I love the term ‘Evangelist’. I have tremendous respect for the folks who carry a business card that reads ‘Technology Evangelist’. For the last 15 years or so, I have been living an evangelist life and enjoy every bit of that.
How are evangelists different from other folks who sell and market stuff? Well, first of all, evangelists have bundles of conviction in what they believe in. They don’t hesitate or get tired of driving the point across. They do this with a lot of élan and elegance. They fight for a cause and don’t focus on tactical, short term, transactional ‘deal’ that they can close. Evangelists influence the people around them without sounding arrogant or selfish. They instantly gain the respect of the folks around them and lead the monotonous conversation into an interesting dialogue. They set the bar high for themselves and typically don’t live within the boundaries that are defined by mundane job descriptions and routine success metrics. Evangelists always use the term ‘we’ and ‘us’ instead of ‘I’.
For an evangelist, the world is the customer. Once when I was traveling in a train, I demonstrated the accessibility features of Windows XP to a person sitting next to me who had difficulties with his vision. The spark that I saw in his eyes when he found that he can do his job more efficiently and quickly was the biggest motivation for me. I enjoyed the applause that I got when I showed how to build a data-driven website on ASP.NET in 10 min. to a bunch of students. I enthusiastically demonstrate the capabilities of Multi-Touch trackpad of my shiny new Apple MacBook Pro. I proudly show off what magic a Media Center PC can bring to your home theater and living room. I believe in just one religion and it is called Technology!
Here are some words that are typically associated1 with the traditional sales folks and passionate evangelists:
| Concept | Traditional Sales | Evangelism |
| Motivation | Make money | Make history |
| Philosophy | Sell to | Convert |
| Method | Impose | Expose |
| Goal | Quota | Change the world |
| Motivation | Make money | Make history |
| 10% | Commission | Tithing |
| When | 8AM – 5PM | Anytime |
| Where | Clubhouse | Anywhere |
Once you are an evangelist, you are evangelist for life. It’s very hard to separate the evangelism DNA once the strains are found within you.
Are you an Evangelist? Here is a checklist 2 that you can use to ask yourself :
1) Do you have a desire to make a difference?
2) Do you fearlessly believe in a cause?
3) Do you work for a cause for the intrinsic satisfaction that it brings?
4) Do you give up other things to make a commitment?
5) Do you enjoy fighting the mediocre, the mundane and the status quo?
6) Do you get accused of being driven, showing chutzpah, or having more guts than brains?
7) Does your spouse threaten to leave you?
Did you ever meet a passionate evangelist who made a difference to you? Please do share your stories.
1. & 2. are taken from my favorite book on evangelism, Selling the Dream by Guy Kawasaki
As a Cloud Computing Strategist, Janakiram MSV helps businesses understand and adopt the Cloud Computing paradigm. His core strength is designing and architecting solutions for the Cloud. Janakiram focuses on industry's leading Cloud Computing offerings including Microsoft Windows Azure.
