It seems like everyone wants to influence others. They believe that with influence all their worries will go away whether it be in sales, or getting their plans to move forward. Having others follow them will make all their worries come to an end.
We have influencers on social media, like Instagram, tik tok, clubhouse, etc. You name it there are people trying to grow their follower base. When these influencers meet, they literally discuss how many followers they have.
The question I have is do followers equate to actual influence. Would those followers send these influencers tons of money just because? Would these followers go on mission with these influencers for their cause? What is the level of influence of these followers really equate to?
Far too often individuals in leadership positions get so engulfed in the power aspect that they are about to obtain that they only think about what others will do for them. What can others do for me instead of what I can do for those that I am about to lead. Leadership is not about getting others to do stuff we want, but for us to help move others forward that betters their lives and the organization’s impact.
What I have found in my career is that no one cares how much we know until they know how much we care about them. That’s right the focus is not to be shown on us, but on others that we are serving in sales and leadership. The more we invest in helping them succeed, the more we gain influence. Not for the sake of building influence, it is a byproduct of the process of serving.
There are three questions that everyone asks on every interaction:
Do I like you?
Do I trust you?
How can you help me?
These three questions are how we have survived for thousands of years. That’s right, it is the process the brain uses to see if we are in danger, or if we are going to be okay. Whether the fight or flight response should ramp up, or if we are able to relax and enjoy the company. Ever met someone that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Your body was kicking into the fight or flight response.
These three questions are crucial if we are going to build influence with others. We need to serve others by answering these three questions. If we want to lead them in our organization, we must make sure we are answering these questions on every interaction. If we don’t, we will soon be onboarding someone else and starting the process over again. This I believe is why there is so much cost in business. If leadership doesn’t take the time to focus on the individuals that report to them, but just the bottom line, then they will ultimately fail. This is one major factor in why loyalty with an organization has dropped dramatically since the 1990’s.
When organizations forget about the human aspect of the employees and focus solely on the bottom line, cultures fail. There is an article back in 2005 by the Harvard Business School that calls out why we need to have a human focus on helping those that report to us. If we don’t then we will need to start the process of recruiting which could in turn cost as much as 2 times the salary for that position to recruit, onboard, and get the new person up to speed with the old person was.
The numbers are even higher with today’s work environment with the Great Resignation that has just occurred over the past year. What can we do? We need to make sure we go back to the basics and focus on those three questions to generate influence and serving our customers and employees if we are going to survive into future decades.
Leadership is not to be served, but to serve.
Have a great week!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with higher profits!”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lWIVasmkFsoYL4h0AqIZgH6LC3qaw_gI/view?usp=sharing – client profile sheet
https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Process-Uncovered-Success-Influence/dp/0578421518 - Book
https://kevinsidebottom.kartra.com/page/5AF12 - Sales Process Uncovered Online Training
https://kevinsidebottom.kartra.com/page/68N10 - Trustworthy Online Training