So You Want To Lead...Better Know Sales!
I was not sure why I needed to know sales at the time to be a good manager, but I knew I would figure out why someday.
When I first started in sales it was on the premise that if I wanted to be a great manager, business owner, lawyer, president, I needed to know sales. That is what a successful business owner told me after I had told him that I wanted to be a manager in the next five years. He was a great leader and still has people working for him that were with him since he opened his company in the mid 1980’s. I was not sure why I needed to know sales at the time to be a good manager, but I knew I would figure out why someday.
At first, I was hesitant to change careers. Six months of hesitation and discussions to be exact. I did not want to be a salesperson because all life had taught me was that they were only out for their own gain. I did not want to actively be associated with that stigma?
When I did decide to try this sales thing out, I figured that sales would be easy. The first year of sales was a rude awakening. It literally looked like a heartbeat of someone that just took their last breath. I was fortunate to have a chance to keep going and learning from the successful business owner in what he called “hands on training.”
Hands on training meant that I was to help him with projects after hours, gain training from peers, and hours of trainings to perfect my craft. I did weekend deliveries, helped him with personal projects, etc. Basically, anything he needed extra help with I was there. This was valuable time with him mentoring me all he knew about sales and business.
I excelled from then on to become a great sales leader in my industry and even relocated to another part of the United States to help grow a new territory. We did very well there with great purpose. Customers started opening up fast to me and sales were increasing as the years went by. I was awarded the prize of top salesman for the United States and had taken the territory to where it had never been. I won’t give all those secrets away today on how we did this, but I can tell you it was not because we were the cheapest price or by doing anything unethical.
What I can tell you is that this success was because of Influence. As influence increases people trust us more and are willing to go deeper in relationships with us. These relationships open up the doors to long lasting and deep relationships. The more influence someone has the more they excel in whatever they are doing.
I had customers asking me about other aspects about their business as time went on. They were confiding in me as a trusted asset that could help them break through their ceiling to the next level. It was eye opening that I was able to help them with simple things up to the complex integrations of business solutions.
What I found is that the sales process that I keynote and perform trainings on helps people build amazing amounts of influence fast! That is right, selling correctly helps us build influence! Keep in mind that selling is not just a product or service. It can be selling a vision, mission, or idea that we need others to help us achieve. By building influence using the sales process, leaders gain more engagement their teams.
As you look around your organization look at those relationships of those that go out of their way to help you and those that don’t. See how much influence you have with each of these groupings of people. The more influence you have, the farther you and your organization will go.
Happy selling!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Do You Trust Me…?
We have to have trust in relationships, the products we use in our daily lives, our organizations we work for, basically we have to put some trust in everything we come in contact with.
Have you ever noticed in just about every action movie there is this one moment where the two last survivors are about to make some kind of daring jump to freedom with the phrase just prior, “Do you trust me?” Just once I would like to see one of them say, “nope I’ll take my chances…” and see how the director makes it work.
Movies play out this request all the time, but in actuality we are asking this question to just about everyone we come in contact with.
Trust is a huge mechanism for us to function with others. We need to trust that they will not hurt us, steal from us, or do anything to affect us negatively in our daily lives. Trust is a big deal! It is part of our survival mechanism, so we need to think about that when we are working with others especially in business.
I have studied the art of building rapport with people for over a decade and trying to understand how to build deep relationships with customers. One of the key ingredients to building rapport with people is trust. If we don’t have trust, we will not be able to function effectively in the sales process. Trust is crucial!
We have to have trust in relationships, the products we use in our daily lives, our organizations we work for, basically we have to put some trust in everything we come in contact with. We trust that the vehicle we drive will not just explode when we turn the key or push the start button. We trust that the engineers and the manufacturing individuals have assembled the product / service so that it will function properly.
I have had to work at being trustworthy and to show my trustworthiness to those I have come in contact with in all situations. Early in my sales career, I took over sales territory in Florida which our organization had never had distribution in. We had to work extremely hard to build trust with this new customer base.
I took a Dale Carnegie course on human relations, learned all I could about the new products as well as the competitive landscape, and did a great deal of leg work to build the trust that we were going to do what we said we were going to do for our new customers. This meant a great deal of studying the competitive landscape while on the road, going out to sell products for my customers to their customers, train my customer’s sales force, help them with marketing, etc. There was a great deal of effort on my part to build trust.
Amazing things happened as a result. Some of my customers asking my opinion on other aspects of their business, products they were looking to purchase, inviting me on fishing / hunting trips to their properties, etc. Our Sales were taking off as well! I have even received phone calls from past customers to catch up even though I have not called on them in over eight years. I am excited when I see my customers winning!
Trust is a huge factor in organizational success, teams, and relationships. Without trust we won’t get very far in life. We need to put forth great amounts of focus on building trust with those we come in contact each and every day. I do this when I am speaking with organizations on how to help them, writing blogs, and recording videos to help each and every one of you get some insight in hopes that you have more success. Trust is a huge moral obligation to me.
I have had the opportunity to speak on trust to organizations that builds axles, drive shafts, robotic solutions, sell real estate, and financial services. The one common theme that all took away is that if they wanted to move forward faster, they needed to have high levels of trust in their organizations. The world moves fast and with trust we will be able to keep up!
If you would like access to an online training at a fraction of the cost of having me come in to speak to you and your team check out my Trustworthy training that you can take where ever you have an internet connection and at your own pace.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Having a Plan to Succeed in Sales
Is doing business with your organization that beneficial for the customer? If not, your product / service will be considered just another commodity with the only differentiator being price.
A few years back a friend and myself decided it would be a great idea to do a sprint triathlon. I figured I was in decent shape and could swim well. After all, once you finished the swim all you had to do was hop on a bike for a bit and then run a 5k. I have done 5k runs many times so I was not worried about the run and I bought a road bike so I could ride faster than a mountain bike. I did two swims in the water, road the bike a few times, and I didn’t need to run because, hey I could do it. I figured I had it all planned out to succeed and do well… figured I had it planned out enough…
The day came for the race and my friend and I were in the water ready to go. The starter sounded of the start of the race and we both jumped in with our awesome swim caps. About ten strokes into the swim I was out of energy. I looked up and saw that there were only two rescue boats and a long way to go. At that moment I knew I was in for a long day. I did every stroke I could and did the dead man’s float sometimes. Eventually I made it through the swim, did the bike, and then got into the run. I was so not prepared for that event.
The next year I trained and planned, and then trained some more. The results were very different because of a better training plan and executing that plan.
In sales, if we want to do well, we need to have a plan and work the plan. We can’t just show up and expect to for sales to just happen. We need to map out where we want the conversations to go and what areas will hit the customer’s needs. We need to review our notes about the customer and figure out what solutions we can address for them to help them. One image that still is in the back of my mind when I am visiting with customers and training is that of handing a bill to the customer when I am leaving.
Was the time spent with me worth the customer paying me?
Would your customer say the time spent with you worth $200, $250, or even $500 for that hour meeting?
What kind of solutions did the customer come away with that will equip them to function more profitably?
Is doing business with your organization that beneficial for the customer? If not, your product / service will be considered just another commodity with the only differentiator being price.
A plan is needed to make the sales call worth both parties investment of time and resources. This is a new age and because of technology customers are more informed and need sales professionals to help them create their unique solution.
What does your sales call plan look like?
What are your premeeting preparations?
Are you answering the three questions your customer is asking at each interaction?
Do I like you?
Do I trust you?
How can you help me?
Create the plan, execute the plan, and have a back-up plan if something happens that you didn’t expect. Be prepared. And if you do a triathlon, practice swimming, it could be the difference between life and death out there!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
The Cold Call...
A cold call will take most people out of their comfort zone.
How many of you fear picking up the phone and calling a prospect that you have never talked to before?
How many of you visualize the person on the other end of the phone screaming to stop calling?
A cold call will take most people out of their comfort zone. It’s scary, we don’t want people hating us while we call at dinner time. They also will likely not believe us when we say our name is Tom, John, Sam when we have an accent from another country (with more interesting names). Many organizations these days have gone to the robo call which is really annoying.
I especially like when they start the message with “Don’t hang up…” They are literally telling me to hang up on them subconsciously by saying that opening line. A better opening would be “ Keep listening for some great information…” That would create more tension in me to want to hear more.
Cold calling is almost an art form. To get the person on the line and talk to us takes practice. I still to this day do cold calls to associations and businesses to drive more business. Prospecting is key in growing our business. Cold calling is not just dialing a phone either. We can walk into a business that we have reviewed and think would benefit from our expertise. Just watch for those no trespassing signs.
Cold calling is not natural for me as I am more of an introvert by nature. Pushing myself out of my comfort zone is a must if I want to grow my business. I have gotten voicemails and had to leave a message, people asking me to call them back later, people using a firm tone that they are not interested, and sometimes, sometimes I get great conversations with them and an appointment to visit to discuss more.
That is what the cold call really is. The opportunity for the further conversation. We are likely not going to make a sale on this call. Our focus should be to get that opportunity to come in and sit with the person to learn about them and their organization. How we can help them get to a better place. Our product possibly will enable them to take that next step in their growth. That is a good reason to talk to prospects? We need the opportunity to start the conversation.
Insurance sales professionals have lists of people they cold call every day. They have studied statics over the years and have a metric that out of ten calls three should result in “Fact Finding Opportunities” and then should result in one quotation of their product. That is a 10% success rate for sales. Very few professions have studied the results. I have met quite a few wealthy insurance sales professionals and they all have told me that they do this by making cold calls. If we are going to be successful selling, we need to do cold calls and prospect.
Keep in mind though that the person on the other line has three questions that they are asking themselves when we start talking.
1. Do I like this person?
2. Do I trust this person?
3. How can this person help me?
If you’ve read my book, “That Sales Process Uncovered”, been to a training, or been a reader of my blog for a while you should be able to answer these questions for them. Social media such as linked In, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc have made it even easier to research our prospects prior to the cold call. We just need to do the research.
For now, don’t fear the cold call. Accept it as an opportunity to help potential customers get to a better place. Who knows, you may strike up a great conversation and learn something new about someone that will help you at a later date. This is your opportunity to start helping people. Now pick up the phone and see how.
Have a great weekend!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Did You Know You Are In Customer Service?
People tend to tell everyone they know about how great an experience was as well as how awful an organization is to deal with.
I have had great customer service experiences at organizations and not so great experiences from other organizations. These experiences have ranged from great purchasing experiences to awful hold times with the worst elevator music ever composed. I have had IT people who walked me through the complete inner workings of their phones and helped me with my purchase, and I have been treated as if I was a burden on the representative that had to take another call during their shift.
People tend to tell everyone they know about how great an experience was as well as how awful an organization is to deal with. There is a lot riding on customer service and if our organizations are not careful, we will lose out on a great deal of opportunities in the future. Here’s the thing though…everyone in the organization is actually working in customer service. That’s right it does not matter the position. When we interact with customers, we are essentially working in customer service.
It does not matter if we are the CEO, a sales person, an engineer, a call center employee, or a janitor. We are ambassadors for the organizations we represent. We have the opportunity to build up or tear down the reputation of our organization by how we treat others. We need to keep that in mind when we are sporting our organization’s name, at events, and even what we post on social media.
It also does not matter if we are not a paid, or not. When people see us representing an organization, they are making the association no matter our affiliation. People will make their perceptions about the organization based on the people they interact with.
I have had people in organizations tell me they don’t care if a customer likes it or not because they don’t have to interact with the customer regularly. It’s frankly, not their job. Unfortunately, what these individuals don’t understand is that the customer is buying products / services that are in turn funding their paycheck. Make enough customers stop buying from our organization and then we are all looking for other employment.
When the customer has a bad experience, social media allows them to send their experience all over the world in a matter of seconds. Organizations do not have the ability to respond to every negative comment on all of the social media platforms. There is just too much area to cover, but we can make sure we do our part and give the customer a great experience each and every time we interact with them.
No one is above customer service. We are all serving customers. Whether we like it or not, our organizations are judged by our actions. Keep that in mind when you are wearing your organization’s logo, or at an event for your organization. Make the interaction a positive one. Be courteous, helpful, gracious, and humble. Go the extra mile to help someone even if they are not buying from you right then and there. Your organization’s reputation and your paycheck actually do depend on it.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Why Emails Aren’t Necessarily Better
How many times have you said, “I’ll just send a quick email” and it took twenty back and forth emails to where you finally picked up the phone to clear something up?
Have you ever gotten really upset with someone over email only to find out that they did not mean any harm when they sent it?
How about this one? Have you ever been overwhelmed because you had so many emails to respond to?
How many times have you said, “I’ll just send a quick email” and it took twenty back and forth emails to where you finally picked up the phone to clear something up?
Have you ever gotten really upset with someone over email only to find out that they did not mean any harm when they sent it?
How about this one? Have you ever been overwhelmed because you had so many emails to respond to?
I am guilty of all three of these more times than I care to admit. Over 124 billion emails are sent each day all over the world in hopes of resolving questions fast. Email was created to make communication easier and efficient. The issue is most people think that email is the save all be all when it comes to communicating to others. They hide behind computer screens sending off their requests and responses in hopes that the issue will go away quickly, only to have the email come boomeranging back with more questions or requests for information. Then we send responses and more questions of our own to the other person to which they respond, and the conversation keeps going on and on very slowly.
A few things to remember on emails are that in great communication the majority of communication is non-verbal (or written word), people tend to take written word in a negative point of view, and the person reading the words does not always know the context. This makes it ever harder for you to communicate effectively through email. Text messaging is also one of these communication mediums that get people into trouble. People tend to use it also as a means to cya (look it up) in case something bad happens.
Emails can be used also in harassment cases. I have seen people twist words from emails into the ability to sue an organization for harassment. Keep that in mind when you are upset and wanting to respond to someone to make yourself feel better. The same can be said for text messages.
Back to the main topic with emails… Most questions are easily answered, but I bet the number of emails would greatly decrease if people used a phone call instead. I have found that reaching out to others via conference calls, quick phone calls, or video meetings obtain faster results in less time than the flurry of emails that depending on workloads take days or weeks to have the responses come back to close the discussion.
New software platforms such as Loom, Zoom, Teams, Meets are being presented into the marketplace for people to speed communication up greatly. Most smart phones have the ability to video call now as well. Let’s also not forget about walking up to the people we need to communicate in person if we are in the same office.
People crave community and relationships so being present is a best way to communicate in my opinion. The problem is that we as a society have focused so much on becoming efficient in communication that we tend to miss the mark when trying to communicate. Communicating with others is vital to get our goals accomplished. It is very rare for someone to complete a great task all on their own. They need others to help them move forward.
I have taken great pride in increasing my communication by helping others understand clearly what I am trying to accomplish. Most of the time I try to do that with conversation rather than email. Please be intentional when working through emails to be as clear as possible in communicating if you chose not to talk to the person and help them understand the complete setting.
If you must write an email below is a process I work through when sending out emails:
1. Write the email as though the person receiving the email has no idea what you are talking about and the scope of the situation. ( But keeps short of a thesis paper)
2. Focus on your audience and especially if they are in another country to not write your email in your slang as they may not understand it.
3. Read the email through prior to sending to make sure the topics are clear and concise.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Do You Know The Most Important Variable In Trust?
We have seen politicians, CEO’s, and sales professionals all brag about how they did something great and how they deserve all the credit. Unfortunately, anything worth doing takes a great deal of effort and typically takes support of others.
Now that the elections are hopefully over and trust is very much a commodity that is lacking today, I figured I’d talk about one of the biggest factors in building trust. We need trust in others if we are going to go anywhere. Without trust not much is possible. Today let’s talk about one of the most important variables in building trust.
That variable is Selfishness. We have seen politicians, CEO’s, and sales professionals all brag about how they did something great and how they deserve all the credit. Unfortunately, anything worth doing takes a great deal of effort and typically takes support of others. We need to make sure we are not killing trust with self-promotion.
When I created the trust equation it was to make it easy for people to see the basics of building trust. You can be very creditable, reliable, and vulnerable, but if we are only doing this to help ourselves “WIN” we actually “LOSE.” We will not be able to gain trust and sustain it if we are only out for our own gain. If we are selfish and only doing things to be able to leverage in another instance, we will soon erode trust. People will see it especially if we are doing this over and over again. True we may be able to fake our selfishness for a little while to obtain short term gains, but trust is really a long-term play. People will figure us out, as selfishness is like a spotlight shining bright into the night sky.
Selfishness tells people that we do not value them and do not care about them. Who wants to trust someone like that? Have you ever been around someone that you tried to give more and more trust and it just seemed to blow up in your face each and every time? It is really hard to keep wanting to extend them the benefit of doubt. After a while, trust in that person is just not an option.
By being selfish we can quickly turn relationships sour. In sales or leadership if this happens, we really start losing our influence, which is the key ingredient to business success. Without trust there is no influence. We may think that if we have leverage over someone we can have influence them, but I challenge that thought because once that leverage is gone there is no more influence. Ever here about Julius Cesar? His good friend stabbed him in the back. Now typically an actual stabbing does not happen in business, but there have been stories in business where boards have thrown the CEO out of the organization overnight. Even Steve Jobs was asked to step down at one point at Apple.
I am constantly taking inventory in my life to gauge how selfish I am being. I’m sure I fail to live up to my standard, but my focus is on not being selfish and trying to help everyone that I can. I put my expertise out there to help others gain knowledge. I do not do it so I can say, see what I have done, but to share so that people can avoid mistakes that I have run into in the past. My goal is to help you become more efficient and successful especially with areas of sales and influence.
The key is to really take an inventory of our relationships and see if there are any areas where we are being selfish. Are there some relationships that we have been one sided on? Have we made any recent mistakes that an apology will help start the road back to building trust? Selfishness can be fixed when we take an honest look at how we have behaving with others.
If we want to have a greater trust level, then our selfishness must be put in check.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”