration. I’m looking forward to continuing our global dialogue.
Together, we can and do make a difference.
Babette N. Ten Haken, President of Sales Aerobics for Engineers®, LLC, catalyzes business transition, startup growth, and professional development. She works with non-traditional sellers, engineers, manufacturers, and technical startups.
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