When I decided to become a professional salesperson, it was based on the sales pitch that if you want to be a better manager, more successful in any career, you need to know sales. I was an engineer at the time and wanted to climb the corporate ladder. I dreamed of leading groups of people and helping the team shatter goals while working together. It was not until I received my certification from John Maxwell to be a speaker, trainer, and coach that I understood that Leadership and Sales were very similar.
Throughout the certification training John Maxwell stated, “Leadership is Influence, nothing more, nothing less.” John states this over an over when he talks on leadership. One gauge that John uses to see if we are good leaders is to see how many people that volunteer look to us for leadership. When we are moving forward for a cause how many people are willing to follow us when we are not paying them.
People being paid by us are doing so because they are receiving payment for their services so just because they follow us, does not mean that they believe in us. If we are not paying these people and they are following us, then we know that they are following because of our leadership. This is done by our influence. The more influence we have, the more people will fight by our side for the cause.
What I learned through sales is that the more influence we have with our customers, the more they look to us for help and want to do business with us. The more we help them get what they want, the more we provide top notch service, and the value that we bring causes us to gain influence. They reach out to us for advice and help. It does not have to be the product that we sell either. I have had customers reaching out to me for advice in marketing, digital cameras, software packages, cars, etc. I was gaining influence with them and they were reaching out to me for help in other areas.
That is when I started really looking at this sales and leadership thing to see if there were common threads. The truth is that sales and leadership are based on influence. Great leaders are those that can sell a vision to their organization so much so that the people will “Charge the pits of Hell with a water pistol” – Dave Ramsey. The most influential people use sales practices to drive forward and get their teams engaged.
Steps in the sales process to get the customer engage translate right into the leaders process to gain influence with those around them. They both find the needs of the organization and people, verify those needs, and present the solution in a way to drive engagement to move forward together. The great thing is that it really is not that complicated. It’s following a process over and over again gaining influence. That is why I love working with leaders and sales professionals to help them move forward and grow. They are so similar that this one process I help with will enable sales professionals and leaders to gain their influence.
If you are someone looking to grow your influence reach out to me today and I would be happy to review where you are at, where you want to go, and how you can get there. It’s not complicated, and you can do it.
Reach out here if you would like to start the discussion.
Have a great weekend!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom