A great question asked of me recently was, "what is your superpower?".
It was asked by the chairman of one of the companies I founded, and it wasn't asked from any "pump-your-tires" perspective, it was asked from the perspective that every business founder or leader has one particular skill or trait that they consciously or subconsciously rely on more than any others. I recall that when he asked me, that I couldn't give him a really good answer.
I thought perhaps it was my inventiveness, as I had a good record of solving problems by inventing products that others hadn’t thought of. I considered that perhaps it was my vision and my ability to connect the dots in my mind before others saw it – something I sometimes refer to as opportunity navigation. But as I reflected on those answers, I realized that others in my organizations contributed to the creative process and the companies’ navigation from start-up to sustainability and success, so I pondered a bit longer about my specific, unique superpower that contributed to the companies’ successes.
After considering the answers to some of the questions posed in the first blog in this series (Entrepreneurial Epiphanies: "How did you do that?), I could finally identify what I believe was (and hopefully still is) my superpower.
My superpower – the unique skill and ability that I was able to leverage for the benefit of the companies I was with – was my ability to identify a truly great customer before it was evident to anyone else. Call it a form of x-ray vision for catalyst opportunities.
All of us have critics, even when we are successful at what we do - and sometimes its our successes that draws the critics. My critics dismissed my successes in business as “lightning strikes”, explaining that “even a blind squirrel finds the occasional acorn”. But the truth is, lightning (the big, sustainable, 10- or 20-year, build-your-company-around-it sale) didn’t strike me once, it stuck multiple times. At last count, at least 6 times.
One way to interpret this might be to say that I was able to predict where lightning was likely to strike, and then position myself or my company there. That is partially true – which could be a skill or superpower in itself - but I believe it was also due to my ability to recognize a great potential customer before it was evident or obvious to anyone else.
One of my biggest “lightning strikes” was a small environmental company with a really big financial and technical challenge. What they needed, and in the time frame they needed it, seemed unrealistic, and because of their size and financial condition, they had difficulty attracting any established solution providers to even respond to their challenge. I looked at it differently and saw an opportunity to invest our company’s inventive talents to gain a foothold position in a high growth market and securing our future position through a true win-win collaboration with that small but promising customer. And the bet paid off, big time. Despite what internal company naysayers said and their initial firm resistance, thirty years later, that customer remains that company’s largest customer.
Another example of a similarly impactful “lightning strike” happened on the other side of the world. A company that had agreed to do a small evaluation of our system was floundering with our product. It wasn’t a big sale, and it wouldn’t have been difficult to refund their money, or to let them write it off as an experiment that didn’t work. But after two or three virtual meetings with their people, I was convinced that this was a very good company, with very good people, and helping them succeed with the product would result in success for us.
My company didn’t see the same value in an onsite visit that I did and thought the expenses (likely more than the initial sale), not to mention the time to travel there and back, weren’t worth it, stating that it was a sale we never should have made in the first place. I decided to take a ‘vacation’ and travel to Australia, offering my services to the customer if they paid only for my airfare. They did. The onsite visit resolved their primary problem (which was not technology or product related but related to gaining buy-in on the floor), and within 6 months, the customer deployed systems in 28 other plants, making it the company’s largest corporate customer. And it still is to this day.
These are just 2 examples, but there are others: in Virgina, in Mississauga, in Mexico. Some close to home, some half a world away. Some in automotive manufacturing, one in environmental technologies, one in packaging, one in professional sports. Right across the board, there’s only two things they all had in common: the first is that an inventive product solution was required (which my company was able to fill), and the second is that they were all exceptionally good potential customers for the company to have in my opinion, even though that wasn’t evident to anyone else at that time. The engineering department, others on the executive team, the board, and even major shareholders – they couldn’t see the true potential of that opportunity and that customer, and their directive was to let it go and move on.
To see the hidden, high potential opportunities was one thing, but it then also required determination, strength and stamina, to push through all the resistance, most of it internal. That was the difference in winning these critical major accounts, and that was (and hopefully still is) my superpower. Call it a kind of x-ray vision for catalyst sales opportunities. Not everyone it.
So, what’s your superpower? If you are a founder, an entrepreneur, a CEO, or a leader in your organization, you almost certainly have one, and its worth asking yourself what it is - because whatever it is, its likely what got you where you are now, and its likely what you’ll be relying on when push comes to shove, to get you where you want to go.
Postscript: For further thoughts on how I identified potential exceptional customers and opportunities that others didn’t notice, check out Finding the Easy Sales to Grow Your Manufacturing Business . It covers some of the things I consider key to discovering exceptional opportunities. Future blogs in this Entrepreneurial Epiphanies series will explore how to use your superpower to win, and how to find and build on catalyst sales. If you'd like help identifying your personal superpower or how to leverage it to build your business, reach out to me at paul@tpi-3.ca
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