The Hidden Pitfalls of Persuasive Leadership
Persuasion is often seen as a hallmark of strong leadership. Leaders are encouraged to communicate compelling visions, rally their teams, and convince others to move in a certain direction. While persuasion certainly has its place, relying on it too heavily can create unintended consequences within a team.
When leaders consistently depend on persuasion, they may unknowingly weaken trust. Team members can begin to feel that decisions are being “sold” to them rather than openly discussed. Even when the leader’s intentions are positive, constant persuasion can make people question whether they are hearing the full picture or simply the most convincing version of it. Over time, that perception can erode confidence in leadership.
Engagement can also suffer when persuasion becomes the primary leadership tool. If leaders are always presenting the answer and persuading others to accept it, team members may stop offering their own ideas. Instead of contributing perspectives or solutions, they begin waiting to hear what the leader has already decided. What once looked like alignment can quietly turn into passive compliance.
Speed is another area where persuasion can slow progress. Persuasion often requires repeated conversations, explanations, and reinforcement to bring everyone along. Leaders may spend significant time convincing people rather than empowering them to act. When teams feel ownership over decisions, they move faster. When they feel like they must be convinced, progress tends to stall.
The alternative isn’t abandoning persuasion altogether—it’s shifting the focus toward service and influence. Leaders who view their role as serving their team approach decisions differently. They seek input earlier, communicate transparently, and invite people to think through challenges together. This approach builds trust because team members feel respected rather than managed.
Influence grows naturally in environments where leaders consistently add value to their teams. When leaders provide clarity, remove obstacles, and help people succeed, their voice carries weight without needing to persuade constantly. Team members listen because they trust the leader’s intentions and experience, not because they were convinced in the moment.
Influence also strengthens engagement. When people feel their perspectives matter and their contributions shape outcomes, they become more invested in the work. Ownership increases, collaboration improves, and the team moves forward with shared purpose rather than reluctant agreement.
Great leadership is less about persuading people to follow and more about creating conditions where people want to. Leaders who serve their teams, invest in trust, and build genuine influence create environments where engagement grows and decisions move faster.
Persuasion may win the moment, but influence built on service wins the long game.
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the magnetic force that attracts top performers and your best customers?
I’m Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, sales trainer, and author—and I help organizations unlock the power of influence to achieve breakthrough results.
In this blog, I reveal why influence is the ultimate currency in business and leadership—and how you can use it to:✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal and buy again✅ Build trust and engagement with your team✅ Transform your leadership approach to inspire stronger performance
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how leaders earn loyalty, I equip sales professionals and executives to deliver lasting value, strengthen customer relationships, and drive higher revenue.
👉 Featured Resources to Grow Your Influence:
· Email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
· The Sales Process Uncovered Membership
· The Sales Process Uncovered (Book on Amazon)
If you’re serious about elevating your sales process, leadership impact, and team performance, this blog will show you the path.
Communicating Effectively: Why the “Keep It Simple” Method Works
Communication is one of the most overlooked leadership skills in business. Many problems that appear to be performance issues are actually communication issues. Expectations weren’t clear, priorities were misunderstood, or directions were overly complicated. Strong leaders understand that clarity drives execution, and one of the most effective ways to create clarity is by keeping communication simple.
The “Keep It Simple” method is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of overwhelming team members with excessive details, jargon, or long explanations, effective leaders focus on the essential message. What needs to be done? Why does it matter? What does success look like? When communication is simple and direct, teams spend less time interpreting instructions and more time executing them.
Simplicity also helps prevent micromanagement. Leaders who communicate clearly upfront reduce the need to constantly check every step of the process. When expectations are defined and understood, team members can operate with confidence and autonomy. Micromanagement often grows out of unclear direction, but when people know the goal and the boundaries, they are far more capable of delivering results without constant oversight. Remember that last part if you believe you have to constantly micromanage / check in with your teams.
Respect is another critical component of effective communication. Leaders who degrade, belittle, or embarrass team members may think they are enforcing standards, but they are actually eroding trust. Once respect is lost, communication shuts down. People stop asking questions, stop sharing concerns, and start protecting themselves instead of focusing on performance. Constructive feedback can be direct and honest without being disrespectful. Leaders who treat their teams with dignity create an environment where communication stays open and productive.
One of the simplest and most powerful ways to ensure clear communication is asking team members to repeat back what they understood from the conversation. This practice isn’t about testing someone’s attention to your words, it’s about confirming alignment. When a team member explains the takeaway in their own words, it quickly reveals whether the message was clear or if something needs to be clarified.
This small step prevents misunderstandings before they become problems. Instead of discovering misalignment days or weeks later, leaders can correct it immediately. It also reinforces accountability because the team member is actively confirming their understanding of the expectations.
Effective communication doesn’t require complicated frameworks or long meetings. It requires clarity, respect, and confirmation. Keep the message simple. Avoid micromanaging. Speak to people with professionalism. And make sure understanding is shared, not assumed.
Because when communication is clear, teams move faster, mistakes decrease, and leaders spend less time fixing problems and more time moving the organization forward.
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the magnetic force that attracts top performers and your best customers?
I’m Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, sales trainer, and author—and I help organizations unlock the power of influence to achieve breakthrough results.
In this blog, I reveal why influence is the ultimate currency in business and leadership—and how you can use it to:✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal and buy again✅ Build trust and engagement with your team✅ Transform your leadership approach to inspire stronger performance
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how leaders earn loyalty, I equip sales professionals and executives to deliver lasting value, strengthen customer relationships, and drive higher revenue.
👉 Featured Resources to Grow Your Influence:
· Email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
· The Sales Process Uncovered Membership
· The Sales Process Uncovered (Book on Amazon)
If you’re serious about elevating your sales process, leadership impact, and team performance, this blog will show you the path.
Resilient Leadership: Guiding Teams Through Constant Change
If there’s one constant in business today and it’s change. Markets shift faster than ever, technology evolves overnight, and customer expectations continue to rise. Leaders who thrive aren’t the ones who avoid change, they’re the ones who help their teams navigate it with confidence and resilience.
Look across industries and the evidence is clear. Healthcare organizations are adapting to new regulations, technologies, and patient expectations. Manufacturing companies are adjusting supply chains and automation strategies. Financial institutions are responding to digital banking and cybersecurity demands. Retail businesses are balancing e-commerce growth with in-person experiences. Construction and housing markets shift with economic cycles and labor shortages. Technology companies face relentless innovation pressure while education systems adapt to new learning models and workforce demands.
No matter the industry, the message is the same: change isn’t occasional anymore, it’s continuously happening and faster than ever before.
In times of change, resilient leadership starts with transparency. When uncertainty rises, silence from leadership often creates more anxiety than the change itself with team members. Teams begin to speculate, rumors spread, and productivity suffers. Strong leaders communicate openly about what is happening, what is known, and what is still being evaluated. Transparency doesn’t mean having every answer; it means being honest about the situation and committed to working through it together.
Transparency also builds trust. When leaders share context behind decisions, team members feel respected and included rather than controlled. People are far more likely to support decisions when they understand the reasoning behind them. Even difficult news can strengthen a team if it’s communicated with clarity and integrity.
Another powerful tool resilient leaders use is inviting ownership from their teams. Instead of making every decision in isolation, strong leaders create opportunities for people to think like leaders themselves. One of the most effective questions a leader can ask during challenging decisions is simple: “What would you do if you were the owner?” And not in a condescending way.
That question changes the conversation immediately. Instead of focusing only on individual responsibilities, team members begin considering the broader impact of decisions, customers, financial performance, long-term strategy, and the health of the organization. It encourages critical thinking, accountability, and perspective.
When employees begin evaluating situations from an ownership mindset, the entire culture shifts. Conversations become more constructive. Solutions become more thoughtful. Teams start looking for ways to strengthen the organization instead of simply protecting their role within it.
Resilient leadership isn’t about controlling change, it’s about guiding people through it. Leaders who communicate with transparency, invite perspective, and encourage ownership build teams that are capable of adapting, learning, and growing in any environment.
Because while change may be constant, a resilient team that is led well can turn that capitalize on more opportunities.
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the magnetic force that attracts top performers and your best customers?
I’m Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, sales trainer, and author—and I help organizations unlock the power of influence to achieve breakthrough results.
In this blog, I reveal why influence is the ultimate currency in business and leadership—and how you can use it to:
✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal and buy again
✅ Build trust and engagement with your team
✅ Transform your leadership approach to inspire stronger performance
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how leaders earn loyalty, I equip sales professionals and executives to deliver lasting value, strengthen customer relationships, and drive higher revenue.
👉 Featured Resources to Grow Your Influence:
· Email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
· The Sales Process Uncovered Membership
· The Sales Process Uncovered (Book on Amazon)
If you’re serious about elevating your sales process, leadership impact, and team performance, this blog will show you the path.
Leading Through Change: How Sales Leaders Adapt and Win
Change is not an interruption in sales, it’s the environment. Markets shift. Buyers evolve. Products expand. Competition tightens. The question isn’t whether change will happen. The question is whether leaders will respond with clarity or chaos.
Sales teams take their emotional cues from leadership. When change hits and leaders panic, teams tighten up. When leaders project steadiness and confidence, teams lean in. Thriving through change starts with influence. The leaders who win aren’t the ones who control every variable, they’re the ones who influence how their teams respond to uncertainty.
The first step in leading through change is acknowledging reality without amplifying fear. Sales professionals don’t need sugarcoating, but they do need stability. Strong leaders communicate clearly about what is changing, what is not changing, and what actions need to be taken. Clarity reduces anxiety. Vagueness fuels it. When expectations are defined, teams can focus on execution instead of speculation.
Adaptability also requires reinforcing process over emotion. In uncertain times, salespeople may feel pressure to abandon discipline and chase quick wins. Effective leaders pull their teams back to fundamentals, consistent prospecting, structured discovery, thoughtful follow-up, and accurate pipeline management. A strong process becomes an anchor when everything else feels unsettled.
Confidence during change doesn’t mean pretending to have every answer. It means modeling resilience. When leaders openly evaluate what’s working and what isn’t, adjust strategy thoughtfully, and maintain accountability, they demonstrate strength. Teams don’t expect perfection, but they do expect direction. Even incremental progress builds momentum.
Influence plays a critical role here. Leaders who have already built trust find that their teams are more willing to embrace change. When people believe their leader has their best interest in mind, they are far more open to new systems, new expectations, or new goals. Change becomes an opportunity to improve rather than a threat to survive.
Finally, thriving through change requires reframing the narrative. Instead of asking, “How do we survive this?” strong leaders ask, “How do we position ourselves to win because of this?” Every shift in the market creates opportunity for those willing to adapt faster than the competition. Sales teams that embrace change instead of resisting it often gain ground while others hesitate.
Change is constant. Leadership determines the outcome. Sales leaders who communicate clearly, reinforce disciplined process, model resilience, and influence their teams with confidence don’t just endure uncertainty, they use it as a competitive advantage.
Because in sales, the teams that adapt the fastest are often the ones that win the biggest.
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the magnetic force that attracts top performers and your best customers?
I’m Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, sales trainer, and author—and I help organizations unlock the power of influence to achieve breakthrough results.
In this blog, I reveal why influence is the ultimate currency in business and leadership—and how you can use it to:✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal and buy again✅ Build trust and engagement with your team✅ Transform your leadership approach to inspire stronger performance
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how leaders earn loyalty, I equip sales professionals and executives to deliver lasting value, strengthen customer relationships, and drive higher revenue.
👉 Featured Resources to Grow Your Influence:
· Email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
· The Sales Process Uncovered Membership
· The Sales Process Uncovered (Book on Amazon)
If you’re serious about elevating your sales process, leadership impact, and team performance, this blog will show you the path.
Coaching vs. Dictating: What Real Sales Leaders Do
There’s a clear difference between someone who manages a sales team and someone who leads one. Dictators bark orders. Leaders coach. One creates compliance. The other builds capability.
Dictating feels efficient in the moment. A leader sees a problem, gives an instruction, and expects it to be executed. “Make more calls.” “Push harder.” “Close the deal.” It’s direct, it’s fast, and it may even create short-term activity. But over time, dictating weakens a team. Reps become dependent on direction instead of developing judgment. They wait to be told what to do instead of thinking critically about how to improve.
Coaching, on the other hand, requires more intention, but produces far greater results. Coaching doesn’t immediately hand over answers. It asks questions. It explores gaps. It helps sales professionals understand why something worked or didn’t. Instead of saying, “Here’s what you did wrong,” a coach might ask, “What do you think caused the deal to stall?” That shift builds awareness. Awareness builds growth.
Dictators focus on outcomes only. Coaches focus on behaviors that drive outcomes. A dictator reacts to missed numbers with pressure. A coach examines the activity, the conversations, and the preparation behind the numbers. They break performance down into skills that can be practiced and improved. Coaching transforms mistakes into learning opportunities rather than moments of fear.
The emotional impact is different too. Dictating often creates tension. Reps may comply publicly while disengaging privately. Coaching builds trust. When salespeople feel supported instead of scrutinized, they become more open about challenges. They share pipeline concerns earlier. They ask for feedback before deals collapse. That transparency accelerates performance.
Real sales leaders understand that their role isn’t to be the smartest person in the room, it’s to develop more smart people in the room. Coaching multiplies leadership because it equips others to think, adapt, and execute independently. It builds confidence. It strengthens resilience. It creates long-term performers instead of short-term responders.
Dictators bark orders and hope for results. Leaders coach and build them.
If you want a team that wins consistently, stop managing activity and start developing ability. Coaching takes more effort up front, but it produces something dictating never will: a sales team capable of winning without being told every step to take.
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the magnetic force that attracts top performers and your best customers?
I’m Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, sales trainer, and author—and I help organizations unlock the power of influence to achieve breakthrough results.
In this blog, I reveal why influence is the ultimate currency in business and leadership—and how you can use it to:✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal and buy again✅ Build trust and engagement with your team✅ Transform your leadership approach to inspire stronger performance
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how leaders earn loyalty, I equip sales professionals and executives to deliver lasting value, strengthen customer relationships, and drive higher revenue.
👉 Featured Resources to Grow Your Influence:
· Email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
· The Sales Process Uncovered Membership
· The Sales Process Uncovered (Book on Amazon)
If you’re serious about elevating your sales process, leadership impact, and team performance, this blog will show you the path.
Building a Sales Culture That Wins Every Time
You can have the best sales strategy on paper and still miss your numbers. Why? Because culture eats strategy for breakfast.
Strategy outlines what to do. Culture determines whether it actually gets done. If your sales culture is built on pressure, inconsistency, or internal competition, even the strongest plans will fail. But when culture is rooted in trust, accountability, and performance, execution becomes natural with greater results.
Trust is the foundation of any winning sales culture. Without it, salespeople protect themselves instead of pushing forward. They hide weak pipelines, avoid tough conversations, and operate in silos. In a high-trust environment, the opposite happens. Reps speak honestly about challenges. They ask for help earlier. They collaborate instead of compete internally. Trust removes friction, and friction is the silent killer of sales momentum.
Accountability is what turns trust into performance. A healthy culture doesn’t avoid standards, it embraces them. Accountability means clear expectations, consistent follow-through, and measurable behaviors. It’s not about punishment; it’s about ownership. When every team member understands what winning looks like and takes responsibility for their role in it, performance stops being accidental. It becomes predictable.
Performance-driven cultures also focus on the right activities, not just the right outcomes. Revenue is the scoreboard, but behavior is what drives it. Strong sales cultures reinforce disciplined prospecting, structured discovery conversations, consistent follow-up, and continuous skill development. When leaders coach to behaviors instead of obsessing over numbers alone, they build sustainability instead of short bursts of production.
Leadership sets the tone for everything. Sales leaders who model transparency, preparation, resilience, and professionalism create permission for others to do the same. Culture is not what you announce in a meeting, it’s what you tolerate and what you reinforce daily. If excellence is expected but mediocrity is ignored, culture weakens. If standards are clear and consistently upheld, culture strengthens.
Building a sales culture that wins every time doesn’t mean you never lose a deal. It means your team responds the right way when you do. They learn, adjust, and move forward without blame or drama. Winning cultures are resilient. They focus on progress, not panic.
At the end of the day, strategy may point the direction, but culture fuels the journey. When trust is strong, accountability is embraced, and performance standards are clear, results aren’t forced, they’re produced consistently. And that’s the kind of culture that wins, year after year.
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the magnetic force that attracts top performers and your best customers?
I’m Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, sales trainer, and author—and I help organizations unlock the power of influence to achieve breakthrough results.
In this blog, I reveal why influence is the ultimate currency in business and leadership—and how you can use it to:✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal and buy again✅ Build trust and engagement with your team✅ Transform your leadership approach to inspire stronger performance
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how leaders earn loyalty, I equip sales professionals and executives to deliver lasting value, strengthen customer relationships, and drive higher revenue.
👉 Featured Resources to Grow Your Influence:
· Email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
· The Sales Process Uncovered Membership
· The Sales Process Uncovered (Book on Amazon)
If you’re serious about elevating your sales process, leadership impact, and team performance, this blog will show you the path.
Motivate Sales Teams Without Money
Sales leadership isn’t about managing numbers, it’s about influencing people. Metrics matter, forecasts matter, but neither moves unless your team chooses to be engaged. Influence is the multiplier. Without it, leadership becomes pressure. With it, performance becomes momentum.
Building influence with team members starts long before quota conversations. It begins with consistency. Sales professionals watch their leaders closely. They notice whether commitments are kept, whether communication is clear, and whether expectations shift without warning. When leaders are steady, predictable, and transparent, trust forms. And trust is the foundation of influence.
Many organizations attempt to motivate through compensation alone. Bonuses, contests, and incentives absolutely have their place, but motivation goes deeper than money. Bonuses can spark short-term effort. Influence creates long-term commitment. When a sales leader relies solely on financial rewards, they may drive activity, but they rarely inspire ownership and engagement when times get tough.
Recognition is one of the most overlooked influence strategies in sales leadership. Not generic praise, but specific, earned acknowledgment. When leaders call out disciplined preparation, thoughtful discovery questions, improved follow-up, or resilience after a lost deal, they reinforce behaviors that lead to sustainable success. Recognition tells your team, “I see you. I value how you show up.” That message builds loyalty in a way a temporary incentive never will.
Clarity is another powerful driver of influence. Sales teams become frustrated when expectations are vague or constantly changing. Strong leaders provide clear processes, defined standards, and measurable outcomes. When reps understand what winning looks like and how to achieve it, confidence increases. And confident salespeople perform at a higher level. Clarity reduces anxiety and replaces it with direction.
Trust ties everything together. Influence grows when team members believe their leader genuinely wants them to succeed and not just hit numbers. Trust is built in everyday conversations, in one-on-one check-ins, in how leaders respond to mistakes, and in whether they protect or expose their team under pressure. When trust is present, coaching is received differently. Accountability feels supportive instead of punitive.
Sales leaders who master influence understand this truth: people give their best effort when they feel recognized, clear on direction, and confident their leader has their back. Motivation that rests solely on bonuses will always require constant external pressure. Motivation built on recognition, clarity, and trust sustains itself.
Influence isn’t loud. It doesn’t demand attention. It earns it every single day. And sales leaders who commit to building real influence don’t just drive results,they build teams that win together.
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the magnetic force that attracts top performers and your best customers?
I’m Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, sales trainer, and author—and I help organizations unlock the power of influence to achieve breakthrough results.
In this blog, I reveal why influence is the ultimate currency in business and leadership—and how you can use it to:✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal and buy again✅ Build trust and engagement with your team✅ Transform your leadership approach to inspire stronger performance
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how leaders earn loyalty, I equip sales professionals and executives to deliver lasting value, strengthen customer relationships, and drive higher revenue.
👉 Featured Resources to Grow Your Influence:
· Email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
· The Sales Process Uncovered Membership
· The Sales Process Uncovered (Book on Amazon)
If you’re serious about elevating your sales process, leadership impact, and team performance, this blog will show you the path.
Leading Without Authority: How to Influence Any Team
Leadership doesn’t require a title. Some of the most influential people in organizations have no formal authority at all, yet their ideas move forward, their voices are heard, and others willingly follow their lead. True leadership shows up in behavior, not position, and influence is the currency that makes it work.
I’ve had “leaders” in my career that would show up every once in a while and then spit out a direction and were not heard again until one day they would swoop in with another direction. They just expected that the teams would follow the direction and that everything would work its way out. Some would also set up Saturday morning meetings because they had another great idea, or direction for the team. They actually thought the team members wanted to follow them just because they were the “leader.” Now I’ve had other leaders that did the opposite and focused on building influence.
I’ve been able to impact decisions not because of my title, but because I had influence over the different department team members. I understood them as individuals and asked them for support only after I had built that relationship and trust up to a level that I could ask for something. We don’t have to have a title to be a “leader,” we need to have influence if we want to lead well.
Leading without authority starts with letting go of the need to lean on a title. When leaders rely on hierarchy to get things done, they often get compliance at best and resistance most of the time. People may do what’s asked, but rarely more than required. Influence, on the other hand, invites ownership. When you focus on earning trust instead of enforcing rank, people choose to follow rather than feel obligated to.
Influence is built through consistency and credibility. Teams pay attention to who shows up prepared, who keeps their commitments, and who adds value without needing recognition. When your actions match your words and your intent is clear, people begin to trust your direction. Over time, influence grows naturally, not because you demand it, but because others believe you have their best interests in mind.
Loyalty is a byproduct of influence, not control. People don’t feel loyal to job titles or organizational charts; they feel loyal to individuals who support them, advocate for them, and respect their contributions. Leaders who invest time in understanding their team members, recognizing effort, and offering guidance earn a deeper level of commitment that authority alone can’t create.
When influence replaces authority, something powerful happens. Teams collaborate more freely, ideas move faster, and trust strengthens across the organization. Leadership becomes less about position and more about impact. Because at the end of the day, people don’t follow power, they follow those who lead with purpose, integrity, and genuine care.
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the magnetic force that attracts top performers and your best customers?
I’m Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, sales trainer, and author—and I help organizations unlock the power of influence to achieve breakthrough results.
In this blog, I reveal why influence is the ultimate currency in business and leadership—and how you can use it to:✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal and buy again✅ Build trust and engagement with your team✅ Transform your leadership approach to inspire stronger performance
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how leaders earn loyalty, I equip sales professionals and executives to deliver lasting value, strengthen customer relationships, and drive higher revenue.
👉 Featured Resources to Grow Your Influence:
· Email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
· The Sales Process Uncovered Membership
· The Sales Process Uncovered (Book on Amazon)
If you’re serious about elevating your sales process, leadership impact, and team performance, this blog will show you the path.
Authentic Leadership: Why Sales Teams Follow Trust, Not Titles
Sales teams don’t follow org charts. They follow leaders they trust. You can give someone a title, a quota, and a CRM login, but none of that guarantees buy-in. In today’s sales environment, authentic leadership has far less to do with authority and far more to do with influence and spoiler alert: influence is earned, not assigned.
Authentic leaders lead with value before they ever lead with expectations. When every interaction revolves around numbers, activity, and pressure, trust erodes quickly. But when leaders consistently show up with coaching, insight, clarity, and support, something shifts. Salespeople lean in when they feel their leader is genuinely invested in helping them win, not just in hitting a forecast.
Influence with a sales team isn’t positional, it’s relational. Sales teams don’t give extra effort because someone has a title; they give it because they believe in the person leading them. Trust grows when leaders listen more than they talk, keep their word, admit mistakes, and stand up for their team when it matters. Over time, that consistency builds credibility, and credibility gives your voice weight.
Goals are necessary in sales, but pushing goals without context creates pressure, not motivation. Authentic leaders don’t just demand numbers, they connect goals to purpose. They help salespeople understand how hitting targets leads to career growth, financial stability, skill development, and personal wins. When goals are tied to what matters to the individual, they stop feeling like mandates and start feeling like direction.
One of the simplest ways to build trust is through consistent weekly check-ins that go beyond pipeline reviews. Strong leaders make space to ask how their team members are doing professionally and personally. Not necessarily about the soccer games and weekend, but how they are doing outside of work which has a great impact on life at work. Life doesn’t stop at the office door, and ignoring that reality doesn’t make it go away. These conversations don’t need to be long or intrusive, they just need to be genuine. Trust is built in small moments, repeated week after week. We can simply take a walk with the person and catch up, not have them explain each and every detail of the weekend.
Titles may create compliance, but trust creates commitment. Sales teams follow leaders who lead with value, build influence through relationships, connect goals to purpose, and show up consistently for their people. Authentic leadership isn’t loud or flashy, it’s just steady. And when trust is present, performance follows. Better to have consistent growth, than something that looks like a roller coaster with a lot of peaks and valleys. Sales teams will be engaged when leaders engage with them to show they matter.
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the magnetic force that attracts top performers and your best customers?
I’m Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, sales trainer, and author—and I help organizations unlock the power of influence to achieve breakthrough results.
In this blog, I reveal why influence is the ultimate currency in business and leadership—and how you can use it to:✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal and buy again✅ Build trust and engagement with your team✅ Transform your leadership approach to inspire stronger performance
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how leaders earn loyalty, I equip sales professionals and executives to deliver lasting value, strengthen customer relationships, and drive higher revenue.
👉 Featured Resources to Grow Your Influence:
· Email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
· The Sales Process Uncovered Membership
· The Sales Process Uncovered (Book on Amazon)
If you’re serious about elevating your sales process, leadership impact, and team performance, this blog will show you the path.
Leading With Purpose: The Traits ThatShape Strong Business Leaders
Business leadership is the ability of an individual to guide people, make decisions, and
shape direction in an organization so that collective goals are achieved over time. In a
world of shifting markets and mixed expectations, effective leadership isn’t about authority
alone; it’s about influence, judgment, and human connection.
Core Insights
● Clear thinking and sound judgment matter more than charisma.
● Strong leaders balance results with responsibility to people.
● Adaptability often separates good leaders from lasting ones.
● Trust is built through consistency, not speeches.
Character at the Core of Leadership
Every effective leader, whether running a small business or a global enterprise, operates
from a foundation of personal character. Integrity, honesty, and accountability aren’t
abstract virtues; they are practical tools. When people believe their leader means what they
say, work moves faster and conflict shrinks. Character also shows up in moments of
pressure, when shortcuts tempt and clarity is hardest to find.
How Leaders Turn Vision Into Action
Leadership fails when vision stays theoretical. Execution bridges the gap. Before diving into
action, it helps to understand how effective leaders typically approach challenges:
● They clarify priorities before assigning tasks.
● They communicate expectations plainly.
● They align individual roles with broader goals.
● They revisit decisions when conditions change.
A Practical Way to Develop Leadership Skills
Building leadership capacity doesn’t require a title, but it does require intention. The
following approach offers a simple way to practice leadership in daily work:
1. Observe how decisions affect people and outcomes.
2. Ask for feedback from peers and team members.
3. Practice making small, low-risk decisions independently.
4. Reflect on results and adjust future actions.
5. Commit to learning, even after success.
Learning From Leaders Across Industries
Many people strengthen their leadership skills by looking beyond their own field. Studying
leaders in education, healthcare, technology, and public service reveals patterns that
transcend job titles. Exploring recognized role models, including University of Phoenix
notable alumni, can spark ideas about career growth, ethical decision-making, and service.
By examining how others navigated setbacks and opportunities, aspiring leaders can adapt
those lessons to their own paths without copying them outright.
Comparing 4 Common Leadership Qualities
Different leaders emphasize different strengths, but certain qualities tend to show up repeatedly. The table below highlights how these traits typically influence organizations.
Decisiveness
Leaders who make timely choices using the data they have help their teams move forward with clarity and confidence.Empathy
Listening actively and responding to team needs builds trust and encourages deeper engagement across the board.Adaptability
The best leaders pivot when needed. Being open to change keeps teams resilient and focused, even in uncertain moments.Accountability
Owning both wins and setbacks builds credibility and sets a clear tone for responsibility within the team.
Frequently Asked Questions About Business Leadership
Before closing, it helps to address a few common questions people have about leadership.
Is leadership something you’re born with?
Some people have natural tendencies, but leadership skills are largely learned and refined
through experience and reflection.
Can someone lead effectively without managing people?
Yes. Leadership can be expressed through influence, expertise, and example, even without
formal authority.
Does effective leadership look the same in every organization?
No. Culture, size, and mission shape how leadership shows up, though core principles
remain similar.
Conclusion
Effective business leadership creates clarity where there is confusion and momentum
where there is hesitation. It balances confidence with humility and ambition with
responsibility. Over time, strong leadership doesn’t just improve results; it builds
organizations people want to be part of. That, more than any single trait, is what makes
leadership endure.
Lead With Heart, Win With Clarity: The Blueprint for Goals That Build Unbreakable Teams
Most leaders set goals that sound good on paper such as revenue targets, engagement metrics, or retention numbers. But when the numbers take priority over the “why,” even the best teams quietly disconnect. The result? You hit your targets but lose your people.
Great leadership isn’t just about outcomes, it’s about creating cultures people never want to leave. As we move into a new year, here’s how to set heart-centered yet accountable goals that ignite your team’s purpose, clarity, and drive.
Before you decide what to achieve, get crystal clear on why your team exists. John Maxwell reminds us that “people buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.” As I share in my “Mastering Influence Keynote,” there are five buy in decisions that our employees need to buy before they will commit to the vision. And just like John Maxwell, the leader is the first decision.
Things you may want to ask your team:
· Why do we show up each day?
· Who are we really serving?
· What impact do we want to make together?
Purpose turns a goal from a number into a mission. When your team feels connected to a bigger reason, performance becomes personal. Buying in takes on a new meaning instead of hitting a metric.
Once the “why” is clear, translate it into team alignment. Patrick Lencioni’s Five Behaviors—trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results create the foundation we need for success with our teams. Set goals through these lenses:
· Do we trust each other enough to tell the truth about what’s working and what’s not?
· Are we willing to engage in healthy conflict to protect our mission?
· Can every person commit to the next steps without confusion or hidden agendas?
Clarity transforms ambition into movement. It keeps your team rowing in the same direction when challenges hit.
Purpose without accountability is potential wasted. Dave Ramsey’s EntreLeadership approach gives you a rhythm that keeps goals alive:
· Weekly: Review scoreboards and track progress out loud with the KPI’s.
· Monthly: Celebrate wins and recalibrate priorities.
· Quarterly: Reset with clarity, what’s next, what’s done, what’s dropped.
Accountability rhythms turn goals into habits. And habits create consistency which is the mark of every thriving team. The best teams don’t chase goals, they embody them. They know their purpose. They trust their process. They feel their work. They own their outcomes. When this happens, everyone wins!
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the magnetic force that attracts top performers and your best customers?
I’m Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, sales trainer, and author—and I help organizations unlock the power of influence to achieve breakthrough results.
In this blog, I reveal why influence is the ultimate currency in business and leadership—and how you can use it to:
✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal and buy again
✅ Build trust and engagement with your team
✅ Transform your leadership approach to inspire stronger performance
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how leaders earn loyalty, I equip sales professionals and executives to deliver lasting value, strengthen customer relationships, and drive higher revenue.
👉 Featured Resources to Grow Your Influence:
· Email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
· The Sales Process Uncovered Membership
· The Sales Process Uncovered (Book on Amazon)
If you’re serious about elevating your sales process, leadership impact, and team performance, this blog will show you the path.
The Influence Audit: How Top Performers Set Goals That Actually Stick
As we close out the year, the familiar ritual begins: setting new goals. Again, it feels like we just did this. After a year full of market shifts, new regulations, and nonstop noise, it’s easy to wonder: is there a better way to do this?
The truth is, most people set goals based on what they hope to achieve, not the behaviors that actually create results. Hope-driven goals fade fast. But behavior-driven goals stick.
This year, instead of writing another list of targets, try conducting an Influence Audit, a practical, reflective process that identifies which habits, relationships, and systems truly moved the needle for your leadership, your team, and your business.
Ask yourself:
· Who did I impact this year, and how did that provide real ROI (Return on Influence)?
· Which customers, colleagues, or partners contributed the most to growth, innovation, or efficiency?
· What relationships helped us move faster or think clearer?
Influence always leaves evidence. Look for it in the form of trust built, partnerships deepened, or processes improved. Those are your multipliers.
The Pareto Principle is alive and well in every organization: 20% of actions produce 80% of outcomes. So, what made the difference this year?
· Was it a specific team or initiative that overdelivered?
· A new process that created efficiency?
· A behavior that turned potential into performance?
Once you’ve identified the high-impact 20%, study it. What mindset, environment, or decision unlocked that success? Influence grows when you understand its root cause.
Leaders often spotlight success briefly and move on to the next challenge. That’s a mistake. Let your high-performing teams and individuals teach what worked. Have them present their wins, lessons, and shifts in behavior to others. When you extend the spotlight, you expand ownership and influence spreads organically across the culture.
With insight from your audit, now you can set goals that actually matter. The question isn’t, “What should we do next year?”
It’s, “Which behaviors and beliefs created our biggest wins and how do we multiply them?”
Tie every new goal back to:
· Engagement: Does this goal make our team more connected and motivated?
· Efficiency: Does it simplify or streamline how we work?
· Impact: Does it drive measurable ROI, Return on Influence?
When you link goals to behaviors, results stop being random. They become repeatable.
Results without behavior change are just words on paper. The most successful leaders don’t chase goals, they audit their influence. They study what actually worked, celebrate it, and then scale it.
Before you plan another year, pause. Look at your impact.
Because the best goals aren’t about doing more, they’re about doing what matters most, on purpose, repeatedly.
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the magnetic force that attracts top performers and your best customers?
I’m Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, sales trainer, and author—and I help organizations unlock the power of influence to achieve breakthrough results.
In this blog, I reveal why influence is the ultimate currency in business and leadership—and how you can use it to:
✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal and buy again
✅ Build trust and engagement with your team
✅ Transform your leadership approach to inspire stronger performance
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how leaders earn loyalty, I equip sales professionals and executives to deliver lasting value, strengthen customer relationships, and drive higher revenue.
👉 Featured Resources to Grow Your Influence:
· Email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
· The Sales Process Uncovered Membership
· The Sales Process Uncovered (Book on Amazon)
If you’re serious about elevating your sales process, leadership impact, and team performance, this blog will show you the path.
Making Tie-Backs a Habit in Every Sales Conversation
You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your habits.
Salespeople know tie-back questions work. They’ve seen the lightbulb moments when customers connect a feature to their own outcome. But here’s the trap: tie-backs are often used as a tactic, not a discipline.
One big demo? They use them.
Quarter-end deal push? They use them.
Everyday calls? Not so much.
The real power comes when tie-back questions become automatic, woven into every conversation until they’re a behavior.
Here’s a practical structure you can practice until it’s instinct:
1. Listen actively.
Capture the exact words your customer uses. Don’t paraphrase into sales jargon.
Example: Customer says, “We’re buried in manual reporting.”
2. Connect back.
Use their words in a question that ties directly to your product.
Example: “If reporting were automated, how much time would that free up for your analysts?”
3. Anchor outcomes.
Reinforce the link between their answer and your product’s value.
Example: “That’s exactly why our reporting module exists, to give teams back 10+ hours a week.”
This cycle turns features into outcomes, and outcomes into reasons to act.
When done well, tie-back questions don’t sound like a script. They sound like curiosity. The customer barely notices you’re guiding them toward your solution.
Poor example (feels forced):
· “Our product improves efficiency. Wouldn’t that be good for you?”
Better example (feels natural):
· “You mentioned efficiency is a priority. If this cut your team’s workload by 30%, how would that change things?”
The difference is subtle, but it builds trust.
When tie-back questions become behavior, you stop “selling features” altogether. Your conversations shift:
· From what your product does → to what it means for them.
· From explaining benefits → to having them describe the impact.
· From transactional deals → to trusted advisor relationships.
That’s where influence lives. That’s where trust grows. And that’s where deals close faster, and new opportunities start piling up.
Have a great week!
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the magnetic force that attracts top performers and your best customers?
I’m Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, sales trainer, and author—and I help organizations unlock the power of influence to achieve breakthrough results.
In this blog, I reveal why influence is the ultimate currency in business and leadership—and how you can use it to:
✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal and buy again
✅ Build trust and engagement with your team
✅ Transform your leadership approach to inspire stronger performance
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how leaders earn loyalty, I equip sales professionals and executives to deliver lasting value, strengthen customer relationships, and drive higher revenue.
👉 Featured Resources to Grow Your Influence:
· Email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
· The Sales Process Uncovered Membership
· The Sales Process Uncovered (Book on Amazon)
If you’re serious about elevating your sales process, leadership impact, and team performance, this blog will show you the path.
Driving Urgency w/ Tie Backs
You’ve probably been there: a customer nods along, agrees with your points, even tells you your solution looks strong, and then they stall for months when you follow up asking about next steps.
“Let’s revisit next quarter.”
“We need more time to think.”
“It’s not urgent right now.”
The frustration is real. The value is obvious, yet the decision lingers. Why? Because people naturally avoid risk. Taking action, spending money, adopting a new tool, changing a process feels risky. Waiting feels safe. That is why we need to be making sure we are asking the right questions to help them understand the waiting is actually hurting them.
This is where tie-back questions become a game-changer. They don’t just connect your product to a problem; they connect inaction to consequences.
Tie-back questions that drive urgency usually focus on two things:
1. The cost of doing nothing
2. The benefit of acting now
Imagine this exchange:
Customer: “Collaboration between departments is slow.”
Seller: “If this continues for six more months, how much do you estimate it will cost in missed opportunities?”
That question reframes the problem from an annoyance to a measurable loss. Suddenly, inaction looks expensive.
Then pivot to the positive:
Seller: “If we solved this today, how quickly could you start hitting your quarterly goals?”
Now urgency isn’t about fear, it’s about speed and results.
Behavioral economics tells us people are twice as motivated to avoid loss as they are to pursue gain. Tie-back questions tap into that bias by making inaction visible.
At the same time, you can’t only push on pain. Hope motivates too. The balance is critical:
· Highlight the cost of delay. (Loss avoidance)
· Show the upside of speed. (Hope for gain)
When both levers are pulled, urgency rises.
Tie-back questions don’t just connect your product to value, they shine a spotlight on the hidden costs of waiting and the visible rewards of acting now.
And when customers see both, hesitation turns into momentum.
Have a great week!
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the magnetic force that attracts top performers and your best customers?
I’m Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, sales trainer, and author—and I help organizations unlock the power of influence to achieve breakthrough results.
In this blog, I reveal why influence is the ultimate currency in business and leadership—and how you can use it to:
✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal and buy again
✅ Build trust and engagement with your team
✅ Transform your leadership approach to inspire stronger performance
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how leaders earn loyalty, I equip sales professionals and executives to deliver lasting value, strengthen customer relationships, and drive higher revenue.
👉 Featured Resources to Grow Your Influence:
· Email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
· The Sales Process Uncovered Membership
· The Sales Process Uncovered (Book on Amazon)
If you’re serious about elevating your sales process, leadership impact, and team performance, this blog will show you the path.
Building Trust Through Tie-Backs
In sales, trust is the currency that moves prospects into customers, and customers into partnerships. Not the partnerships where the buyer says they want to be a partner as long as it benefits them.
Without trust, even the best product won’t be bought. Tie-back questions help us earn that trust by proving we are not just waiting for our turn to pitch. No, we are genuinely paying attention to the customer.
Here’s how it looks in practice:
· Customer: “We’re under pressure to reduce costs.”
· Seller: “If this solution lowered your overhead by 15%, how would that free up resources for other priorities?”
This approach shifts the spotlight back on the customer. It says: “I hear you, and I want to explore how this impacts your bigger goals.”
Now, if we are going to make a statement like 15% reduction in overhead, we better make sure we can back that up with data. Now this is a big step because we have better understood the customer’s business before offering up something like this. We better have case studies, or something of proof to show how we can in fact do this like testimonials. You get the point though that the customer will be more likely to lean in if we are asking some questions that mirror what they have stated in the past.
The same thing happens when we are in leadership. Our employees are just like customers asking themselves if the leadership is even listening to the employees. Nothing worse than an environment where there is no trust in leadership. All the top performers start leaving in droves while the employees we wish would leave stay. Want to talk about a toxic culture…
Leaders need to use tie back questions as well to make sure the employees feel like they are heard, valued, and matter as well. Without employees feeling this way, the engagement empties faster than a container of sweet tea at a southern BBQ!
When leaders are talking with their employees, they should be asking their employees questions to learn about them not just to answer task-oriented questions.
· Employee: “I am failing to see how my work is helping the organization, or customers.”
· Leader: “By you running the financial proforma of a product offering the sales team is looking to launch, we can avoid negative profit margins resulting in having to take cost out later driving the quality and sales into the ground” Does this help you see the value you are brining to the team and the organization?
When you tie back like this, you’re not guessing, you’re confirming. And when customers or employees feel understood, they begin to see you as a partner that they will want to work with for years instead of months.
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the magnetic force that attracts top performers and your best customers?
I’m Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, sales trainer, and author—and I help organizations unlock the power of influence to achieve breakthrough results.
In this blog, I reveal why influence is the ultimate currency in business and leadership—and how you can use it to:
✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal and buy again
✅ Build trust and engagement with your team
✅ Transform your leadership approach to inspire stronger performance
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how leaders earn loyalty, I equip sales professionals and executives to deliver lasting value, strengthen customer relationships, and drive higher revenue.
👉 Featured Resources to Grow Your Influence:
· Email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
· The Sales Process Uncovered Membership
· The Sales Process Uncovered (Book on Amazon)
If you’re serious about elevating your sales process, leadership impact, and team performance, this blog will show you the path.
The Engagement Power of Trust and Autonomy
There is nothing worse than being micromanaged by someone. This is an energy and effort drain to constantly having to look over our shoulders to see if we are making a manager, or leader happy. Constantly having to report out on my effort and to be told I should change this to make the impact was frustrating. I had a new manager that was also a friend one time and it was hard to manage the relationship.
I thought I could, but when the manager would constantly tell me how to do things, change the report to this view, put in these bullet points, it caused me to stop and say, why do you have me doing this? I can be kind of blunt so I’m sure when the manager heard this their blood pressure skyrocketed as well.
It took many discussions to figure out the relationship because I had a friendship, but think about how many people report to micromanagers that are not friends with them. I shared a few weeks ago that engagement globally fell to 21% in 2024. Now there are various reasons why, but one can be attributed to leaders and managers that are micromanaging their teams.
Involve, Don’t Dictate
As a high driver, it is sometimes hard for me to let my son do things his way when I have had the experience. Sometimes I am even surprised by the fact that it worked out even when not doing it my way. Yes, I have a lot to learn about parenting, but the same is true for leadership and management. They need to let the employees develop their own way of doing things and not be told exactly how to do everything. By dictating to people we are in essence training robots. Sometimes we can be surprised at the outcome being better or more efficient than our ways.
Autonomy Is Key
We can have Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) about the position and show the employees how to perform certain tasks, but then leaders and managers need to step away and let the employees take ownership of the operation so they feel like they are apart of the decision and outcome. If we direct every movement when things go wrong, the employee will just throw up their hands and say it’s not their fault. By giving autonomy, the employee will take ownership on how the task / operation is done and want to improve and make better the outcome. They will want to keep showing up and improving to become more efficient.
Tell the Truth
The best leaders take ownership of the outcome when things fail and give credit to the team when missions succeed. They also tell the truth. We are not talking about my bluntness here. We are talking about when the leader makes a mistake they don’t brush it under the rug, they acknowledge it and own the mistake. Transparency and ownership of the issue allows the employees to see the value that the organization has and they will start taking more ownership and communicate better as well.
The employees are looking at the leadership to see how they are to engage in the environment so it is up to leadership teams to make sure they are doing thing well as a guide to what success looks like. They need to sometimes show, then step away to let the employees lead themselves on the task. Being truthful and transparent will also carry the weight of the mission with the employees allowing them to take more ownership and become more engaged as well.
Hope this helps and here’s to your success Cheers!
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the brand of choice for top customers and employees? Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, trainer, and author—shares proven strategies to elevate your sales success and leadership impact.
In this blog, Kevin reveals why influence is the ultimate currency in building lasting relationships. Learn how to:
✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal to your brand
✅ Build trust and engagement with your team
✅ Transform your approach to leadership and sales
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how to inspire loyalty, Kevin equips sales professionals and leaders to deliver exceptional value, ensuring customers return again and again.
Featured Links to Grow Your Influence:
Winning With Others: https://www.kevinsidebottom.com/stopgambling
Kevin’s website: https://www.kevinsidebottom.com
Kevin’s email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
The Sales Process Uncovered Membership Page
https://www.kevinsidebottom.com/pricing-page
The Sales Process Uncovered Book
How Recognition and Feedback Boosts Engagement
Last week I shared the numbers from Gallups report that 21% of the workforce globally is engaged and how it cost in the Billions in revenue lost. I also shared why leaders need to help employees see the purpose. If you missed that post check it out. This week I want to further the engagement discussion with one more step that leaders and managers are missing the mark on.
It’s recognition. That’s right something as simple as recognition can help the employees feel so valued and known that they are willing to go the extra mile to move the needle for the organization and customers.
Employees think ping pong tables are novel, but what they want more is to know that they are valued and seen, Without this they have no idea (until the annual review) how well they are doing. Too often when I ask leaders and managers how their employees are doing, they say great, no problems….When I talk to the employees however, they give me this look of lost hope and wishing for something better to come along and make their lives better.
This is a huge disconnect between the leaders and the employees. The answer is simple. There is a lack of feedback to understand how things are going. There are a few ways that this can be accomplished to really fire up the team.
Celebrate the Small Stuff
Leaders and managers can really start the uplift for the employees quickly by celebrating the small stuff. And no, I am not talking about participation trophies here. I am talking about celebrating the fact that someone went the extra mile to do something to help another employee, customer, or department. I hand out coins when I see people at our church doing something like this and you would be amazed at how uplifting that makes the volunteers. I’ve heard people do kudos notes that anyone can write on to give to the person as well. People need to feel seen for the value that they bring.
Make Feedback Real-Time and Real
Employees need more than just an annual check in with leadership. They need regularly checking in and providing feedback as well as not a fake interaction. I have heard guidance from people to do the sandwich effect when giving correction where you give a good compliment, then an area to improve, followed by a good compliment. Employees can smell this coming a mile away and will immediately shut down and feel like the leader is just trying to correct them. This drives engagement into the garbage which is where that management critique sandwich needs to go.
Set up regular check ins with the employee to see how things are going and hear of their wins. Also focus on learning one new thing about the employee each time and build that CRM so leaders can really know the employee. Don’t treat the employees like a cog in a machine.
Acknowledge Effort over results
We have implemented this at home with our kids as well. I am a high driver and remember being scolded whey I did not have all A’s on a report card. It made me feel small and unvalued. Sometimes we don’t get the results we had hoped for even though we put in so much effort.
By focusing on the effort that someone put in, they know that just because a metric may have been missed, they are still valued and seen for the effort that they put forth and are willing to do it again in the future to help the organization hit the goals. If we only focus on the results and not the massive effort employees will stop trying hard and check out.
Leaders can really move the needle with engagement by focusing on these three simple ways. And no you don’t have to master all three at once. Try one at a time and over time leaders and managers will grow the engagement from the team.
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the brand of choice for top customers and employees? Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, trainer, and author—shares proven strategies to elevate your sales success and leadership impact.
In this blog, Kevin reveals why influence is the ultimate currency in building lasting relationships. Learn how to:
✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal to your brand
✅ Build trust and engagement with your team
✅ Transform your approach to leadership and sales
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how to inspire loyalty, Kevin equips sales professionals and leaders to deliver exceptional value, ensuring customers return again and again.
Featured Links to Grow Your Influence:
Winning With Others: https://www.kevinsidebottom.com/stopgambling
Kevin’s website: https://www.kevinsidebottom.com
Kevin’s email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
The Sales Process Uncovered Membership Page
https://www.kevinsidebottom.com/pricing-page
The Sales Process Uncovered Book
Leaders Need to Communicate Purpose to Jumpstart Engagement
Gallup provided their state of the business report for 2025 and engagement in the workplace worldwide fell for the fifth straight year to 21% costing businesses a total of $438 Billion in lost revenue. Managers feel less equipped than ever before, and let’s sit on the fact for a second that only 21% of the workforce is actually fully engaged. This is being measured in the Billions of dollars.
This is not to be blamed on the employees, or because they are lazy. It is because they don’t feel a sense of purpose when they show up to work. Granted a teller at a bank may not think that they do as much as a first responder, but it is the leaders and managers JOB to equip the employees to know what value they are bringing to the customers and the organization.
If they don’t, well you see the numbers above…
Employees need to feel the sense of purpose of why showing up day in and day out matters. If they don’t, then they will not do the tough things and just mail in their effort dreaming about what the weekend will hold.
Leaders and managers need to define the what the organization is doing for the customers. Especially now that the Millennials and the GenZ’s are in the workforce. They have a greater value on purpose and impact. If they don’t feel it and understand why they are showing up, they will find something else to fill that void. They need meaning, not just tasks.
When I first started in sales and was frustrated because I was not making end roads. That is when my mentor stepped in and let me know why we do what we do. It is to support small businesses that are working hard with products and services that will enable them to be better and work more efficient. That is such a better vision than sell more stuff right!
Leaders and the managers need to also connect the dots to how each role serves the mission that the organization is on. That may mean reviewing the duties and the roles to see how they help other functions of the business and then ask the employees what they like about the position and why. That is right, this is not just a one-way street, this is a collaboration.
I know it may seem daunting with all of the other duties that leaders and managers have, but if the teams are functioning well and working hard without having to motivate them don’t you think your future will get better? I have witnessed organizations that thrive no matter the environment and it is electric. You can feel the energy and why people are working so hard for the mission.
It all stops with the leaders and managers casting the vision and showing each employee why they matter to the mission and hopefully the mission is not just to make numbers for the quarter and make shareholders happy. The mission needs to be greater!
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the brand of choice for top customers and employees? Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, trainer, and author—shares proven strategies to elevate your sales success and leadership impact.
In this blog, Kevin reveals why influence is the ultimate currency in building lasting relationships. Learn how to:
✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal to your brand
✅ Build trust and engagement with your team
✅ Transform your approach to leadership and sales
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how to inspire loyalty, Kevin equips sales professionals and leaders to deliver exceptional value, ensuring customers return again and again.
Featured Links to Grow Your Influence:
Winning With Others: https://www.kevinsidebottom.com/stopgambling
Kevin’s website: https://www.kevinsidebottom.com
Kevin’s email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
The Sales Process Uncovered Membership Page
https://www.kevinsidebottom.com/pricing-page
The Sales Process Uncovered Book
Influence is Great, But Does It Impact The Bottom Line?
When I am speaking on stage, or performing trainings on influence, I am often asked a question along the lines of “ How does influence impact my bottom line?”
I usually ask the question to the individual to ask them if they know their costs to recruit new talent to replace someone that has left the organization. Often they are shocked with I let them know it is roughly 200% of an impact to replace someone. This is rolled up in the cost of onboarding, training, recruiting, and placing the new person in the seat. This does not include the fact that progress with moving projects forward is slowed to a crawl for the first 6 months, or the impact that the new person has to build all new relationships.
Often the response is, “Oh….ooooohhhhh!”
Increased Speed
Yes that is right when we have influence over those that report to us and trust levels are high, guess what, the second guessing and slow processes fade making our teams function at a high rate of speed. Things get done, people are not worried about making the wrong decision, and things happen. This means costs decrease. That means more profits.
External Influence
When we have influence with our customers and they know that we are not some snake oil salesperson they will buy more regularly from us. Each new customer we have has an added cost to them to input them into the system, get set up to procure, and train them on our systems. When we have customers that are returning to buy more and more from us, that means we get more turns on the inventory with lower costs. This means more profits as well that we can invest into the organization for more impact.
Influence Attracts Top Talent
Ramsey’s Solutions is an organization that thrives with attracting top talent that are on mission to overcome challenges and drive results. When we have influence with our high performer employees, they tell their friends and family about how awesome it is to work for us and they actively recruit for us. We have a roster of individuals that are willing to come on mission with us that we don’t have to pay extra costs for recruiting. That saves our organizations time and money. See the first paragraph of this blog for more information When we have more top performers, guess what, we make more profits.
Yes I say profits. I have seen a lot of companies go bankrupt that had high revenues, but unfortunately their costs were higher. When we have high profits, we can make change in the environment we are working in and drive increases impact.
People like great paychecks, but they crave making an impact more.
Next time the topic comes up about does focusing on influence really matter, the answer is a resounding “YES!”
For more information check out the links below.
Have a great week!
Master the Art of Influence: Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Lead Effectively
Are you ready to become the brand of choice for top customers and employees? Kevin Sidebottom—keynote speaker, trainer, and author—shares proven strategies to elevate your sales success and leadership impact.
In this blog, Kevin reveals why influence is the ultimate currency in building lasting relationships. Learn how to:
✅ Motivate customers to stay loyal to your brand
✅ Build trust and engagement with your team
✅ Transform your approach to leadership and sales
With decades of experience studying why people buy and how to inspire loyalty, Kevin equips sales professionals and leaders to deliver exceptional value, ensuring customers return again and again.
Featured Links to Grow Your Influence:
Winning With Others: https://www.kevinsidebottom.com/stopgambling
Kevin’s website: https://www.kevinsidebottom.com
Kevin’s email: kevin@kevinsidebottom.com
The Sales Process Uncovered Membership Page
https://www.kevinsidebottom.com/pricing-page
The Sales Process Uncovered Book
Trust Is Grown, Not Given So Earn It Every Day
When I talk about Influence with others I often help people visualize it by thinking of influence as a bank account and trust is the currency that builds up that bank account of influence.
In our daily lives we interact with others unless we are a hobbit living in a remote village without any sort of communication besides smoke signals. Okay back on track here. When we are engaging with others their brains are trying to figure out in nanoseconds how much value they want to place on the relationship and the person in front of them.
Trust is that enabler for others to want to lean in and engage with us. Without trust, there is no moving forward together. We can not go far without others. We need a team to accomplish any major goal.
So how to we build high levels of trust?
There are three easy ways we can do this in theory, sometimes its harder for people to practice.
Keep Your Word
That’s right it may seem really simple, but how many times have we had good intentions to do something for someone else and ultimately forget, or get too busy to do the thing we said we would do. When we do what we say we will do we build consistency with others and without consistency there is no trust. We need to make every effort to do something if we say we will do it.
Own Your Mistakes And Quickly
I know I am not the only one that has said I would do something for someone and forgot or gotten tied down with another project that did not allow me to follow through. I pride myself on doing what I said I was going to do. Unfortunately, there are times when I do not and even though I feel awful about it, if I don’t apologize and try my best to get working on it at that moment and follow through, trust is going to dwindle like a candle that has been burning for a long time. We need to own the mistake and do our best to not let it happen again, or make it right. Some of my best relationships and trust has come when I have made a mistake and came back with an over promise to rectify the situation.
Be the Same Person Everywhere
I heard a quote a long time ago that said Be careful of meeting your idol because you may be disappointed. I was at an event once and I was in total “fan boy” mode when I saw a celebrity that I had watched for decades only to be snubbed by the celebrity when they walked by and to find out that they were much shorter in real life. That is something we can all learn from. We need to be our authentic selves no matter where we are. Because over time if we deviate from our online personas the word will get out and kill our influence with others.
If we want to have influence with others we need to make daily deposits in the account and make sure we are the same person day in and day out while making things right when we can. If we don’t we will lose trust and influence over time making us unimpactful to what we need to do and leading to our bank balances zero.
I have posted more blogs on trust so check out my blog page at www.kevinsidebottom.com/blog for more if you liked this one.
Have a great week.
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