Today’s post is brought to you by Tracie Orisko, President, Managed Sales Pros.
This week, I’m on-site at the Ingram Micro Trust X Alliance event in Colorado Springs.
To commemorate their 20th anniversary, Ingram Micro’s Trust X Alliance is celebrating with hundreds of their members, and announcing new offerings, changes in leadership and plans for helping Trust X Alliance partners grow their businesses.
Trust X Alliance consists of over 350 of the world’s most successful technology resellers. (Many of them we are proud to call our clients!) Peer to peer engagement, combined with the support of Ingram Micro, creates an ecosystem of partners globally and locally that drive best practices and increase profitability for members.
The words I came away from today’s event with were “purpose” and “commitment”.
The market is changing, and resellers are striving to keep up. The purpose – the reason your business exists – is evolving, and resellers need to be prepared to redefine their companies. Technology buyers are changing, the way they buy is changing, and what they buy is going to change as well. If you haven’t revisited your purpose (or your “why” or your “core values” or your “rocks”) in a while, it may be time to spend some time exploring why you’re doing what you’re doing.
Purpose is why you do what you do. Purpose is the reason you get out of bed every day.
Purpose is what drives you. Or what drives a group of people towards defined, agreed upon goals.
Commitment is a series of actions. It’s not one thing. It’s not a group of things. It’s repeated attempts, moving forward no matter what, and renewed effort after failures or unwelcome changes. Commitment includes making incremental and sometimes even imperceptible steps towards improvement. Commitment is a habit. Commitment is the thing you rely on to help you achieve your purpose.
Without a purpose, you won’t find anything that is worth committing to. Without commitment, you can’t honor your purpose. You’ll need both pieces of the puzzle to survive and thrive in the changing technology reseller ecosystem. If you haven’t reviewed either in a while, may I invite you to spend some time in contemplation this week?
In sessions today, Trust X Alliance revealed their new core values:
Integrity. Innovation. Accountability.
That’s their purpose. That’s who they want to be.
They also outlined their new vision for their partner network:
Grow together.
That’s their commitment. That’s what they’re going to do.
How about you? What’s your purpose? Who do you want to be?
What’s your commitment? What are you willing to do to achieve your purpose?
Think about it. Share your answers with your peers, your friends, your partner – and me, if you wish!
One more thing — I’d like to give a huge shout out to Ingram Micro Trust X Alliance for their incredible speaker line up today. A full 85% of the speakers today were women. Well done. It’s exciting to see this at a technology event. As a female executive, I’d like to participate in a lot more events like this. Thanks for staying true to your new core values, Ingram Micro!!!