If You Knew When You Would Die, Would Your Dash Change?
Just like the title asks, what would you do if you knew you only had a limited time left to live.
Recently someone very close to me was given a diagnosis with a very limited life expectancy and it started my mind into reflection. What would I do, if I only had a limited time left? Would I just quit doing this or that, create a bucket list, take up a new hobby, etc.?
The truth is all of us have a limited time left here on this planet. A limited number of days to wake up, a limited number of hours to spend with people we enjoy spending time with, and a limited time to live. Time is not something that we can add to or multiply. We can only subtract and divide.
When we a head stone in a cemetery, we can see a name, date born, and a date when someone has moved on. There is this thing in between the dates though. It’s a dash. The dash is their life. The dash is their experiences. The dash is their impact on this world. This dash is significant.
If we are to truly live, we need to make sure we live out the dash. We need to make sure we take time for the fun stuff and not get super stressed about work. Work is what we do, but it does not define us. I do this blog and help people understand the sales process, how it actually helps people build influence, but this is not who I am.
Who I am is a husband, father, son, friend, and someone who steps in to help whenever possible. Too often people think that their work is who they are. How many times when asked the following question, “tell me about yourself”, have we started with our profession to describe ourselves? We focus on this detail more than the other details of our lives.
Are we mainly defining ourselves because that is what society believes, or do we share that detail because that is what we think we should be defined as? Why do we lead with that detail?
Why don’t we lead with who we really are? Do we not really know who we are? Should we ask others to describe us? Typically, when we are at funeral services, we get to hear what others think about the person that has passed on, but I think that is a little too late for a reflection like that.
Shouldn’t we be asking what others see about us sooner? Are we too afraid to ask the question because we are worried about what we might hear? Are we just not thinking about it, because we don’t want to think about that time when we pass on?
When I am laid to rest, I want that dash to represent a person that loved to help, inspire, and enable people to flip the script for their dash. If I can do that I will have succeeded at life.
What would you like your dash to represent?
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
What’s your Coaching Style?
How are you at coaching your team and your family?
Are you like a coach on the sidelines constantly sending in orders hoping the team will execute?
Business leaders think being a coach means constantly sending in orders like a coach on the sideline. The leader believes they should tell the team what to do and how to do everything and then the team will just execute. The issue is that the employees do not learn to think for themselves. They constantly come to the leader for the answers for everything essentially slowing down the organization.
This style of coaching does not promote effective thought in individuals and does not allow them to grow. If there is no growth then the business, team, family will suffer.
What I learned in 2016 from John Maxwell’s Certification is that coaching is not about telling people what, or how to do everything. Coaching is instead asking questions for the individual to produce their best answer for the given situation. It’s encouraging them to look within for their best answer. Not telling people what and how to do things.
Most of the time in business, we are trying to answer questions and get to solutions fast. Because of the speed at which business is evolving we keep perpetuating the same cycle. When we arrive home at the end of the day, we are still dictating what needs to happen, how it needs to happen, and when it needs to happen to our families if we are not careful. Will that help our families thrive?
We may get things accomplished, but we need to grow others around us so that they can make decisions and still move forward. If we are not coaching these individuals correctly, we are actually hurting them. I also am learning to not have people do it the way I would do it. I need to let go of control and let them do it their way. By doing so they will grow confidence in themselves and their decisions which will make them more efficient their way.
As coaches, we can not be the sole source of answers. We need to help cultivate a culture in our organizations of aligning with the core mission and vision, and individual solutions that align with that direction. We have to give them trust and let them have some bumps and bruises at the beginning. Yes, it’s slower at first, but speed will pick up speed over time. We need to guide them and coach them before they are free to make those decisions.
We need to continually ask those thought provoking questions to help individuals come up with better decisions. Even if those decisions do not align with what we believe is best at the time, we still need to trust the process to help them grow. Over time we will gain that trust of the individual and their decision-making process. If not, then we will never be free for family, vacations, and our own growth.
Ultimately, we will expire and it is on us to grow those around us. If we expire and we leave those that looked up to us without this essential decision-making process, our legacy will be in jeopardy and they won’t be able to move forward. How do you think that will benefit them?
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Do You have My Back?
Chances are if you have direct reports, they are asking this question about you.
Has anyone ever asked you the following question…Do you have my back? Firefighters often have two men working on a hose line in a fire. There are multiple reasons for this like high pressure and volume of water going through the hose that is hard to handle, but more important, if something happens to one of the firefighters the other has the chance to help pull them out of danger. They have each other’s backs!
Chances are if you have direct reports, they are asking this question about you. Maybe not about life and death like fire fighters, but for their job safety. They were trying to figure this out the moment they start working for you.
Your direct reports want to know that when the chips are down that you will have their back as long as they are doing what is right and ethical. Far too often in business, employees feel they have to CYA because they do not trust their management. CYA stands for Cover Your Assets (Assets is sometimes shortened).
I have experienced in the issue of having to CYA myself in communications due to a lack of support from management. It agitated me greatly because I believed I was left to fight for myself. It is a lonely position to be in as a report. Here’s the thing, relationships do not thrive in this kind of environment.
Employees want to know that their management has their back when the chips are down and that they can reach out to their managers when they need help. Far too many managers are so busy themselves they forget to establish ground rules for trust and communication at the beginning of the relationship. There needs to be a set of ground rules of engagement set up from the beginning. Leaving it up to assumption is a recipe for a bad relationship. There are a few managers out there unfortunately that don’t really care about relationships with their reports and should look to either move on from their position or retire.
When trust and communication are not flowing it becomes like a body of water with no movement. It becomes toxic and everything in it dies. When trust and communication are absent anxiety also starts sets in. When Fear takes hold, trust and relationships die.
If reports don’t trust their manager, then where does the employee bounce ideas off of to move forward in the correct direction? Where do they expect to get mentorship? Where do these reports learn the correct way of operating for the organization?
Often employees have enough of this lack of trust and communication and elect to leave the department, or worse the organization. The intrinsic knowledge that the employee has is also following them right out the door. The cycle of interview, inboard, and hope this employee stays starts over.
The cost of onboarding is excessive, so why not work to make sure your reports know that you have their back, how to communicate, and trust.
The answer is setting up guard rails with your direct reports from the beginning to make sure they understand how the trust and communication can work together. Setting these guard rails up will keep everything moving better and work life to improve. Employees need to know that they can trust their managers and management. Having that trust and communication will allow the employees to excel and thrive with you long term. If not then be prepared for stagnation in your organization.
What is Rapport and Why Is It Necessary?
I actually had both the better product and the cheaper price, but still lost the sale when I was starting out.
I’ve heard sales people over the years say a sale is only dependent only on the price. The cheapest price will win the sale every time. I have heard others say that people will just want to buy the product and nothing else matters. If you have the better product then you will win the sale.
I actually had both the better product and the cheaper price, but still lost the sale when I was starting out. There was this sales representative from my competitor that had such a great relationship with the customers and the customer’s customers. He got all the deals. He had some much influence that people would almost flock to him like he was a celebrity.
This sales person had an inferior product from benefits and features stand point and had a higher price, but with his impact on people he just won. It blew my mind and I could not wrap my mind around it. I am engineer by nature so I tend to go black and white with details. It did not compute. I researched the competition and knew what I was up against. I had it nailed all of the aspects that people had told me. What I did not have down was the grey area where relationships reside.
I speak to this quite often when teaching sales professionals that there are three things that everyone asks themselves subconsciously as they walk up to you:
Do I like you?
Do I trust you?
How can you help me?
When I finally realized what this variable was that I was getting my butt kicked on. It was the relationships. When I started out in sales I was told to build rapport.
Rapport is defined as “A positive or close relationship between people that often involves mutual trust, understanding and attention. Those that develop rapport often have realized that they have similar interests, knowledge, or behaviors” – businessdictionary.com
Most sales trainings teach you to look around the room with your customer and find a way to connect on similar hobbies, activities, family, etc. This is a good beginning to building a relationship with your customer, but there is a great need to go deeper with the customer. Just merely having similar interests and viewpoints is a good start, but it is a superficial level. If you want to have relationships that a deep and fruitful, you need to go deeper.
Dale Carnegie training taught me how to build get deeper relationships. This is done mainly with a mindset of being truly focused on the customer to know them and help them. Having such a relationship will help you form relationships and build unmatched influence. You end up with a relationship that brings you more opportunities and also have the customer being an advocate with others to bring you more business. The best realtors are a great example of this. They gain new customers by word of mouth from previous customers. Word of mouth is still the best form of advertising. When someone is looking to buy or sell a home, everyone is speaking about the select few realtors that the person needs to work with.
To build deep relationships with customers you need rapport, focus on learning about them, and having trust. Use these three things and you will have strong relationships with your customers and have a solid future in sales.
I have created a quick and easy online training for you called trustworthy to help you build great levels of trust quickly.
By building deep relationships with customers, I was able to land a $20 million per year five-year contract. That is $100 million contract. I was able to obtain information needed to kick off my team and produce a proposal that put my organization in play for a program that we were not thought of as a possibility prior.
If you would like to carry the conversation deeper comment on this blog, reach out via email, or do the old-fashioned thing and give me a call so we can discuss deep relationships in sales.
Have a great weekend.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
So You Want To Lead...Better Know Sales!
I was not sure why I needed to know sales at the time to be a good manager, but I knew I would figure out why someday.
When I first started in sales it was on the premise that if I wanted to be a great manager, business owner, lawyer, president, I needed to know sales. That is what a successful business owner told me after I had told him that I wanted to be a manager in the next five years. He was a great leader and still has people working for him that were with him since he opened his company in the mid 1980’s. I was not sure why I needed to know sales at the time to be a good manager, but I knew I would figure out why someday.
At first, I was hesitant to change careers. Six months of hesitation and discussions to be exact. I did not want to be a salesperson because all life had taught me was that they were only out for their own gain. I did not want to actively be associated with that stigma?
When I did decide to try this sales thing out, I figured that sales would be easy. The first year of sales was a rude awakening. It literally looked like a heartbeat of someone that just took their last breath. I was fortunate to have a chance to keep going and learning from the successful business owner in what he called “hands on training.”
Hands on training meant that I was to help him with projects after hours, gain training from peers, and hours of trainings to perfect my craft. I did weekend deliveries, helped him with personal projects, etc. Basically, anything he needed extra help with I was there. This was valuable time with him mentoring me all he knew about sales and business.
I excelled from then on to become a great sales leader in my industry and even relocated to another part of the United States to help grow a new territory. We did very well there with great purpose. Customers started opening up fast to me and sales were increasing as the years went by. I was awarded the prize of top salesman for the United States and had taken the territory to where it had never been. I won’t give all those secrets away today on how we did this, but I can tell you it was not because we were the cheapest price or by doing anything unethical.
What I can tell you is that this success was because of Influence. As influence increases people trust us more and are willing to go deeper in relationships with us. These relationships open up the doors to long lasting and deep relationships. The more influence someone has the more they excel in whatever they are doing.
I had customers asking me about other aspects about their business as time went on. They were confiding in me as a trusted asset that could help them break through their ceiling to the next level. It was eye opening that I was able to help them with simple things up to the complex integrations of business solutions.
What I found is that the sales process that I keynote and perform trainings on helps people build amazing amounts of influence fast! That is right, selling correctly helps us build influence! Keep in mind that selling is not just a product or service. It can be selling a vision, mission, or idea that we need others to help us achieve. By building influence using the sales process, leaders gain more engagement their teams.
As you look around your organization look at those relationships of those that go out of their way to help you and those that don’t. See how much influence you have with each of these groupings of people. The more influence you have, the farther you and your organization will go.
Happy selling!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Do You Trust Me…?
We have to have trust in relationships, the products we use in our daily lives, our organizations we work for, basically we have to put some trust in everything we come in contact with.
Have you ever noticed in just about every action movie there is this one moment where the two last survivors are about to make some kind of daring jump to freedom with the phrase just prior, “Do you trust me?” Just once I would like to see one of them say, “nope I’ll take my chances…” and see how the director makes it work.
Movies play out this request all the time, but in actuality we are asking this question to just about everyone we come in contact with.
Trust is a huge mechanism for us to function with others. We need to trust that they will not hurt us, steal from us, or do anything to affect us negatively in our daily lives. Trust is a big deal! It is part of our survival mechanism, so we need to think about that when we are working with others especially in business.
I have studied the art of building rapport with people for over a decade and trying to understand how to build deep relationships with customers. One of the key ingredients to building rapport with people is trust. If we don’t have trust, we will not be able to function effectively in the sales process. Trust is crucial!
We have to have trust in relationships, the products we use in our daily lives, our organizations we work for, basically we have to put some trust in everything we come in contact with. We trust that the vehicle we drive will not just explode when we turn the key or push the start button. We trust that the engineers and the manufacturing individuals have assembled the product / service so that it will function properly.
I have had to work at being trustworthy and to show my trustworthiness to those I have come in contact with in all situations. Early in my sales career, I took over sales territory in Florida which our organization had never had distribution in. We had to work extremely hard to build trust with this new customer base.
I took a Dale Carnegie course on human relations, learned all I could about the new products as well as the competitive landscape, and did a great deal of leg work to build the trust that we were going to do what we said we were going to do for our new customers. This meant a great deal of studying the competitive landscape while on the road, going out to sell products for my customers to their customers, train my customer’s sales force, help them with marketing, etc. There was a great deal of effort on my part to build trust.
Amazing things happened as a result. Some of my customers asking my opinion on other aspects of their business, products they were looking to purchase, inviting me on fishing / hunting trips to their properties, etc. Our Sales were taking off as well! I have even received phone calls from past customers to catch up even though I have not called on them in over eight years. I am excited when I see my customers winning!
Trust is a huge factor in organizational success, teams, and relationships. Without trust we won’t get very far in life. We need to put forth great amounts of focus on building trust with those we come in contact each and every day. I do this when I am speaking with organizations on how to help them, writing blogs, and recording videos to help each and every one of you get some insight in hopes that you have more success. Trust is a huge moral obligation to me.
I have had the opportunity to speak on trust to organizations that builds axles, drive shafts, robotic solutions, sell real estate, and financial services. The one common theme that all took away is that if they wanted to move forward faster, they needed to have high levels of trust in their organizations. The world moves fast and with trust we will be able to keep up!
If you would like access to an online training at a fraction of the cost of having me come in to speak to you and your team check out my Trustworthy training that you can take where ever you have an internet connection and at your own pace.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Why Emails Aren’t Necessarily Better
How many times have you said, “I’ll just send a quick email” and it took twenty back and forth emails to where you finally picked up the phone to clear something up?
Have you ever gotten really upset with someone over email only to find out that they did not mean any harm when they sent it?
How about this one? Have you ever been overwhelmed because you had so many emails to respond to?
How many times have you said, “I’ll just send a quick email” and it took twenty back and forth emails to where you finally picked up the phone to clear something up?
Have you ever gotten really upset with someone over email only to find out that they did not mean any harm when they sent it?
How about this one? Have you ever been overwhelmed because you had so many emails to respond to?
I am guilty of all three of these more times than I care to admit. Over 124 billion emails are sent each day all over the world in hopes of resolving questions fast. Email was created to make communication easier and efficient. The issue is most people think that email is the save all be all when it comes to communicating to others. They hide behind computer screens sending off their requests and responses in hopes that the issue will go away quickly, only to have the email come boomeranging back with more questions or requests for information. Then we send responses and more questions of our own to the other person to which they respond, and the conversation keeps going on and on very slowly.
A few things to remember on emails are that in great communication the majority of communication is non-verbal (or written word), people tend to take written word in a negative point of view, and the person reading the words does not always know the context. This makes it ever harder for you to communicate effectively through email. Text messaging is also one of these communication mediums that get people into trouble. People tend to use it also as a means to cya (look it up) in case something bad happens.
Emails can be used also in harassment cases. I have seen people twist words from emails into the ability to sue an organization for harassment. Keep that in mind when you are upset and wanting to respond to someone to make yourself feel better. The same can be said for text messages.
Back to the main topic with emails… Most questions are easily answered, but I bet the number of emails would greatly decrease if people used a phone call instead. I have found that reaching out to others via conference calls, quick phone calls, or video meetings obtain faster results in less time than the flurry of emails that depending on workloads take days or weeks to have the responses come back to close the discussion.
New software platforms such as Loom, Zoom, Teams, Meets are being presented into the marketplace for people to speed communication up greatly. Most smart phones have the ability to video call now as well. Let’s also not forget about walking up to the people we need to communicate in person if we are in the same office.
People crave community and relationships so being present is a best way to communicate in my opinion. The problem is that we as a society have focused so much on becoming efficient in communication that we tend to miss the mark when trying to communicate. Communicating with others is vital to get our goals accomplished. It is very rare for someone to complete a great task all on their own. They need others to help them move forward.
I have taken great pride in increasing my communication by helping others understand clearly what I am trying to accomplish. Most of the time I try to do that with conversation rather than email. Please be intentional when working through emails to be as clear as possible in communicating if you chose not to talk to the person and help them understand the complete setting.
If you must write an email below is a process I work through when sending out emails:
1. Write the email as though the person receiving the email has no idea what you are talking about and the scope of the situation. ( But keeps short of a thesis paper)
2. Focus on your audience and especially if they are in another country to not write your email in your slang as they may not understand it.
3. Read the email through prior to sending to make sure the topics are clear and concise.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Do You Know The Most Important Variable In Trust?
We have seen politicians, CEO’s, and sales professionals all brag about how they did something great and how they deserve all the credit. Unfortunately, anything worth doing takes a great deal of effort and typically takes support of others.
Now that the elections are hopefully over and trust is very much a commodity that is lacking today, I figured I’d talk about one of the biggest factors in building trust. We need trust in others if we are going to go anywhere. Without trust not much is possible. Today let’s talk about one of the most important variables in building trust.
That variable is Selfishness. We have seen politicians, CEO’s, and sales professionals all brag about how they did something great and how they deserve all the credit. Unfortunately, anything worth doing takes a great deal of effort and typically takes support of others. We need to make sure we are not killing trust with self-promotion.
When I created the trust equation it was to make it easy for people to see the basics of building trust. You can be very creditable, reliable, and vulnerable, but if we are only doing this to help ourselves “WIN” we actually “LOSE.” We will not be able to gain trust and sustain it if we are only out for our own gain. If we are selfish and only doing things to be able to leverage in another instance, we will soon erode trust. People will see it especially if we are doing this over and over again. True we may be able to fake our selfishness for a little while to obtain short term gains, but trust is really a long-term play. People will figure us out, as selfishness is like a spotlight shining bright into the night sky.
Selfishness tells people that we do not value them and do not care about them. Who wants to trust someone like that? Have you ever been around someone that you tried to give more and more trust and it just seemed to blow up in your face each and every time? It is really hard to keep wanting to extend them the benefit of doubt. After a while, trust in that person is just not an option.
By being selfish we can quickly turn relationships sour. In sales or leadership if this happens, we really start losing our influence, which is the key ingredient to business success. Without trust there is no influence. We may think that if we have leverage over someone we can have influence them, but I challenge that thought because once that leverage is gone there is no more influence. Ever here about Julius Cesar? His good friend stabbed him in the back. Now typically an actual stabbing does not happen in business, but there have been stories in business where boards have thrown the CEO out of the organization overnight. Even Steve Jobs was asked to step down at one point at Apple.
I am constantly taking inventory in my life to gauge how selfish I am being. I’m sure I fail to live up to my standard, but my focus is on not being selfish and trying to help everyone that I can. I put my expertise out there to help others gain knowledge. I do not do it so I can say, see what I have done, but to share so that people can avoid mistakes that I have run into in the past. My goal is to help you become more efficient and successful especially with areas of sales and influence.
The key is to really take an inventory of our relationships and see if there are any areas where we are being selfish. Are there some relationships that we have been one sided on? Have we made any recent mistakes that an apology will help start the road back to building trust? Selfishness can be fixed when we take an honest look at how we have behaving with others.
If we want to have a greater trust level, then our selfishness must be put in check.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Why Building Customer Trust Is Important
Trust is a highly important question that has to be answered by us for the customer. If we don’t answer that question with our actions and words lining up, then the customer will move on down the road to our competitors that offer similar products / services.
Today we are talking about why building trust with the customer is important.
There are three questions that everyone asks about us when they meet with us. Every time! These questions are:
Do I like you?
Do I trust you?
How can you help me?
See that second question? Trust is a highly important question that has to be answered by us for the customer. If we don’t answer that question with our actions and words lining up, then the customer will move on down the road to our competitors that offer similar products / services.
Trust is extremely important with most of our major decisions. I define major decisions as decisions that cost over $500, or life changing decisions. Some use gut feelings, some use research, and some use advisors. The fact remains that trust is a part of every major decision. If we do not have trust, we do not act.
Today it is so easy to find options for a product / service that we need. Just hop online and do a quick search. When the customer is coming in to talk to us, they are trusting that we will help them. We need to make sure that we have that in mind when we serve the customer. We as sales professionals need to be showing up to serve the customer and being open and honest of where we can and can not help them. Focusing on how we can better grow the relationship and trust with that individual / organization.
Customers are not just looking for a transactional experience. They want to be known and heard. They want people that will advocate for them to find solutions that will benefit them the best. Customers want a relationship. We as humans are born to crave a sense of community and value. Customers want that as well. Why do you think there are so many Facebook groups out there today? People want community.
When people trust us, they share more information with us. Not their deepest darkest secrets, but they will share more and more as trust is built. I have had customers tell me about future RFQ’s that I could look forward to and worked with my teams to be more prepared so I was able to achieve success. That would not have happened had I not built trust with the customers.
To build trust I use a simple equation that I call the “Trust Equation”. It uses variable such as credibility, reliability, vulnerability, and selfishness and puts them into a simple equation to help us build trust effectively and quickly with customers. This equation also focuses on a long-term approach to building a great amount of influence with the customers.
Now, there is a great deal to discuss on trust such as how to build it, the different levels of trust needed depending on proximity to others, and how to keep growing trust. That is why I created the “Trustworthy” training to help people like yourself understand and build trust quickly.
If you’d like to check out it click here to be taken to the training. It’s worth the investment.
Today, lets make sure we are focused on building trust with our customers. John Maxwell says, “If you want to go fast, go by yourself, but if you want to go far, go together.”
Walk with your customer and you will reap greater rewards!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Why You Need Trust In The Workplace
We need to make sure we are forming a trusting environment because speed and cost are the two variables in business that are affected by trust.
Good morning everyone,
As we enter into fall and are looking at how many work days there are left before the end of the year, I decided to write on this topic so teams can focus on a building better team environment to end the year off right. That’s right we need to have trust in the workplace if we are going to do well.
If we are a manager that does not have trust for our employees then we are going to micro manage them. If we do not trust the employees, we spend much of our time checking and rechecking their work. If we do that, how can we continue to grow ourselves, and still move the group farther? It’s like rowing a boat with our hands instead of an oar.
If we do not trust our colleges enough then we are doing extra work as well to make sure we hit the outcome we desire. That means more stress, longer hours, less efficiency, and drain on our attitudes. Then comes the mixed emotions of stress and disengagement with work and family. When teams are not in a high trust environment, they are not working efficiently. People are not communicating well and issues are sometimes hidden. The only time management sees an issue is when a major event occurs.
If we are in a large organization and the engineering team is not trusted by other teams, then the design will be delayed to launch. If this is a publicly traded entity and launches are delayed guess what happens to the stock price valuation…
We need to make sure we are forming a trusting environment because speed and cost are the two variables in business that are affected by trust. When we are in a high trust environment speed goes up and cost goes down. When that happens, guess what happens to profits…they go UP!
When we are in a high trust environment people will be allowed to move quicker without having to get tons of approvals and tons of double checking. Everything flows faster and work is completed with less bureaucracy. It’s like a river that is allowed to flow, it is clean, but when it is blocked up, everything becomes stagnant and scummy.
We need to make sure that we are working on ways to build trust throughout our organization so that we can work more efficiently. If trust happens and grows, the outcome will be increased profits.
If you’d like to know ways to improve trust check out the link below that will take you to my video that discusses this topic more as well as a few tools that I have created to help build long lasting trust.
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
How Selfishness Affects Trust
The key is to really take an inventory of our relationships and see if there are any areas where we are being a little selfish.
Good morning,
We have come to the most important variable when discussing trust. It’s in the denominator of the equation as well. This means that the larger this value the more it pulls down the other variables in the numerator.
We can be very creditable, reliable, and vulnerable, but if we are only doing this to help ourselves “WIN” we will actually “LOSE”. We will not be able to gain trust and sustain it if we are only out for our own gain. True we may be able to fake our selfishness for a little while to obtain short term gains, but trust is a long-term play. People will figure it out fast enough as selfishness is like a spotlight shining bright into the night sky. There is no way to truly cover it.
Selfishness tells people that we do not value them and do not care about them. Have you ever been around someone that you tried to give more and more trust and it just seemed to blow up in your face each and every time? It is really hard to keep wanting to extend them the benefit of doubt. After a while trust is just not an option anymore.
I had to come to this realization with someone that I have bent over backwards to help on quite a few occasions. Each time resulted in being taken advantage of due to their selfishness. I am very helpful by nature and want to help people from hitting some of the pitfalls that I have had to endure. This person was only focused on their wants without a care for anyone else.
Without getting into much detail about the situation, I was protecting something of value that would have gotten damaged to the point of costing thousands of dollars to repair as well as fixing some other components on that piece of equipment that were already broken. The person was supposed to assist as well and instead of helping, they showed up after everything was done and sailed off without a thank you. I have since had to make the decision to not help this person in the future. It is not something that I am happy about, but I have had to make that decision.
By being selfish we can quickly turn relationships sour. In sales or leadership if this happens, we really start losing influence. In sales and Leadership influence is the key ingredient to success. Without trust there is no influence. Leverage is a term of is a term often people use as an influencing tool of holding something over someone so that they will do what we want, but once leverage is gone these people will revolt! Ever here about Julius Cesar? His good friend stabbed him in the back. Now typically an actual stabbing does not happen in business, but there have been stories in business where boards have thrown the CEO out of the organization overnight. When we do not have trust, people will be less willing to give us the benefit of the doubt and promote us to customer. Even Steve Jobs was asked to step down at one point at Apple.
I am constantly taking inventory in my life to gauge how selfish I am being. I’m sure I fail to live up to my standard, but my focus is on not being selfish. Instead my focus is on trying to help everyone that I can. I put my expertise out there to help others gain knowledge. I do not do it so I can say that I have done it, but to share so that people can avoid mistakes that I have run into in the past. My goal is to help you become more efficient and successful especially with areas of sales and influence.
The key is to really take an inventory of our relationships and see if there are any areas where we are being a little selfish. Are there some relationships that we need to apologize for selfishness? Have we made any recent mistakes that an apology will help start the road back to building trust? Selfishness can be fixed when we take an honest look at how we have behaving with others.
So here it is the full Trust Equation.
Have a great weekend!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Vulnerability is Crucial For Trust
I have worked with ex-navy seals, business owners, entrepreneurs, engineers, contractors, etc. The most successful people are vulnerable to those they need high levels of trust with.
Have you ever been told you are too vulnerable? My guess is that if you a man in your 40’s and older, that has not been something you have ever heard. It just was not modeled for the most part by our fathers. We were taught how to change the car oil, get a job, and fix things. Vulnerability was not something that most of us were taught.
I was raised in a single parent family for most of my younger years and being vulnerable was not a skill I was taught. I was taught to “man up”, “suck it up”, etc. We didn’t show emotion. Well we did show anger and sarcasm. That was about it. Vulnerability was something I work on daily. This was one of the hardest skills for me as a man, but one of the most beneficial assets as a person of influence.
You may be thinking, I don’t have time to be vulnerable. I just need to push through with my team or my customers and get the job done to move on to the next task. I understand business and getting work done. What I am talking about is building a trust with our teams or customers gives us the benefit of the doubt in bad situations. This kind of trust is more than the superficial arm-length kind of relationship. It brings people in to get to know us on a deeper level. A level that when the chips are down, they will step in to help without question.
Now let’s talk about what vulnerability is. Vulnerability is opening ourselves to be potentially judged, let down, hurt emotionally, and disappointed. Vulnerability is sharing details and emotions to show the real us. It is also an uneasy feeling when we disclose something about ourselves to someone in an effort to build deeper trust levels.
Vulnerability is deeper than honesty. When being honest, we can speak the truth, but still not build trust (just ask my wife). People can be rubbed the wrong way with honesty. We can not gain the connection with others when we are just honest. We need to develop our level of vulnerability with other individuals to gain deeper relationships. Vulnerability is a scary place for most people because there is that risk of being hurt, but the payoff is definitely greater.
I have worked with ex-navy seals, business owners, entrepreneurs, engineers, contractors, etc. The most successful people are vulnerable to those they need high levels of trust with. Leaders have to be vulnerable with those they lead. Leaders strive to grow the relationship with those around them so that when the time comes to dig deep, the leaders will have the buy in from those around them, and accomplish great things.
Take a look at the picture for this blog post. Those jets are flying a high rates of speed and crossing each other’s paths. Think they have high levels of trust to perform these stunts? The answer is yes. They also have to be in sink because one small mistake could end their lives. They need this deep level of trust in order to do this. They also have to be vulnerable enough when practicing to let others know their comfort levels.
The reason why I have had such great success in sales is because I am vulnerable with my customers and team members. I trust them and pushed through my comfort zone to allow others in to see who I am. By doing so I have gained great relationships and trust with those around me. Together we have accomplished great things like a men’s ministry, winning multi-million multi-year contracts, and solid relationships that have stood the test of time.
This week I want to challenge us to open up instead of trying to conceal things. It’s okay to show the real us to others. We can share some of the things we struggle with and ask for help. Being vulnerable with where we are at will allow us to grow stronger and have others come along side of us to accomplish much more. My commitment this week is to listen and be more vulnerable to those around me and not jump in to fix it and move on. What is the next step you can do today to be more vulnerable with those around you?
Have a great day!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Communicate Effectively or Risk Trust!
When I have failed to communicate expectations, or parameters to those I am about to have an experience with, things ultimately go off the rails. Someone gets upset, someone ends up sleeping on the couch, or worse someone could start building a wall between the other person that is hard to take back down.
How many times have you had someone respond negatively to something that you have said and you still are not sure why? Have you ever wanted to buy something, but when signing on the dotted line, there was a change? How about a significant other irritated from something you have said that was taken in a totally different context?
The reason is because most of us get this concept of communication wrong when we speak. Every relationship needs clear and effective communication. Dale Carnegie wrote about this topic extensively and even created a training based on it taught at large corporations to aid in effective communication.
When I have failed to communicate expectations, or parameters to those I am about to have an experience with, things ultimately go off the rails. Someone gets upset, someone ends up sleeping on the couch, or worse someone could start building a wall between the other person that is hard to take back down.
I have many stories about poor communication, but the one I want to share today is recent.
I have wanted a ski boat since I could drive a car. I have been searching all this year for a ski boat and this a couple weekends ago we test drove and put in an offer on a used ski boat. My wife even felt good about purchasing it. When the wife who could really care less about a ski boat is on board, it’s time to buy!
The person selling the ski boat was absolutely horrible in communicating unfortunately. I called him back after my wife and I talked and offered our price. It was a fair price and he said he had to talk to his brother who was part owner of the ski boat (new revelation red flag number 1) to discuss and that he would call me back quickly. Five hours later I got a text asking me if I could go up by $250. I immediately asked if I could talk to him on the phone to understand why they were asking for this extra $250.
When I finally got the seller on the phone, he stated they wanted to get $250 more and that was it. I stated there were some updates that I would have to do and thought our price was fair. He stated that he would call me right back. The next morning, I had an errand to run and reached out as the seller never responded (red flag number two). An hour went buy and then he texted that he was going to have someone else look at the boat that offered sight unseen $250 more.
I stated that I would raise the price if that was the case and that I would first need to see the trailer as he never allowed me to see it prior. The response was, “well I am out for a jog and I’ll call you later.” I tried calling and was sitting in the parking lot of the bank ready to get a cashier’s check for the ski boat. No response (red flag number 3). I waited about thirty minutes, and then started driving back to my in-laws house. An hour later I received a text that the other person was on their way to look at the ski boat. Frustrated, I told the seller that I hoped he sold the boat, but was no longer interested.
Had the individual utilized effective communication and informed me why the night before the reason why the $250 was requested, I may have been willing to raise the price then and maybe seal the deal. All I can assume now is that the seller was trying to play people against each other to inflate the price which is okay, but not how I do business. See the lack of trust there? I am able to see the red flags that should have keyed me into how this person functioned with communication and selling.
If you were in my position, how would you react?
Now think about that if you are in sales, or some kind of leadership position. If communication breaks down, people get frustrated, and it is extremely difficult to regain a relationship in this fast paced environment. There are other options out there for people to purchase, or organizations to work for. Even as the economy had dipped, it is recovering almost as fast. Organizations are back hiring more employees again.
If we want to grow our relationships, we need to focus on effective communication.
More on how to communicate effectively in the future, but for now I recommend Dale Carnegie’s book “How to win friends and influence people.” It’s a great resource for learning how to communicate effectively especially when are forced to be remote in our working conditions.
It will help greatly with all your relationships.
Have a great day!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Building Trust With The "R" Word
Today, let’s talk about the second variable in building trust. It’s Reliability. How reliable are you? When you say you’ll do something will you do it? Will you do it to the best of your ability? Do you forget to do it? Will you do the right thing when no one is looking? Do you think it is that big of a deal to be reliable?
It's a BIG DEAL!!! Trust is won or lost by your actions, not just your words.
I remember when I was younger, my father telling me to always do what you say you are going to do. Do not waiver. He also stated to do the right thing if everyone is watching and when no one is watching. Don’t tell me, show me is the slogan I have heard all my life from my father.
I remember when I first met my wife’s parents. We were up at their cottage grilling steaks and I was assisting my future father-in-law. I told him that I usually every spring season the grill grates after the first steaks have been cooked by applying foil to the top of the grates and turning the heat up high while I ate and then it would bake in all the flavor.
What I didn’t know is that his grill grates on his expensive grill were actually anodized aluminum and not steel…
Did you know when you crank up the heat and use foil that reflects the heat back into the grates that are anodized aluminum, they actually can’t take that much heat and melt and then break in half? Yep, it was an awesome first experience…
I told him that I would replace them even though my future father-in-law said don’t worry about it. The next day I was on the phone with the grill manufacturer ordering the new grates. I was originally going to order just two, but they informed me that they had two different sizes in that grill…. so, I ordered a complete set. Did you know that anodized aluminum grates cost more than any grill I have ever bought? Yep that’s right almost $300 for grates.
That weekend was the most expensive steak dinner I have ever had, but by doing the right thing and doing what I said I was going to do our relationship has grown and he has put a great deal of trust in me. He knows that if I say I will do something that I will get it done.
When we interact with our teams, customers, family, or friends we need to make it a constant effort to be reliable. Without being reliable it is almost impossible to have a trusting relationship. Especially when we are first getting to know others.
Here are a few things I do to make sure I follow through:
List it and do it – As you can see from the picture of this blog, I love to utilize post-it notes for my action items. I will literally list out something I need to do and stick it to my wallet when I leave so I do not forget what I set out to do. Some people use an app, but I am low tech. A side note is that when people cross things off list they feel good and empowered. If you are someone that keeps forgetting to do things, then maybe making a list and keeping it with you as a reminder might be a good tool.
Action It – I am bombarded with requests regularly and if I set something to the side I tend to forget about it, so I make sure I do it right away if I can. CEO’s have utilized this method of acting right away of forgetting it. Emails are a way they sort through action items to either take action right away, or throw it in the recycle bin.
Delegate it – If you are unable to do something and someone else is better equipped to handle the item then delegate it. John Maxwell has endorsed this idea of delegate to elevate. My wife and I set up weekly meetings to look at things that need to be done and delegate things that each other can do. It allows us to work more efficiently, communicate effectively, and flow in our strengths.
L.A.D. are three helpful options that I we can all utilize to make sure we are reliable.
Is there a time that pops in the back of your mind where someone else has fallen short being reliable? How did it make you feel? Did you lose a little trust in that person?
I know I will fall short sometimes, but I make it my best effort to do what I say I am going to do and if I am going to come in short I communicate the situation and try to better the situation to the best of my ability. We need trust in order to keep moving forward with others. We need to focus on how we can make sure we are doing what we say we will do and apologize to anyone that we may have fallen short with.
Being reliable is essential in building trust.
Have a great day!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Why Customer Service Hates Sales People
Have you ever had customers call you complaining that they are not being taken care of properly? Ever had them say this is not what they agreed to? How about this statement, “I think you need to come pick up your stuff as I no longer wish to do business with you?”
Have you ever had customers call you complaining that they are not being taken care of properly? Ever had them say this is not what they agreed to? How about this statement, “I think you need to come pick up your stuff as I no longer wish to do business with you?”
These are never fun conversations and most can be alleviated quickly and easily if we do this one thing. Before I tell you what this one thing is, let me give you a context of the issue in depth before providing the solution.
Large organizations today have multiple people that interact with the customer. We all know the sales person that is tasked to grow revenue and win new projects / programs. There are also others that are handling the customer on a day to day basis while the sales person is off selling other new prospects. These individuals are the customer service representatives also known as account managers. They are the crucial in growing the relationship with the customer.
Customer’s rely on constant communication about shipments, payments, bills, etc. The customer needs to know what is going on so they can build their product / service, utilize the investment they have made, and grow their portfolio. They need us to grow their business.
The key issue that I have seen multiple times in business is this. The sales person goes out and wins a sale, get the high five, and then is off trying to make the next kill (more on “kills” in future blog posts). The sales person likely has forgotten to communicate the rules of engagement with the customer effectively to those that handle the accounts on a day to day basis. This means that any negotiations or agreements made outside of the standard programs have been missed and the day to day individuals do not have this knowledge.
This would upset me if I agreed to doing business a certain way and the organization decided that it was outside of the parameters and rejects what I agreed to. I would be infuriated, wouldn’t you? Most likely resulting me calling the sales person to pick up their products and services.
This was the issue with one organization I worked for when I started out my sales career and there were some very unhappy customers. So much so that the owner of the organization was receiving calls on his cell phone which resulted in not so pleasant conversations with the entire sales team. When I say unpleasant, I mean usage of a great deal of the urban and regular dictionary adjectives.
What derived out of this and what can be applied to any organization dealing with customers, is a review of the terms of the agreement and a kick off meeting prior to the first shipment of goods / services. This allows everyone to get in alignment so that rules of engagement with the customer is well understood. Today with the sharepoint drives and team sites, it is even easier to load the terms of the agreement so that anyone can quickly review them. This also helps in case a customer tries to exaggerate the terms of the agreement to receive a little extra benefit.
In implementing a good standard of communication of new contracts with the teams, the customer relationship will function smoothly and growth can happen faster. Making sure the customer is taken care of is the top priority!
Remember the old saying, “the customer is always right!” Sometimes we just need to have all of the facts about the relationship.
Have a great day!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”
Want to Build Trust? Start with the letter C
Credibility is typically linked to knowledge. A person goes to school, gets a degree and then they are finally credible on a subject. While that is very true, there are other aspects to Credibility that many do not think about.
Hey everyone,
I have noticed a rise in interest in learning about building trust. Today Trust is in high demand. Employees and management need to establish trust more than ever especially with the working remote situations. In uncertain times, it is trust that is the key ingredient in moving forward and achieving desired goals.
There are many aspects to trust and how to build high levels of trust. Different environments also require different levels of trust. I have been asked many times for a simple roadmap in building trust. That is why I have created the Trust equation. Something simple for people to remember and be able to apply. I have also spoken to Multi-Billion dollar organizations to help teams build trust by using this equation.
Today I want to focus in on one part of that equation because going into the entire equation in one sitting would require a great deal or reading on your part. For today let’s focus in on “Credibility.” Credibility actually has a few components to it and some that most people don’t think about.
Credibility is typically linked to knowledge. A person goes to school, gets a degree and then they are finally credible on a subject. While that is very true, there are other aspects to Credibility that many do not think about. One is effective communication and the other is called “being the bridge.”
I have seen very intelligent individuals lose credibility because they could not effectively communicate with others. That’s right, just because they have a great deal of knowledge, does not automatically grant them credibility. Everyone needs to be able to communicate effectively! There are many courses that help on effective communication topics, but the biggest effect on communication is the ability to break complex topics into understandable language. That means not using really big dictionary words when a simple word can be used. If we can communicate effectively then we can build trust and generate credibility.
Now the other component I mentioned earlier is what I call “being the bridge.” This is something that I learned when I first got into sales. If I was able to connect people needing help in a certain area with those that had the knowledge, I built credibility. That’s right because I was bridging the gap for them, then I am deemed a credible source as well. When we bridge others together, we are associated with one that adds value. Adding value is key in trust building and being a bridge will help us gain influence. This is one of the main ways I have been so successful throughout my career. I have built a great deal of credibility by bridging others together.
Bring knowledgeable, communicating effectively, and being the bridge will allow us to become more credible. Consistently showing up to add value and help others is the way to growing trust with anyone we interact with.
If you would like more information on building trust reach out and set up a call so we can discuss and I can point you in the right direction!
Have a great day!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I teach your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate more sales with high margins!”