Does the Product Align?

Good morning everyone!

I hope this building influence is helping each of your where you are at.  If you have any questions, feel free to post in the comments or reach out to me directly.  No question is too small when we lead others.

Last week we made sure that we have sold the team on the organization as its vision aligns with the core values of the team.  For Apple their core value is making great products that makes its users lives easier.  Their employees are committed to that value and vision to make them ready to fight to the death for their organization.  How is your organization’s vision as well as your vision doing?  You can usually see how well by the change over that your organization is seeing.  I apologize if that was kind of a punch in the gut to some of you.  It is not to hurt, but to make sure you are gauging how you are doing and if you are communicating to your teams to make sure they are aligned and that that vision is striking a cord with them to want to stick by your side.

Today is making sure the product is also doing this with your team.  Does the product that you are producing have a purpose to help society get better, or is it some widget that is cheaper than the competition?  When I first got into sales it was to learn how to sell so I could become a better manager in the future.  Now my vision is to eliminate bad sales tactics and bring about a positive outlook on sales professionals from society.  My products are set forth to teach people how to focus on those around us and to focus on answering needs.  If the product does not answer the needs, then it does not need to be sold to the customer.  Something I am teaching my son while he is trying to earn money to buy a Nintendo switch. 

What product / service does your organization produce?  How does it benefit society?  How can your team understand thier impact on this product / service?  These are the questions that should be floating around in your head to make sure you are able to answer your team’s needs.  If you are the IT team that is bringing about security for the organization, the product you produce is security to the organization.  Every day you team is showing up to protect valuable information from the forces of evil that would love to exploit your intellectual property. 

If your team is a bunch of sales people, what are they selling and why are they selling it.  Is it just to make money, or is it to do something bigger than themselves?  I like using Apple because if you walk into one of their stores you see energetic people that feel a sense of purpose when they help customers buy, fix, and learn about their product.  I have witnessed tech services work for over an hour with an elderly person to help them with their new iwatch and iphone without frustration.  Not to say that elderly people are the only ones bad with technology.  I am thinking about going back to a flip phone currently.  That person willing to sit for long periods of time to help a customer knows why they are doing what they are doing and they are able to do it.

So, what does your team produce and how does it help them buy into the vision by meeting their needs as well?  That is the question that you need to be answering so that you can be selling the impact that your group has to society and the organization so they are willing to go the extra mile and stick it out with you for years to come.  This takes time, and thought.  You will go back to the needs analysis to make sure that you are answering those needs from the team just like you did for yourself and your organization.  Do this right and watch you because those loaded water pistols are ready for action!

P.S. If you have any input or would like to write on a topic feel free to reach out, I would be more than happy to discuss your interest and let you be a part of this blog.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

How Does the Organization Benefit Me?“

Good morning everyone!

I hope spring is coming early this year.  I am ready for the summer to get back at it.  If you didn’t catch the podcast interview feel free to head over to www.pampippin.com/podcast It was a great interview about my book the sales process uncovered and discussion about everyone is selling something.  Just like following those steps, we are working through the same steps here for building influence.

The past few weeks we have been asking questions to pull out the needs that those around us have to make sure we are influencing them correctly.  We want to make sure that we are also aligned so that we have individuals working with us so that we can all row in the same direction.  Have you ever seen people in a canoe rowing in opposite directions?  It is a great deal of fun to watch, but not be apart of unless you like getting wet.

By now we should know if we are on the right track, or not for building influence with those around us. We have found the needs that those around us have and we have addressed them to make sure our vision of where we want to go has them saying I believe in you and am wanting to get on this bus to move forward with you.  Influence is kind of like a train in that aspect.  It takes a great bit of inertia to get influence moving, but once you have it, watch out because there is no quick stop to it unless you go off the rails.

You have answered the needs from the aspect of your group and how you are meeting those needs, but the question we have to ask is the organization aligning with and meeting the needs with those around us.  What is the organization’s core beliefs that those following will feel compelled to continue to follow?  This contributes to why so many people have jumped from job to job, company to company to find that one place where they feel like they totally fit in. 

Make sure you are following the same processes to make sure the organization meets the needs of those around us.  If the organization does not enable the people to say YES!!! I align with this vision and my needs are being met, they will surely look for other places for employment.  Fun bean bag chairs, slides, and free cereal only works for a short time.  When the people start getting worn out by the not so fun parts of their job, they will start looking for other places to meet their needs.  They will then have about three to six months of pain getting acclimated in the new organization, but that is a different topic for another time. 

For today, make the focus on making sure the organization meets the needs of those around us, under our leadership, and our families.  If you have followed the process from the past few weeks you will be able to figure out the needs that the organization meets and be able to sell them on the ideas and values from the organization.    If the vision and needs are aligned with the organization you’ll start noticing your team pouring water into their squirt guns and getting prepared to charge the pits of hell with you!  Sell your team on the organization meeting their needs and you will have a solid team willing to communicate and stick it out with you.

Next week we will discuss how what your organization produces can also affect whether your team is engaged, or just there for a paycheck.  Again, we are following the similar steps for influence.  Because there will be a time when they will need to make the decision to buy-in, or step out.

P.S. If you have any input, or would like to write on a topic feel free to reach out I would be more than happy to discuss your interest and let you be a part of this blog.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

The Interview!

Hey Everyone,

Just a quick post this morning to share with you the podcast interview from the Pam Pippin podcast that went live this week.

Head over to https://www.pampippin.com/podcast and give episode 6 it a listen. Actually, listen to all of them!

Pam is a great person that I had the honor of meeting in late 2016 at an event and her passion is to help HR teams become equipped to help the organization thrive.

Have a great Valentines Day!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Let's SEE

Good morning everyone,

I hope you are still following along from the first few steps to building influence and that those that we are working on influence buy off on us.

Let’s review the steps:

C.I.A – stands for being curious, intentional, and asking questions.

Developing questions to pull out the needs from those we are building influence with

Today we are going to SEE if we are on the right track to building influence.

We want to make sure that what we believe the needs are resonate with those around us.  If we are trying to gain influence with direct reports based off organizational title to keep the team following our lead we will fail.  We don’t simply want to use a title as leverage to make people do what we want.  We want them going the extra distance and having our back and eagerly wanting to learn and grow under us. 

If they chose to leave at some point better than they were when they were under our influence that is something I can live with.  Don’t be afraid if you are raising up leaders that are influencing others and doing good.  That is better than keeping people under you that do nothing to grow and just push the ball so they can collect their paycheck and go home.

Let’s Set up a meeting or a time to review with those that we are working on influence with.  Don’t do a drive buy ambush to validate you understand their needs.  Let them know that you value their time and respect.  Look at their calendars and set up a meeting with the purpose in the title, or go one step further and walk up to them asking for a good time to meet.  I know some introverts will say, but I don’t like engaging people…stop whining and grow yourself by stepping out of your comfort zone.  I am an introvert by nature and I speak to groups of people because I took small steps each day to grow. 

Show them respect and they will typically respect you as well to be prepared for the meeting.  You can also give them a few details you would like to go over so they have time to prepare for the discussion.

When you have the meeting set up make sure you are Engaged.  Shut off emails, close doors, and pay attention. Be engaging with this meeting as best you can.  Ask them questions to pull out their needs as you have drafted from last week’s blog.  Use the template in the blog post title.  Let them do most of the talking like a 70/30 ratio with you mainly asking questions and them answering.  Find out deeper needs than just a paycheck and insurance benefits.  Find their why they are doing what they are doing.

Last Encourage those that you are working on influence to come to you with questions, help, ideas for their growth, and to keep an open dialogue.  Let them know you truly care by encouraging them not to the point of forced encouragement like “Richard Simons in his 1980’s workouts”, but genuine encouragement.  You don’t need to have parties for them, but showing them that you care and encouraging them to take steps for growth and reaching out will help you gain influence.

Now if they have needs that you have not already identified from your prep work, then this is your homework to review and make sure that you can answer those needs.  It is better to know that you are not meeting needs now so that you can either work on being able to meet those needs, or help those that report to you find somewhere in your organization, or another organization that will allow them to find their place best suited for them.  Keeping someone that limits them is not a long-term play.

Helping those that you are influencing know that you care will build a great foundation to help you in the future.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

Keep Working On The Foundation

Good morning everyone!

I hope you are all warming back up after the deep freeze that hit the majority of the United States this week.  I know you people in Florida are saying, it was cold, but in the Midwest it was -11 before the windchill.  This is why we don’t have alligators and fire ants here.  Maybe they are on to something…

Last week we talked about C.I.A. and how using these three things are essential in growing influence.  Today we are going to really grow your influence with those around you.  Today you are going to find out the needs. 

Whether it is a customer, a team you lead, or the nonprofit you are in charge of.  You need to truly understand all of the needs of those around you.  Needs that go deeper than just food, water, clothing, and a paycheck.   People have many different levels of needs.  Some of my therapist friends refer to the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs pyramid for personal needs that addresses these needs.  It is a great diagram to understand need levels.

There are also business needs that have to be addressed.  If you can help people with both of these, you are going to be generating so much influence that you will be sought out after a while for wisdom.  Now that is the influence I love to have.  Not for the power aspect, but that I am truly helping people.  That is why I wrote my book and write this blog.  To help people understand sales and influence so they can be more effective with those around them.  I want to help as many people as I can get better and serve those around them by helping them get to where they need to go. 

So…where do we begin with that level of influence you ask?  You ask deep questions to really understand what people need.  Most people do not think too deeply that is why when you ask them how they are doing most people instantly say good and ask you how you are doing.  Going deeper with those people you want to address some of the deep-rooted needs they truly have.

For a salesperson they are trying to make sure their product truly answers the needs of the customer.  Yes, most sales people miss this concept, but that is why I am in business to help with that.  For an employee that you are managing, they may need to feel a sense of belonging and that they are doing something meaningful.  Especially with Millennials!  Millennials align with a purpose for their work.  They greatly want to feel a sense of doing something with great purpose for the world.  Help them understand how they are making an impact and then watch out.  They will be on fire and work with you till death, or…until another purpose that is even greater to them shows up.

Take time to understand the needs that your organization addresses to help society, the need your product addresses, the need that your team’s role addresses to help the organization grow stronger.  Build up a list of needs that are addressed.  The graphic associated with this blog post is the roadmap to figuring out the needs and questions to ask.

Let’s say you are an IT group, that is tasked with monitoring organization computers against cyber-attacks. The features are the software and team members in your group.  The benefits your group provides the organization is protection from attacks, support if someone is attacked to fix the computer, and people there for users to contact.  These benefits are good and you could probably come up with a few more.

After we have understood the benefits, then we need to understand the needs that are answered by these benefits.  Using the above example, the benefit creates a sense of security and peace of mind for the users of the computers which are powerful.  The users of the computers typically do not understand all of the code used to create a virus and how to remedy.  Your team does and your providing security and peace of mind for the organization.  Your team is also enabling the rest of the organization to function efficiently and safe.  You are like super heroes flying around helping those regular people.  Just don’t act like you are superior to anyone.  No one likes that…

Cascading what you are doing for others and how you are helping others is very motivating to your teams.  Take time to think of some of the needs that you and your teams answer.  The larger the need the more you can impact.

Now that you have the needs figured out, structure questions to ask so that you can start finding out if you are answering the needs of these individuals.  If you are asking the individuals their needs and you are answering their needs your influence will skyrocket!  Keep in mind that everyone is different, so being intentional and sitting down with individuals to make sure you are understanding their needs and if you are identifying them on a deep level, you will have deep rooted influence.

Have a great week everyone! 

P.S. If you have any input, or would like to write on a topic feel free to reach out I would be more than happy to discuss your interest and let you be a part of this blog.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

Continuing A Great Foundation for “Influence”

Good morning everyone,

I hope you were able to think about last weeks blog a bit this week and thinking about how you interact with your customers and your team.

This morning I want to focus more on building that foundation in building influence.  We are now in the house looking around seeing how we can learn more about our relationships and find ways we can relate to them.  Does this sound familiar?  This is rapport in the sales process.  It is also the building block for influence.  Unfortunately, rapport is only the beginning of building influence and not the end all. 

Most people believe that you just need to build rapport with the customer so that you can influence them.  Rapport is building up conversational similar to when you see someone inline that you know at the coffee shop and you do the top level “hey how are you doing” greetings and quickly catch up before grabbing your coffee and running out the door to get to where you are going, or to just get away…

When you start taking a deep interest in those people you interact with you will never really gain influence unless they are wanting to do the same thing that you are trying to do without input from you.  This isn’t usually the case.  I choose to really take an interest in people and go deeper with my relationships.  I use the letters C.I.A.  No, not the government agency.  They study people for other purposes like protecting us, unless you are Jason Borne…

C-stands for being curious.  Be curious like a child that never stops wanting to know more.  Ever had a child as you “why” only to follow up with another “why”… “why”…“why” Please don’t ask people why it is like nails on a chalk board to parents.  Not all, but most of us that are not perfect.  Be curious to learn more about your relationships whether they are customers, teammates, family, friends, people you just met, etc.  Learn about them as much as you can.

I-stands for being intentional.  Be intentional about your relationships.  While you are asking questions do not be staring at a phone while the other person responds.  Look them in the eyes and pay attention to what they are saying and how they are saying it.  You’ll learn a lot about a person when you pay attention to their posture, their tones, their words.  Even when someone is saying they are fine… if their tone sounds like they are about to scream, they are not fine.  Pay attention and see if there is a way you can help.

A-stands for asking questions.  Ask a great deal of questions.  This being paired up with curiosity and being intentional helps you really learn about the relationships.  What is really going on with your teammates, your customers, your family?  Similar to the sales process where you do a needs analysis in my book “The Sales Process Uncovered”, you will ask questions to see if there is a way you can help the person get to where they want to go.  People of great influence are not those that take from people, but are people that give as much as they can without expecting things in return.  That can be time, money, clothing, etc.  Dale Carnegie, Mother Teresa, Jesus Christ are all people of great influence.  These people started most of their conversations with questions.  These individuals wanted to learn about he situation and where they could help.  They stepped in.

For today, focus on using C.I.A. when you interact with people you come in contact with.  Not for the sole purpose of gaining influence.  You will as a bi-product, but because you want to really interact with people on a deeper level.

Using rapport, C.I.A., and what I discuss next week you will really start building a solid foundation for influence.

Until then, have a great weekend!

P.S. If you have any input, or would like to write on a topic feel free to reach out I would be more than happy to discuss your interest and let you be a part of this blog.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

Let’s Start Gaining Influence

Good morning everyone,

Hopefully after last week’s blog post you have tons of questions stirring around about the difference between influence and persuasion.  I also hope you are intentionally looking inward to see if you are working on influence or something else when you engage your customers, your team, and your friends / family.

I often exam my life to make sure that I am still working on influence rather than persuasion.  I review the key relationships that I have and take a look at how I interact with those people and then gauge how I feel the relationship is going.  If the relationship is not growing the way I think it should I see how I can better change how I approach it.  And no I don’t get every relationship right all of the time.  It is a constant work in process for me.

Today I want to review t he first step in working on influence.  The first step is You.  That is right influence starts with you.  How do you approach every relationship?  How do you treat your customers, friends, teammates, and most important, family?  Do you use them to get what you want?  Do you help them get what they need?  Do you just do the head nod when you walk by them? 

They key in being influential is to be intentional with those relationships.  Find out what they need and help them.  Find out who they truly are and how you can help them.  Get to really know them not on a superficial level, but on a deep level.  What are they passionate about and is there a way that you can help them?  As you start doing that you will be amazed at how people start looking at you as someone who is different than most relationships.  Most people only want to be around when things are fun.  When things are not fun they tend to say sorry and walk away looking for where the fun is again in another relationship.  If we are honest with ourselves, we have all been guilty of this. 

When I am engaging with people, I have a mental profile sheet in my head like the one in my book “The Sales Process Uncovered” that I use to keep filling in notes about my relationships.  I am constantly getting to know them and being intentional about it is key.  Dale Carnegie was the master at being intentional about learning about everyone. 

I use his analogy of the house like you are walking up to the person.  There is a mailbox as you walk up to the house with their name on it.  Learning their name and saying it back to them is important to the person you meet.  The single most important word to people is their name.  Studies have shown that when someone hears their name their mood changes.  Depending on the tone you use will affect how their mood changes as well.

Now you have got the name down, you walk up towards the house and notice the front yard of the house to see if there are kids toys on the ground, is the yard neat and clean, is it an over grown forest with trees and vines hanging down like a jungle?  Do they have broken parts of the fence?  Is there a pet outside?

Once you walk up through the walkway to the house you get up to the porch and notice a chimney.  Up on top of the chimney you notice an airplane.  Which is odd and makes you curious.  What are their hobbies?  What brings them joy in life?  Be curious and ask.  Also if you are in an office you can usually see items on their desks of what they enjoy. 

Next you peak inside and notice kids running around inside the house.  What are their names?  What are they interested in?  What achievements have the kids made that make their parents proud?  What do the kids want to be when they grow up?  Do you or someone you know have kids that have the similar interests that you are familiar with? 

Now you are inside the house and looking around.  Every time you first meet someone you know their house is clean and made up.  Sweat is seen on their forehead as they rushed around to clean everything up before you got there.  We are all guilty of trying to present a perfect perception of our lives to anyone we first meet.  Know that no one is perfect so be nice and start learning about them.  As you get to know them you will see the broken banisters next to the stairs, the dirty dishes that are usually in the sink, and the kids rooms that have the doors shut because Legos are scattered all over the floor like a mine field.

Influence is built and based how you interact with people and is never done.  Being intentional to grow your relationship with people is draining, but totally worth it.  Helping people is the best feeling in the world when you get over yourself and start focusing on helping others. 

I think this is enough for today.  Next week we will discuss more on influence and how to go deeper with getting a solid foundation.  This is a long game strategy and more like cooking in a crockpot instead of a microwave.  It’s like cooking good BBQ.  It takes a great deal of time and taste amazing when done right. 

Let this week’s blog simmer in a bit and next week we will go deeper on the relationship building.

P.S. If you have any input, or would like to write on a topic feel free to reach out I would be more than happy to discuss your interest and let you be apart of this blog.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

I Choose Influence

Good morning everyone,

At this moment I am getting ready to drive up to a meeting with other speakers that meets every few months.  I am looking forward to meeting with them and having some knowledge dropped on me to help me grow.  Growing any way that I can is something that I truly value.  If you are not growing, then you are dying.

We are in the new year and hopefully you guys have sat down set up some goals and started planning how you are going to achieve them.  I have dates and tasks listed out and a big calendar in my office to track how I am going to get from here to there.  I am still grateful that I was able to create my book last year that took me just under a year to create, manage getting edits, layouts, graphics, cover design, etc.  I think next book is going to have someone else managing all of this.  It was a great deal or work.  Had I planned ahead I may have actually had improvements on budgeting and timing.

Today I want to start the discussion on influence.  In sales, or leading groups you need influence.  This is not to be confused with persuasion.  I put persuasion in the category with those sales people that make people’s skin crawl when the sales person approaches.  There are sales gurus that focus on the art of persuasion.  How to persuade people to buy your product.  I do not agree.  I want people to buy in with their own motivations and because I have answered their needs with my product or have directed them to the product that will help them based off their needs.

Influence has people following you from their own desires where persuasion uses tactics to move people to where you want.  I can’t say that I have never used persuasion seeing I have kids and I do not want to pick up dog poop in the back yard.  I use the persuasive power of money to motivate my son to do that crappy job.  If I had a great level of influence, my son would be so happy to follow me anywhere that he would pick it up while shouting how great his dad is.  This is also not likely to happen, but a guy can have a vision for where he wants to get to in the future right? 😊

I also do not want people do business with me because I have leverage over them, but that they believe in my mission to help them.  I do not want to use dirt that I have dug up on a customer to make them do something.  I have been told by other sales people in certain industries that they have to use dirt to move people toward doing business with them. 

Leverage and persuasion to me line up on the same side of the room against influence.  Influence stands trials and tribulations while persuasion is lost as soon as someone else has a better option.  When people are influenced, they are willing to help your cause and move with you.  They stand in your corner and help dust you off and say let’s keep going, we want to see where you are taking us.

When I work in sales I do not want to be thought of as a slimy sales guy ever.  I really feel like I have failed my customer if that is ever thought about me because my heart is one of influencing people to help them.  Influencers advocate for their customers and build on momentum to grow influence.  Influence is not given by position it is earned over time.  Influence is grown through the journey and with strategy and purpose.

The question today is what do you want to do?  Persuade or influence?  Next week I will go more in depth on influence and share some stories like my customer that calls me to catch up even though I haven’t called on him in 5 years.

For now enjoy the rest of your Saturday and I look forward to seeing you back here next week!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

On Your Mark, Get Set, Plan…

Happy New Year Everyone!

I hope you all are refreshed and ready to take on the new year.  I know I felt like I was limping into the end of 2018 on energy levels as it came to a close.  Today I am refreshed and ready to take on 2019!

I had quite a few things that went well and some set-backs that I was not sure I wanted.  During the break from Christmas to New Years Eve I focused on reflection and narrowing down my goals for 2019.  2018 had quite a few goals in each of the categories and this year it looks like two, maybe three per category.  I have decided to refine and make my goals very actionable as well as give me a gauge to see if I am hitting them.

Take for instance this year I plan to play video games once every two weeks with my son.  Now I am an outdoors kind of guy and would rather play catch, football, waterski, sky dive, just about anything besides sitting inside playing a video game.  Especially since I will probably get beat every time I play my son.  I will take my beatings so that I can have quality time with my son and let me know I value him.

As I sat and created my goals I purchased a huge wall calendar to post in my office as well.  This is to mark all of my events for the year, trips, etc so that I can have a good picture of what is going on with my schedule.  I am also using that as a gauge to see how I am meeting my business goals during this year.

I am also sitting down to plan how I can achieve my goals.  This is like planning sales goals which I hated doing this when I started out in sales.  It was like having my toe nails pulled out with pliers as some kind of torture.  The fact is that we need to have actionable ways to achieve our goals so we are not just getting busy and hoping we hit our targets.  It is actually good to sit down an prepare before we start working.

Specially trained long-range shooters will spend time measuring distance, wind speeds, elevation, bullet speed and a few calculations before they ever pull the trigger.  They spend time doing this so that they hit their target accurately.  Another mental picture you can use to visualize this idea of planning is if you were going to chop down a tree, wouldn’t you want the sharpest axe, so you do not have to swing as many times at the wood? 

We only have so much time in a day that we can not add to at the end of the day.  We need to make sure we are being efficient and planning is how we do this.  We need to sit down and plan how we are going to hit our targets.  If it is sales numbers, how many sales calls per day do you need to make to get a customer to say yes?  How many houses does it usually take before your customer is ready to buy one?  How many meetings do you usually set up before you get your prospects to buy your product or service?  Use your past year to get a gauge on these answers. 

As a side note: if this is your first time you likely are going to have to make changes a few times.  It goes with the territory.  It is okay if you don’t have it fully correct the first or second time.  As long as you are working, refining, and getting better you are going to improve.  We were not perfect at riding our bikes as kids on our first try.   

I urge you to sit down an make a plan at this beginning of the year so you can be more efficient and not lose as much time and energy this year.  I am taking this early part of the year to see how I can be better and how I can gauge my performance so that in the years to come I can have this process down more efficient as well. 

I look forward to carrying this discussion further so if you have any more questions feel free to post a comment below or reach out via email.  Also, if you have some ideas that you would like me to discuss in the future feel free to reach out and if I can not answer them I will definitely help you find the answers.

Until next time have a great weekend and enjoy your planning sessions!   

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

The Best You in 2019

Good morning all,

I hope you had a great Christmas and got to see those that you don’t see that often.  I am a huge quality time person and as you saw last week in my goals picture I did not have quality time with my family as much as I wanted to have.

This week lets do our goal planning for the next year.  This is what I plan to do this week as well.  I may even make my goals sheet look better, maybe frame it, who knows maybe paint them on a wall where I work out (if my wife will let me :) ).

For my new goals I will look at the same three questions that I reviewed how I did the year before: 

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 have never sat down to write your goals down, I encourage you to do so.  There are tons of formats out there, but I like the one that I used in the picture last week, because it gives you a great deal of areas to focus on.  Also, don’t worry about what if I don’t accomplish something to the point that you never commit to goals.  Having goals is great and sometimes you just don’t hit all of them. 

Last week you can see where I was lacking and this year I want to make sure that I focus on relationships this year though because as you saw last week.  Now that my book is written and in publishing, I am thinking about what goals I can work to achieve this year that capitalize on the goals that I achieved last year.  I also want to push myself to grow even if I hit a goal because I am always pushing to improve. 

Life is just much better when we are able to present a better representation of ourselves.  What skill could you learn this year and by when that will help you improve at work, with your family, or with your community?  Maybe don’t do a huge list your first time, but make the attempt at goal setting.  You will be happy you did even if you hit just one or two of them.   

Let’s take on 2019 with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

Sales and Leadership Enterprises

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