Year End Review

Good morning Everyone,

I hope you are all ready for Christmas at this point.  It is only a few days away.  I know I am looking forward to the break between Christmas and New Years to relax, catch my breath, and get ready for the new goals I have for this year.

Right now, though I am reviewing my past goals from this year and seeing where I have had gaps.  I set out to accomplish many things in my business and health this year along with writing my first book.  Although the relationship and fun areas I did lack quite a bit in.  We did have a change in plans where most of my son’s goals were for summer and he ended up coming to live with my wife and I this fall.  I did coach his flag football team which I have found the importance of finding the right motivation for people you are coaching.  For them it was chocolate chip cookies.

As I take this time to review all of my goals I want to focus on three main questions: 

1.     Where did I do well and how can I push myself to do better the following year?

2.     Where did I just suck at and how can I focus on that area if it is still important this year?

3.     How can I make my goals better in terms of measurable for a win and time lines to get these goals accomplished?

If you look at where I wanted to spend more time with friends and make new friends, I did not come close.  For the next year I want to make these goals a little more measurable so that I can truly see what a win is for this goal.  It may be hang out with my Michigan friends once a quarter, once a month, or maybe plan a guys’ trip for a long weekend.

As you can see, I need to focus on family and fun activities this next year.  I want this next year for my family to know that they are valued and loved.  I also need to schedule in more fun events as this year was truly focused on work, writing a book, and growing my company.  I do miss water skiing and seeing I did it once this past year I would like to get into it more often.  It is also a stress reducer for me when I get done water skiing so it will help me decompress so I can get back to work with intentional focus. 

If you have never made goals for yourself, I encourage you.  You don’t have to succeed at every one.  As you can see I did not.  If you want to grow though, you need to challenge and stretch you self otherwise how will your comfort zone get bigger.  More on setting goals next week. As for now, have a great Christmas!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

Influence, Want Some

Good morning everyone,

We are in the home stretch for the holidays!  We can see the end of the year just over the horizon! 

Now that my book has launched and is out for sale, I wanted to focus on the next step from sales to gaining influence.

In the picture attached to this blog post you will see the five buying decisions that someone will need to make before they are willing to buy your product.  What if your product is actually a vision for your organization that you are leading?  What does that look like?

Well let’s change the names of the steps to help from bottom up.

1.     You

2.     Your Leadership Team

3.     Your Vision

4.     Employee Cost

5.     Buy-in

The same decisions need to be made by your employees before they will be willing to go the way with you on your vision. 

Let’s look at you and how you are selling yourself to your employees.  Do your employees trust you?  Do they believe in you?  How do you know for sure?  You can ask them, but they may not tell you the truth because they like being paid and are fearful of that imploding with an honest comment.  How can you be sure?  How candid and open are you with your employees?  Do you share them your humility, or do you sit up in a throne that they are only allowed in to be sentenced to punishment? 

Dave Ramsey often walks around the office to talk with his staff and to know what is going on in their life.  He makes sure his managers that have reports know them as well.  This creates a great level of trust in an organization and I highly recommend it.  After working in multiple industries most organizations have the throne approach or some level of being superficial.

Second buy-in decision that has to be made is do the employees trust your leadership team.  This could you be your managers under your supervision, or if you are the CEO, your top level executives.  Do the employees trust them?  Same as you if the employees don’t trust you or your leadership team, you vision is going to stay in dry dock and not going anywhere.

Your vision is the third buy-in decision that the organization is going to have to decide on.  Much like the sales process when the customer is going to have to buy in to your product that you are selling so is true for your vision.  How sound is it?  Does it align with the core values that the organization has?  Does this vision violate any out of bounds areas with those core values?  What needs does this vision address for your employees and the organization?  Using these questions and the pages in the book uncovering needs will help you come up with the needs and questions to ask the organization to see if your vision is going to help or hurt the organization.  Bounce this vision off of your team and any people that are not directly paid by you that have an investment in you as a leader and will provide honest and sometimes tough feedback.

Now we get into the cost step of influence.  What does it cost the organization to move in the direction you want it to go in?  Will there be extra work for the employees?  Will there be payoffs for the organization that will offset these things?  How much pain is the organization going to go through before they come out the other side to a better way?  These decisions have to be validated before the organization is going to buy in to you.  Sure most employees will say yes to your face, but their actions with engagement will show you the truth later on.  Better make sure that they cost is not more than the reward to the organization.

The fifth and final step in the influence in the buy-in step which should be very quick if the organization trusts you and you have the influence built up to a high enough value.  The organization will want to “charge the pits of hell with a water pistol” as Dave Ramsey states from his Millennials.  If you have focused on building the influence to cast your vision your organization will follow you anywhere. 

Isn’t that what we all want in business?  The same could be said for your family though. If you do not have the influence with your family, they will not follow you either.

There was a great deal here in this blog post and we are only scratching the surface on influence.  I look forward to diving more in depth in 2019.

For the next two weeks the blogs will follow year end review and goal planning for the next year.  See you next time!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

It Does Not Matter Where You Start

Good morning everyone,

I hope you are all doing well and winding down for the Christmas Holiday.  We still have some wrapping of presents for the kids and prepare for family get togethers.  It is always good to see family and catch up as well as see how the kids are growing. 

It is amazing to see my niece sprout up almost as tall as my son seeing she was born at 31 weeks 12 years ago and was about the size of a book when she was born.  It inspires me to see how it does not matter where you start, but how you work with what you have that counts.  She is an accomplished horseback rider earning a great deal of awards, she is very smart, and when she is challenged, she responds well to overcome and achieve.

I have also overcome a great deal of adversity every time I had made a career change, learned a new skill, renovated a house, or wrote my first book.  FYI “The Sales Process Uncovered” is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, along with other retail outlets.  I will add the picture of the book to this blog post for reference. 

Each time I have tried a new skill, or taken on a new challenge I have been met with a great deal of resistance.  I have had to grind through the growth period to start learning and adapting my approach as I went.  I am not the smartest person on earth so it tends to take me longer to learn something and I tend to get knocked down and have to get back up repeatedly.  Yes, I do complain a bit.  Just ask my wife who has heard me stomping my feet on the ground saying this isn’t fair, more times than I care to acknowledge. 

However, I don’t stop when I get knocked down.  I get back up and review what went wrong and then look to advance in the best way I can to achieve the desired outcome.  I did not grow up with a great deal of money like some of my college friends.  I had to work hard to get to where I am.  I was not a naturally gifted sales person, I had to work at understanding people and the sales process so that I could gain influence.  I can’t even read that fast so I have audio books at the ready for long drives so I can learn from them.  I still do like reading books and plan to read a bit during my vacations, and flights.

There are a few keys to remember when setting out on a huge goal, or learning a new skill.

1.     Don’t worry about if you already know the skills you need in order to accomplish what you are setting out to do.  I rarely ever have the tools I need at the time I set out.  I use what I have though and start moving forward and learn as I go.  Having courage to move forward is needed.

2.     Learn from those killing it.  Be open to learning from anyone already doing what you want to do.  See who is killing it and learn from what them whenever you can.  Ask and be inquisitive because people have all sorts of little hacks that will help you. 

3.     Know you are going to get knocked down.  It is inevitable.  You will have set backs.  Set backs are not failures.  Failing is only if you quit.  It is allowable to mope for a bit and complain, but get up, dust yourself off, and get back to moving forward.

4.     Celebrate a new skill you learned along the way.  Take time to acknowledge the new skill you have learned.  Small wins are important.  In football the teams needs to get first downs to move the ball downfield to score.  There can be 10 first downs before they get into the endzone and score if they drive from one goal line to the next.

5.     It does not matter how long it takes.  It does not matter how long it takes you to learn a something new or complete a task.  We would all love to learn the first time, but let’s be real.  Those that have become masters at something take 10,000 hours of practice.  They don’t wake up and say hey I am a master.  Life is not like that movie “The Matrix” where the people hooked up to some machine and they automatically learned something new.  If it takes you longer than someone else, so what.  This is your race, not theirs.  Sure you’d like to trip them to make yourself feel better, but focus on you and your journey.  That is what matters.

I hope this helps and that you feeling better if you are worried about learning something new or getting ready to take a leap.  Feel free to ask in the comments section if you have questions with a new skill you are looking to learn.  I would be glad to share any knowledge I have to help. 

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

Morning Prep

Good morning everyone.  We are in the final weeks before we end another year and start off a new one.  This is the time that most people start reflecting how they did the past year, what their focus was, and how they will want to make changes in the future.

For todays’ blog post I want to focus on the topic of starting the day.  How do you start your day?  Hit the alarm clock snooze button, do you roll out of bed before the alarm clock, grab coffee, read the paper, meditate, etc?  Do you focus on your morning routine?

Over the past week or so I have started a new program of meditation.  Now I am not someone that can sit in the leg crossed position and clear my mind while saying “oooohhhhmmm.”  Meditation is still new to me and I am trying to learn about it.  I have started doing Headspace for 3 minutes each morning.  Mainly I have been just breathing in deep breathes and letting them out.

Prior to this when I would start my morning routine which is usually jumping out of bed at 5:30 a.m. feeding the dog, and then finding a quiet place to read my bible app.  I am reading the one story app which really helps you grasp the whole bible in sequential order and not with all of the extra stuff that always through me off.  It has really helped me to understand the bible better over this past year.

The issue I was having is that while I would read, my mind would be racing thinking of all of the things that I needed to do that day and get my mind racing.  It was starting to get in the way of me learning so I had to make a change.  Now I am trying the meditation thing to calm my mind and relax before reading.  It is helping me not get too far ahead of myself and focused on the moment which has been hard seeing I have been so busy lately. 

From there I do review emails and do hop on Facebook to see updates from friends and how their kids are doing.  Then I have to get in the shower and get ready for the day. 

This morning is a little different as my son has decided to wake up early and is doing his Spanish training as I am writing this blog.  I will try not to convert into Spanish as I type while trying to negotiate for more tablet time to watch Minecraft videos.  I typically like to do my morning routine in silence, but hey it is Saturday and I don’t usually get much time with him in the mornings so I will accept it today.

The main point is to review your morning routine to see if there are areas that need to be improved and if there is anything that is getting in the way of you becoming more efficient.  We all need to stop and review our routines from time to time to see if we are letting noise creep in to slow us down.  With only a certain amount of time each day we need to make sure we are maximizing our potential. 

I am also thinking about getting rid of Facebook all together to stop me from taking my 10 minutes from me each morning.  That is 10 minutes every morning, multiplied by 365 days using up almost 61 hours per year of inefficiency.  As you can see a few minutes each day does add up though the year. 

Take time and review your morning routine and see if there is any areas that are getting in the way. 

Until next time, have a great weekend everyone!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

Giving Thanks

Good morning everyone,

I hope you have had a good Thanksgiving and are ready for the big football match ups!  This weekend in college football it’s “The Game”  Michigan vs. Ohio State.  I am excited for the game, although I am sure my family will want to have me watch it alone.  I swear the coaches, players, and refs can hear me yelling at the television.

I just wanted to take a few minutes to reflect on Thanks Giving.  In my family we are so busy that we don’t get to spend a great deal of time together.  I can count on my hand the number of times that my family all comes together under one roof.  It is the holidays and especially Thanksgiving that this happens.

I actually love Thanksgiving because it is the day that I eat a great deal of food and don’t feel guilty.  I know it is going to happen and I run a 5k every Thanksgiving just to help myself feel better on top of my regular workouts. 

I get to see my cousins, niece, close family, and friends this holiday and I am looking forward to spending time catching up and seeing the kids grow up.  I used to think it was all about the food, but now I understand that Thanksgiving is all about being grateful for what we have.

If you really look at your life and count how many times you see all of your family together you probably see that it isn’t as often as you thought it would be.  Say you see them twice a year.  Multiply that by how ever many years you have until you are 75 which is the average number of years most people live to. For me that is only 74 more interactions with all of them until I well expire.  My parents are in their late 60’s and early 70’s now so that means time with them is getting really thin.  This holiday will be focused more on letting them know how much they have impacted me and how important they have been in my life.

How long do you have left with your family and friends?  How many times will you get to share memories with them?  How many chances do you have to let them know how much they mean to you?

Who knows how long we have left.  Take time this holiday to let those you love know how much they mean to you and how thankful you are for them being in your life.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

Do Your Budget!!!

Good morning everyone,

It has now changed to cold and grey skies here in the Ohio area.  Thursday schools closed due to ice on the roads.  Which I think about when I was growing up watching the bus slide past our house and bumping into a curb to stop.  When I looked at my mom she said, “What are you waiting for get on the bus.”  Granted I did not walk to school in six feet of snow uphill both ways like my parents, but still.  I am a little bitter when it comes to snow days with minor amounts of snow.

Sorry for getting off topic 😊

On to the discussion about the most fun topic most people have, budgets.  When I talk to most people they tell me they budget by looking at their bank statement every month and if there is more money in the account than what went out they were successful.  I used to be like that personally when I was younger.  I would pay off everything and hope I had money left over at the end of the month. 

Along came Financial Peace University that my mom asked me to take.  It was a 13-week (back then) course on the importance of managing money.  In the course I learned how to budget.  It has been something I do every month with my wife now and I even took the sheets and created an excel spreadsheet for our family.  We do monthly budget meetings prior to the first of the month to decide where the money will be going.  We use a lot of cash for purchases still that we have put into envelopes.  The class was great and since starting I have been able to direct where my money is going each and every month. 

I now also lead Financial Peace University classes for my church and am on my fifth class.  It is so much fun to see others grasp the concept and move forward.  Using the principals of the class to direct where the money is going and not spending money at will has brought quite a bit of structure as well as being able to save a great deal of money.  By telling the money where to go we are able to wisely invest a great deal, give a great deal, and spend a great deal on things we need rather than blowing all of our money on things that will not do us any good, but made us happy in the purchase. 

Budgeting is crucial to your business as well as your personal life.  I currently am running two budgets.  One for my family and one for my business.  Knowing how much I have to spend on projects helps me really think about how the money is going to be working for me in the future.  While I have been writing my book. I have been going back over the budget and reviewing what I need to spend on each stage as well as if I need redesigns on the covers or layout.  I could have easily spent $10,000 on this book, but have been able to keep the budget considerably lower while sourcing individuals to do the editing, layout, interior graphics, and covers.  Had I not budgeted I don’t think I would have been able to get this far with the book.

I encourage you especially now that Christmas is on its way and the Black Friday ads are coming to do a budget before buying your gifts.  It can get out of hand how much you spend on people no knowing until the credit card bill shows up.  If you have questions on budgeting feel free to reach out to me.  I am happy to help.  Also look up Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peach University, and some budgeting apps like mint and every dollar. 

I am old school so I choose to do excel.  I know call me archaic, but hey I used to have to get on the bus during icy road conditions and I turned out just fine!

Have a great weekend and get ready for eating Thanksgiving meals with family!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

Don’t Use the Elevator

Happy Saturday everyone,

I hope you are enjoying this November and are ready for one of my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving!  I enjoy eating and eating bad food.  So I am eating really healthy and working out extra hard so I can go for it in a couple weeks!

As I stated earlier I went up to Ann Arbor, Michigan for a National Speakers Association meeting.  It was a great meeting and I am glad that I went!  There was a great deal of content on speaking that I am grateful to have absorbed.  I will be downloading quite a bit tomorrow and Monday from today.  Some content I will put in future blog posts.

Today’s post I want to talk about elevator pitches.  I remember when I first got into sales this was the language you needed to use when someone asked what you did.  People came up with all sorts of weird pitches.  Then it was your unique selling position was what you needed to craft so when you talked to customers. 

Today the discussion was to use your positioning statement for when you talk to people.  That is how we started the meeting.  Today we went around out tables to work on these.  It was a fun activity.  Today I started my positioning statement which looks like this “I work with organizations just like yours that want to increase sales and influence so that they can improve profits and elevate their people.” 

This flows with my company which is Sales and Leadership Enterprises.  I emphasize the fact that I help people walk through the sales process and how salespeople can intentionally understand where they are at in the process.  Using the same process this helps leaders gain influence from customers as well as those that work with them. 

Today now that we no longer use the elevator pitch we move into the positioning statement where we want to be in our customer’s minds. 

What is your positioning statement?  Lets hear it and if you’d like to craft it leave a comment below and lets craft it.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

Will Update Later Today

Good morning everyone, I apologize for the lack of a post this morning as I am on the road traveling to Ann Arbor, MI for the National Speakers Association (NSA) meeting and am looking forward to share what the meeting has to offer on the blog post today.

I should have it updated later today around 5 p.m.

Thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

What is the most unique thing you have sold

Good morning everyone,

I hope you are all doing well after the Halloween candy extravaganza that happens on October 31st here in the United States.  For those that don’t know what that is it is a holiday where children dress up and go door to door saying trick or treat and they receive candy.  This year I was blown away that people were actually giving away full-size candy bars to kids.  I remember growing up and getting small candies that were bought for a penny.  I explain this holiday to those that are reading from outside the United States.  It’s a weird holiday for kids, but one I’m sure dentists love!

So on to today’s blog post.  As the title states, it is formed as a question to learn at some of the most unique things you have ever sold. 

To date I have sold outdoor power equipment which included zero turn lawn mowers, peltor hearing protection, line trimmers (also called weed eaters, whip trimmers, etc), parking lot blowers, power washers, and line trimmer line cutters.  I have also sold wire harnesses to automotive companies like FCA, and commercial vehicle axles and drive shafts.  None of which have the coolness factor of houses, expensive cars, or the latest technology.

So, I am interested to hear what you have sold.  From the cool to not so cool, to so weird I can’t believe that I sold those things.  Let’s hear what you sold in the comments below.  I always like doing research to see new things that I have never heard of before.

It does not matter what you sold, but what matters is that you were able to put food on your table and support your family.  Sales is a profession that gets a bad rap because there are some people that ruin it for the rest of us, and those that do not know how to sell that irritate people.  That fact is that sales is truly a profession that should have more respect for the profession as well as the salespeople that function in the role. 

Sales is a hard profession.  There are many extra hours of helping prospective customers, running reports, moving the sales process forward with the customers, while convincing your internal organization that this is a good deal to move forward.  Sales people have a hard job and I understand.  It sometimes takes away family time and also your own joy because you are working so hard to move forward.  What you are doing is noble and honest and a great profession.  Keep up the good work!

Thanks, and have a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

Transitions

Happy Saturday everyone,

We are in the home stretch here in the U.S. towards the holiday season.  We kick off with Halloween which I believe was invented by dentists to have kids each so much candy that they get cavities and then the parents are forced to pay for more fillings.  Then we are a month away from Thanksgiving and finally Christmas. 

These next few months are really going to fly by!

Speaking of time flying by, I was thinking recently about transitions I have had in the past when changing careers, jobs, companies, etc.  I have been doing a great deal of reflecting lately about every time I made a job change, or organization change and how I went through a few months of pain during the transition.  There is the honeymoon phase for the first few weeks of a new job or organization, which is quickly followed by the pain.

I call it the “pain period” because it is where you are literally learning the new role and all of the tasks that you did not think to ask about during the interview process.  This is the time where you are learning your new organization, new products, new processes, who on the team does what, and so on.  There is a period of time where you are constantly getting knocked down mentally and having to gather yourself and get right back up.  Some of the time I didn’t want to get back up and wanted to mope around for a bit. 

What I found is that this “pain period” lasts between three and six months of any new transition.  Each day is a grind at the beginning as you learn the role and the team support staff.  You learn the product and the tricks to help you get through the processes a little faster each day.  It’s like a video game where you keep getting killed at the beginning and then you make it a little farther each time after. 

If you are in the “pain period” don’t lose hope.  Keep focusing on moving forward and getting better.  Focus on the process of getting better and what you are learning.  Do not focus on the fact that there are areas that seem overwhelming and that you may not accomplish the tasks.  It will take time, but over time you will get better, faster, and learn who to go to for the cheat codes in the organization. 

Stay focused on the prize of getting better and how you have already done this in the past and came out the other side of the “pain period” to shine like a Rockstar!  Keep moving forward.

Have a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

When Keto Diet Tried to Killed Me!

Good morning everyone,

I hope you all are enjoying your October before all of the hurrying of the holidays kicks in and getting your last taste of pumpkin spice that everyone now sells.

I was wondering what to write about and then it hit me.  Let’s talk about my life and how me trying a diet and not researching it correctly could have killed me.  Recently I said yes, I am signing up to the Keto diet because I want to eat better as I can’t outwork my bad diet in the gym anymore.  Plus, they said I could eat bacon and well no explanation there.

I jumped in eating very little carbs and protein and maybe some fats.  What I found out I was not getting hardly enough good fats and my whole body got really weak.  Evidently, I was so weak in my immunity that I contracted pneumonia.  I didn’t know it and thought it was just a sinus infection that I was used to getting.  Nope!  Three days of a fever that would go away and then come back, feeling awful, and sweating more than a work out. 

I used my live Health app and used a doctor with quite a bit of experience.  He was nice and we talked through everything to which point he asked me if I had an urgent care nearby I could go to.  He said it sounds like pneumonia and that a chest x-ray would be needed.  This is at 7:15 p.m. and the place closed at 8:00.  I called them and rushed over to which they verified at 8:45 and provided me with meds, and two shots one in each hip.  It was an awesome night.  What I am lucky to have is the ability to call a doctor at will and get prescriptions using the app easier than trying to schedule a doctor in an office.  That is a pretty great feature that I highly recommend.  They also can send prescriptions to whatever pharmacy you pick. 

As I write this I am on my second day of meds and feeling better.  As I thought about it while I travel so much that having this online access to a doctor is a must so I can get fixed as soon as possible.  I hope that you have the ability to do so as well.

I am still debating whether or not to go back on Keto.  I mean my bad diet never tried to kill me, it only encouraged me to eat more!  I probably will just because it is the right thing to do, but I will be doing more research before doing so in the future that is for sure.

Now it is time for me to go get ready to be in quarantine while I watch Michigan play Michigan State football.  I guess it isn’t a total loss :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

H.E.L.P.

Good morning everyone,

Yesterday I was wondering what I would write about today while driving to visit some new customers.  I was wondering what content I should share with all of you.  When I was sitting in a conference room having conversations with one customer the person I was with noticed how quickly I build rapport with the people that I meet.

He stated in the first meeting that I really know how to kiss up to the customer, but by the second meeting he was sitting back just noticing how I was getting engaged with the customer so well.  We had business to talk about sure, but how things unrolled was interesting.

See we were in Novi, Michigan and the one customer’s name we will use is Chris.  What I already knew about Chris was that he and his wife have twins soon to be arriving.  Courtesy of his wife.  During conversations I found out that he also had two other children (the oldest in high school) which is why they were going to continue to live in the area they are living until he graduates, but will obviously will need a bigger house soon with the addition of two more. 

We were discussing houses and where he would love to live and then it came out that I live in Perrysburg, Ohio now.  All of a sudden he perks up and said that he grew up in Perrysburg and how much he loved it.  We talked about all of the places down here and a strange fact came out after we were discussing where he lived and where I now live. 

Come to find out he knows my neighbor really well as he played sports with my neighbor’s son.  They are really good friends still to this day.  The customer even has family that still lives here and he travels down about once a month.  We will be setting up a date to grab a meal soon is where we left it off at.  Typically, I try to set up the meeting for a follow up on that, but it was the first meeting and the person with me was just sitting there counting the minutes until we left.

The customer really didn’t start opening up much during the meeting discussing business items, but after the meeting when we talked about personal stuff and stories he could not stop talking and we built a bond pretty quickly.

So how did this all happen? 

First, I want to help those that I meet.  I want them to know that if there is anything that I can help with whether it is a location, some kind of product / service that they are trying to use, or even great restaurants in an area.  I want to help them get to a better place if possible.

Second, I get engaged in the conversation with customers to make sure I am focused on getting to know them.  I make sure that my attention is focused on them and not talking so much about me.  I will throw out small details every so often to see if there is something that we can connection on in conversation.  If not, I steer the conversation into any where else that they may have interest as the conversation unfolds.

Third, is I want to learn about the customer constantly.  I use the house analogy that I have used on my blogs in the past and will be discussed in my book that is finally back in edit for the second time.  I constantly want to be curious and learn about customers and those I meet.  Without that want people zone out and focus on themselves or making a sale.  Again, if you are not focused on the customer you will lose that connection.  Make sure you always are learning something new about the customer.

Last thing to remember is I put a priority to get to know the customer.  I value them so much that I want to get to know them as people buy from people and people that they know and trust.  Without trust, there is not going to be a transaction.

There you have it HELP.  Help them, be engaged, learn about people, and place a priority on them. 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

Book Update

Good morning everyone,

This morning I wanted to give some updates on the book that I am writing and the process that has gone into writing it. 

As you may know from reading my blogs that I am very passionate about selling and serving the customer.  I never thought in a million years when I was in college that I would want to end up in sales, but I am glad I did.  By taking the leap I was able to see how to help others get to a better place when trying to make an investment whether it be in their business or themselves. 

To that point as I started gaining traction in sales I wanted to know why and how I was able to do so.  It was a decade of me studying the process and seeing where I would get hung up and how I got through road blocks.  I studied all the sales books dog earing them, marking them up, and outlining the map to have consistent sales success.

At the beginning of this year I set out to write a book on the sales process so others could have an easy to follow roadmap of the process and how to implement it.  What I learned was that writing is difficult.  I can talk to people and help them see the vision, but putting this into words was difficult. 

I wrote my first draft and had my wife read it.  To which point she had come back to me and said she didn’t understand.  Talk about a kick in the…insert word you would use.  Then I went back to rewrite and make it more clear.  I found a great editor through another speaker and author that had completed the content edit for me.  She did a great job at going through the book and editing with comments all over.  When we got on the coaching call we went through the edits.  She was very nice as she helped me understand that I actually had two books, or I really needed to go back through and rewrite the book in a different structure. 

Now I have gone back through and restructured the book, rewrote sections and am hoping for the book to be better.  This has been around 8 months so far.  My wife has now gone back through and done her reading to which point she said it is a great deal better.  I have yet to see her mark ups and am hoping she isn’t just being nice because she does not want to see me tail spin into self-doubt. 

After this then the editor is going to go through another edit for this book.  I am now seeing why not that many people actually complete writing their books due to the length of the process.  I am hoping to have this book completed by the Christmas holiday.  We will see if that is going to happen.

I will provide updates hopefully next month along with cover options that I will need your help with. 

Until then, have a great weekend.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

Trying Something New

Good morning everyone,

It has almost been a year for me starting my blog here on my site.  I can not believe that I have been able to talk about that many topics, or keep my attention long enough to do so.  This was a new process to help me grown and write my book that I am hoping is ready before Christmas.

Now I have had help with an editor to put my thoughts into a good format so I am hoping that you will be able to read it and get all the value in a structured order.  Believe me they are worth it when you find a good one.  Although it has caused me to go back in rewrite a couple times. 

I am currently looking for book cover graphic designers if you want to offer any suggestions that would be great!

Speaking of the book and blogging, I want to talk about trying something new.  I often want to grow myself in different areas quite often.  Each year I sit down and write down goals.  The last two years with the help of my wife I have been able to record more and put in a format that I can come back to regularly to see how I am doing.  This past year included the blogging for the company and getting the book written.  I have also put in other financial goals, reading 12 books a year, and areas with the kids to grow that relationship.  I constantly like to learn in multiple areas of my life to become better overall.

Something that I hope to do in the future is learn how to fly.  It is something that has been fun for the few discovery flights that I have been on and the ability to sit in the cockpit with a past boss while traveling for work in his plane.  That skill is very technical and a great deal of focus is needed.  So that will be something that I also have to grow in :)  From there I would love to learn how to fly a helicopter.  You never know when the zombie apocalypse will show up so being able to get off the ground may come in handy! 

I have also tried wake surfing this past year as a new skill.  It is fun being out on a boat with a group of people and making a fool of yourself when you wipe out at 10 mph.  It also is a lot easier on the body when you fall at 10 mph compared to water skiing at 28 – 30 mph.  Rupturing an ear drum can happen and has happened to me. 

My mom was super pumped recently when she went zip lining for the first time while on vacation.  She is in her sixties and to hear her say that she was pumped about it and wanting to do it again with a great deal of excitement was cool.  She said the next step was to try sky diving in the near future.  I was very encouraging of her doing this if it is something she wants to do.  I will also be the one wanting to see pictures of her doing it and am currently searching for options for her to do it so I can see and maybe go as well.

What I encourage you today is to look at some things that you would like to do that you haven’t done before.  You only have a limited amount of time and the clock is ticking.  Make it an effort to grow and try something new.  

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

Where to Meet?

Good morning everyone,

Today I want to discuss where you tend to meet with your customer.  Most larger organizations have meeting rooms that are booked out weeks in advance.  This makes it hard to have regular cadences for your meetings.  For consultants, meeting locations can begin to look like the local coffee shops and book stores.  There are also office suites that can be rented as well. 

What about when you have offsite meetings with your teams.  Where do you go?  Do you rent ballrooms in local hotels?   Do you find resorts where you can take all of your teams away to focus?  What if there was another option.

A few weeks back I attended a National Speakers Association meeting in Michigan.  It was my first one that I have attended after being informed about the meeting multiple times.  I decided to drive to Ann Arbor, Michigan to see what it was about and to see my friend Josh who speaks on employee engagement.  What I didn’t know is how inspiring the location would be.

The meetings are held at a location just outside of Ann Arbor.  It is a venue that has seven different meeting room configurations ranging in size, light catering, and multiple break out areas for discussions and brainstorming on white boards as well as glass.  The meeting rooms range in size and configurations of what you desire for our meetings.  They have all AV equipment needed to hold small presentations, and recording the event. 

As I walked in I could feel the potential of this building to hosting an array of events from workshops, to negotiations, and offsite training for your groups.  This is the only site like this that I have experienced and was excited.  I kept talking about how great the place was and after seeing the costs to hold meetings I was wanting to talk about replicating this across the country.

This would be great for large cities to have a location where organizations and entrepreneurs could meet with clients and collaborate.  The location is actually run by a speaker and I can see why the vision of it works well.  I recommend seeing this site for yourself if you are ever in the Ann Arbor area.  The organization is called Go To Where Meetings Matter.  You’ll be glad you did.  Just know that I was not paid and do not receive referrals for this at the time of my blog.  Who knows though.  Maybe in the future :)

Have a good weekend and check out the format of this organization and see if there are any near you that would suit your need.  If not, why not build one for yourself.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

H.I.R.E.

Good morning everyone, 

I hope you are all well and enjoying the cooler temperatures and are save if you are in the area where the hurricane came through the other day.  I have never had to experience a hurricane and can only imagine what it would take to deal with the aftermath.

Prayers for your safety down in the Carolinas.

I was reflecting the other day on building rapport with others.  This topic is something that is a must in order to gain influence with anyone.  Whether you are a coach of a team, meeting with a client, or in an interview you need to be able to build rapport.  You also need to be able to build it quickly in times like interviews.  You are trying to connect with the person looking to hire you and typically they tend to hire people they like.  Sometimes they like the person so much that they do not care about how suited the candidate is for the position.  Take that last statement with a grain of salt, but unfortunately it is true.

So how do you build rapport?

I use the following four ways to do so:

Be Helpful

Be willing to help them with whatever they need help with.  Go the extra mile to help them when you think you have done enough, go one step further.  It could be helping a child with an assignment on the football field going through the play with them one on one and then helping them step through the steps in that process.  It could be jumping in to help unload something that the person you are meeting with is trying to unload from a truck.  It could also be helping sweep up a mess that has happened and sending follow up to the person that the task was complete

Be Intentional

By being intentional I mean really look to find common ground with those people you will be interacting with and needing to build rapport with.  This can be researching them on social media like linked in, facebook, local associations they are affiliated with, google etc.

Be Respectful

People want to feel valued and that they are important.  Why not make them feel that way.  Let them know that you have their back and are willing to do the work with them.  Call them sir or ma’am when they are older than you, use their name (sweetest sound to any person is their own name), use your manners. 

Be Enthusiastic

Show some enthusiasm with the person you are talking to.  Use humor, make them feel comfortable, and lower the tension.  People that smile and make people laugh are far more able to build rapport than someone that walks around like the Winnie the Pooh character Eeyore that moped around and never showed excitement.  People like to be around light hearted and fun people.  Show some enthusiasm and energy.  People will gravitate towards you.

There you have it, think of HIRE when you are looking to build rapport.  Focus on others and help them get to where they way to go and you will build all the rapport.  Use Hire when you are getting ready to meet someone new and needing to build rapport.  You want the person to like you so much that they would hire you.

Have a great weekend.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

How Do You Watch Your Intake?

Good morning everyone,

Well it is staring to feel and smell like fall.  The nights are getting colder, football is in session, and tree leaves are filling up my gutters.

I did not have enough time to pull some pictures for this blog.  I wanted to do a this or that of different foods.  Today I want to talk about what are your habits and how do you work to stay healthy while traveling on the road.

For the first topic of what types of foods do you typically eat when on the road.  I try to eat as best I can while running hard, but default to trying to outwork my bad diet.  I also have an alter ego like Bruce Banner and the Hulk.  I have me and fat Kevin.  Fat Kevin says come on you work hard and that donut and those cookies will totally be burned off when you work out.  Just do it they taste amazing!  Then I am off to the store to buy a larger waist size in my dress pants…or work out harder to burn the calories off. 

This back and forth tug of war has been going on for years with me.  This year I have been doing better with what I eat.  It may also be that my body is rejecting all of the sugar from a sleeve of oreos as well kicking in my will do eat better.  Not to mention the fatigue that happens when I eat the junk food. 

I am curious how those that seem to have a residence in an airport or in a car how you prefer to eat and under indulge. 

The other item I want to touch on is staying healthy.  For some reason when I travel on an airplane I get sinus infections.  It never fails that I end up with one and feel like a snotty mess for a week or so.  This will hinder speaking as you can imagine.  Besides no one want to shake a hand of someone that is sick. 

This spring I started using extra vitamins and a nasal antihistamine and so far I have done better with this issue.  I have heard others take airborne just before they take off each time and they swear by it.  Others say they drink tons of water before take off which I can only imagine myself running to the bathroom as the plane takes off.  I can imagine the flight crew chasing me to tackle me as I run to relief.  

I guess I am here today asking you for your insights for when you are traveling to stay healthy and when you eat?  Do you follow a certain diet?  I have heard the Keto diet is the new one to jump on as well as fasting.  I am also looking at gaining better knowledge and taking a nutrition class or two to understand the effects and do better.  Lets hear it in the comments below what you do.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

What About Your Customer

Happy Saturday all my friends!

It smells like football and I am getting excited / nervous for the season to start.  I am a Michigan fan since I can remember with the famous coach “Bo” yelling and throwing his headsets.  It has been hard for me the past ten or so years seeing I grew up watching my team dominate the college football scene.  Hope seems to come alive every fall and then let down happens.  But I digress.  This is a blog on sales and leadership instead of my college football therapy!

I was listening to a podcast that was discussing how to help entrepreneurs to focus on their offerings.  The scope was based on the fact that you should not be everything to everyone, instead narrow down your offerings to be an expert.  This is something that I agree with, the only issue I have is that the tag line used was “What does your customer want?”  It’s great to get sales people to think about the customer, but I think that needs to be changed to a better question.  What does your customer need?

Have you ever been watching a commercial, infomercial, walked past something in the store and said something along of the lines of…I need that!  That thing will help me fix this issue, or if I get that I will gain efficiency?  Sometimes we stumble upon things that we look at and say wow that is needed.  We sometimes have emotional triggers that push us towards needing that widget, software, ski boat, etc. 

Knowing that we don’t always know all of the solutions which is why YouTube has been so huge with how to videos on fixing things.  The same thing applies to us always knowing what we need.  Sometimes the customer does not know what they need when they are searching for a product or service.  That is why we need to be the expert to help them. 

One of the things that I have always prided myself on is that I am there to advocate for the customer and help them any way I can.  I have even helped the customer procure something that I don’t sell.  This gained me trust and they call me to ask my opinion quite often on products and services to pick my brain.  Sometimes I tell them that what they are looking for works good for x, y, and z, but there may be something else out there that might help them hit this extra need that they informed me about.  Usually the response is wow I didn’t think of that and that they were glad that I was able to point them in the right direction.

When it comes to customers sales people should be there to serve them, not just take orders for the product that the sales person is representing.  Far too often that is the case and that is why the sales profession has received a bad rap.  Fortunately, there are far more good sales people than those bad ones wheeling and dealing to make a quick buck. 

When sales people go out and sell they need to be focused on what does the customer need.  They need to know the customer’s needs in depth so that they can be and expert to help them.  Having a servant mindset is a must to be a great sales person and leader.  You have to be focused on doing what is best for the customer.  To do that the sales person needs to know the customer extremely well.  This comes from time, interaction, rapport building, doing the right thing, and building trust by under committing and over producing!  The customer will not ask your opinion if they don’t trust you.

When they do trust you though you will have influence that you can help them.  If your product helps them move forward and doesn’t just move sales from another product or service they offer then you are on the right track.  Be there to help them grow their business and gain that influence they respect.  Then you can show them your product that they may never have thought would help them in a whole new light.  They will be grateful when that moment arrives as well. 

Make sure that your focus is on what does my customer need and you will do well in the long game. 

I hope this helps a bit.  If you have questions or would like to carry the conversation on please leave a comment below.

Until then have a great Labor Day weekend!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

Running Meetings and Follow Up

Happy Saturday everyone!

The mornings are cooler here in the mid-west which means two things.  Kids are heading back to school and college football is in the air. 

Today I’d like to talk about running meetings and follow up.  I know it is not the most fun topic, but it is one area if business that often goes overlooked and wastes money for organizations.  I hope to share some insight on keeping things in order and how to allow for action items to be taken to help promote movement.  This topic can be used for customer meetings as well as internal meetings. 

I have worked in multiple industries and one thing that has been true in all industries is that people tend to forget what was talked about and what they were supposed to do.  This tends to come up in the next meeting when the person is asked where they are at only to give an answer similar to this “ Oh yeah…I forgot.  I’ll work on that this week…”  It amazes me how much lost time there is in meetings with action items not moving forward. 

Most people have a million things flying at them all the time so its also very hard for them to remember all the items talked about in your meeting.  With the introduction of the internet and the ability to have a computer in the palm of your hand people are hit in the face with so much information that it becomes overwhelming at times.  Don’t get me wrong technology is great, but we are slowly becoming a society with attention deficit disorder.  I am not trying to be insensitive to those that have been diagnosed with this, but it is true for everyone that our attention span has been shrinking greatly over the years.  It is bad I literally finished that last sentence and picked up my phone for a few seconds.

While working with larger organizations that had multiple business units I learned the need for a way to track what was discussed as well as action items.  I was once told by a manager that the person that controls the meeting notes controls the conversation.  Take that as you will.  I truly like to keep everything discussed and agreed to out for everyone so that we can move forward on tasks and projects.  I often running a running log of meeting minutes so that anyone new can review topics and get caught up to speed quicker than walking around talking to others on the project or waiting for the next meeting to ask where we are at. 

I have used this format of note taking as well as action items with customers, suppliers, and internal for half a decade and found this to be the best way so far.  If you have a better option I am very open to having a discussion and learning about it.  One way that I have seen is people put the notes in a body of an email which to me gets lost quite often and there is no way to review past notes very well.  It is better than not doing notes all together, but I believe having a way to review easily is a plus. 

Keeping things moving forward is often hard to do and I have seen all sorts of ways people try to document items discussed and send out.  I have chosen the format that is attached to this blog at the beginning.  This has worked for me for years.  If you would like a free copy of it feel free to email me at info@kevinsidebottom.com and I can send it to you.  Hopefully it helps you.

Have a great weekend everyone!  As for me I need to get the college football swag out for the season so that I can help my team by yelling at the tv 😊

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

How Doing Business as B to B and B to C is the Same

Good morning everyone,

I hope that last week’s blog entry helped you with being intentional after the sale and not being the kind of sales person that rides off into the sunset never to be heard from again.

Today I want to talk about the reason why B to B and B to C are similar.  Now I know that some people are going to say they are not similar, but I want to focus on the selling process part.  Yes B to B is different in terms of cost structures, wholesale, and other items that people tend to say, but here is the thing.  We are still selling to people when we have both transactions. 

Granted its easier to get customers in Business to consumer to buy based off emotions as they want to fulfill a need, but I would challenge that business to business kind of customers are also looking to fulfill a need.  Emotions could be why you are sitting in front of them in the first place.  Their current supplier could have changed something that is driving the customer to look at other options for similar products.  I have had owners of companies contact me to meet with them due to being upset with their current supplier. 

When I worked deals for multi-million multi-year contracts with large corporations, I was working the sales process and identifying all of the key decision makers.  This did take a great deal longer than selling $30 hearing protection to an end user to keep them from losing their hearing at a young age, but I still used the same selling process of identifying the needs.  I just had to multiple key decision makers from engineering, purchasing, quality, etc.  Each one of these decisions makers walked through the sales process with me in order to make sure they were all on board with purchasing our product.  This took time to build all of the relationships, meeting with each of them individually as well as together. 

A side note, getting the people to meet individual is always a good way to see what they view as their needs.  When people are in groups some of the needs tend to get drowned out in conversation.  Make sure to make the customer know they are valued and their needs are important.

At the end of the day people buy from people.  That is why certain financial advisors and marketing agents can retain their large accounts as they move to other organizations.  Making sure that the customer feels valued and trusts you is extremely important.  By being intentional with the sales process you will be working the same principles that you would use with an end user as you will for large organizations. 

If you would like to discuss further reach out by commenting below, or by hitting me up through email.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises