How To Answer Your Customer’s Three Questions

Last week we talked about the three questions that our customers ask at every interaction.  If you have not done so, feel free to go back and read that post.  It should only take about 3 minutes.  A quick read.

Today we are going to answer how we the professional sales person will answer these questions.  We do this by uncovering needs.  Yep, we are going to ask them questions.  There has been a great deal of study on what questions to ask and old sales techniques always told us to ask open ended questions that are not answered with simple answers like “yes”, or “no”.  What I have found is that there is no correlation to success with asking all open-ended questions as opposed to closed ended questions.  Obviously if we ask all closed ended questions, we will lose interest from the customer and they will move along.  

I choose to use a mixture of open-ended questions and close ended questions.  I let the conversation flow well and make the customer feel relaxed.  Keep in mind when we are asking questions, the customer is likely to have their guard up.  Making the customer feel more relaxed is key at the beginning of the sales process.  Making sure where we meet, colors we wear, and scents we spray on is also important.  For today, we will focus on the questions.

In the Uncover Needs of the sales process we are looking to draw out information from the customer so that we can sell them the best solution.  We need to find out their needs.  Needs are grouped into three areas and I use the acronym SIR:

1.     Situational 

2.     Issues

3.     Ramifications

Situational needs are questions we use to draw out where the customer is.  This is where they are at in the buying process, where they want to get to in the future, who is the decision maker, what is their process for making a decision, what is driving their need for looking at options, etc.  These are very probing questions and customers are usually not wanting to discuss for hours on end.  The more questions we ask that are situational the more risk we have of the customer becoming anxious.  We will want to limit the amount of situational questions that we ask so make sure we are asking the best ones.  

The larger the transaction there are likely more than one decision maker.  I have had to address large teams of decision makers for deals in the multi-million range.  When I was selling outdoor power equipment to landscapers it was usually one or two people.  Keep that in perspective when you are in the situational questions to understand if you are speaking to the correct decision makers.

Issues are the needs we really need to focus on.  They are the limiting factors for organizations that want to move forward, or the reasons why organizations may fail.  These are highly motivating needs that we need to address with our product or service.  Pain is a large driver in making changes so find out what pain they are experiencing and why.  We also need to understand why these issues are causing them limits or pain.  Asking what success would look like to the customer here would help them think in depth and confide in us a little more.  They may also bring in the people that are actually experiencing the pain to help describe to us the issue not just the symptom of the issue. The key is to find the issues that we can resolve with our product or service.  

Ramifications are also highly motivating needs that we need to know.  If the customer is unsuccessful in finding an option to mitigate the issue they have, what does that look like?  Does the organization have to close its doors, does it lose a large contract, or is it smaller to where the customer can not find a special gift for someone special?  Husbands do not buy your significant other a treadmill.  That is not a special gift.  

When the stakes are high people are very motivated to find a solution and are more open to options.  Make sure when asking ramification questions that we are building up the problem in the customer’s mind to drive a sense of urgency so they open up, bring in others that can help provide information, and help us find more information to drive the best solution.  The more we elevate the issue the better influence we can have on helping our customers.  Understanding the ramifications well will strengthen our sales presentation later and can move the customer to action.  

Be careful not to jump into your presentation just yet.  If we do not uncover all of the needs prior to presenting they we will miss the target and then we risk devaluing our solution.  When I do half and full day trainings on the sales process I walk teams through the entire process including developing the questions that will derive larger impact with their customers.  We really need to  invest time to develop great questions for the sales teams to make greater impact which results in  becoming the brand of choice.

“Businesses wonder why it is still hard to be thought of as the brand of choice with customers.  How can our business make more profitable transactions and stay out of the commodity battle with low profits?  I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

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

What Are They Expecting?”

If you have followed my blog posts for any length of time when we talk about what the Customer wants.  You should know that the customer wants to have these three questions answered. 

Do I like you?  

Do I trust you?    

How can you help me?

These three questions may seem simple and redundant, but if the customer does not know, like, and trust us, then we will not be doing business with them.  Customers want to know that they will be served and helped to a better future.  This is not just some thoughtless process they go.  It is crucial for survival.

These three questions have been with us as part of our fight or flight mechanism to keep us alive.  It has served us well and is a continued mechanism that has helped us as we evolve into better cultures.  Having this mechanism work for us helps us stave off making poor decisions on products and services that may not meet our needs.  It also keeps us away from those not so helpful individuals that just care about making money no matter the cost.  

Customers are not just people who buy products and services either.  They are the people we lead, work with, and interact with in social settings.  If we use this filter in our view of others, we see that everyone is a customer and we are sales people.  Even leaders are sales people.

We need to treat those that we interact with as customers of our own personal brand if we are going to be successful.  Whether it is a sports team, political, non-profit, or a for profit organization we all need to serve each other and let others know that we can be liked, trusted, and help others.

If we focus on those three questions, we will be able to grow influence which is key in leadership and sales.  Without influence we go nowhere together. 

Our customers need us to help them solve their issues and move forward.  They key is identifying that issue and how to implement the correct solution to help our customers.  If we don’t then we risk being thought of as a commodity and low trust levels.  That is why so many people do not trust governments anymore as politicians have forgotten who the customer is.

We need to serve our customers well and provide them answers to those three questions if we are going to move forward no matter what profession, position, or status we hold.  Everyone needs to serve each other and then we can grow more trust with easier transactions.  

Just remember the last time you had an amazing experience at a restaurant.  What did you do?  You likely told others why they needed to go visit the location.  Just think what would happen if we served each other so well that they told others they needed to work with us.

“Businesses wonder why it is still hard to be thought of as the brand of choice with customers.  How can our business make more profitable transactions and stay out of the commodity battle with low profits?  I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

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

Why You Should Use The B Word

Have you ever wondered how you are going to pay an unsuspected bill that pops up?  Ever had a surgery that you did not know how you were going to pay for, but it was life or death?  What about dreading to go to work, but you do because there are car payments, house payments, credit card payments etc.

Most people are living paycheck to paycheck and can not afford to take pay reductions, furloughs, or worse being let go. One slip up in the paycheck will put us in a downward spiral financially.

Today I want to focus on how to add security to your way of life!  Today we talk about the B-word.  That’s right…Budgets.  Now stop rolling your eyes for a few minutes and read on.  This will truly help you!  It helped me over a decade ago when I finally got control of my finances.

Dave Ramsey offers an amazing course called Financial Peace University that I took over a decade ago.  I have applied his principals ever since taking that class.  The core aspect to this training is you guessed it, the Budget!  The budget is the foundational part about becoming a millionaire.  Of all the people doing their debt free screams on his show and the millionaire half hours 99% run off of a budget.  If you want to be wealthy in the future, you’ve got to do your budget! When interviewed the millionaires said they use a budget to make money work for them to grow their wealth.  No surprise lotto tickets, no rich uncles deciding to bless them, a budget.

Corporations also use budgets to make sure they do not run out of money.  By using budgets, corporations are able to apply income to certain business units in order to fund develop products, marketing, employee growth, legal services, etc.  The point here is that they are very intentional to make sure they are on budget to make money work for them.  Successful Corporations (Banks, Amazon, Apple, etc.) make money work for them to grow their wealth.  

We cannot just fly by the seat of our pants and hope for the best with financial security.  You Only Live Once (YOLO) unfortunately is not a term that works well with finances.  It’s the B-word that most people make disgusted faces when said out loud that will enable you to thrive long term.

During this pandemic season, I have had to reduce my income by 20 percent, we bought my wife a new used vehicle, and my wife changed jobs with a month of no income from her.  We were able to review the budget, see where we could cut costs during this season as well as move forward without getting into arguments.  It was one less item to worry about during this not so fun time.  We have been able to pay down the mortgage as well during this time.  Not just pay the mortgage payment, more payments onto the principal.

Budgeting has brought my wife and I closer as we talk about our future dreams and actually budget to make it a reality as we travel along in our marriage.  We even give our kids a budget for clothing and after school activities that they can manage how they choose.  They just need make sure they can afford it.  If they don’t have enough money, then they can’t do the activity.  Now the emotion is taken out of the discussion and the focus is on simple mathematics.  

If millionaires and corporations do budgets to succeed, what is keeping you from doing a budget?  

Do you not have the time?  

Does it seem like you don’t know where to start? 

What if I had a quick excel file you could use that auto calculates and allows you to do a budget?  Would that be useful to you?

Reach out and I would be glad to help you succeed with your finances and help you start the conversation with a financial advisor in order to win and have a better future!

Have a great day!

“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business.  I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

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

Why Your Team Needs Investment

Have you ever wondered why your team just seems to be stagnant?  As the years go on the growth of the organization seems to hit a ceiling?  No matter how you as the leader push, the sales and growth just seem to flat line?

When I first started in sales, I was thrust into learning by so many different programs to get me up to speed with the rest of the sales team.  We had annual trainings that we took part in as a group every year.  Most of the sales team would groan about the annual sales meeting that took them out of their market from seeing their customers.

It was odd because the owner of the organization would basically have the sales trainer from outside the organization come in and train us with basically the same message the owner constantly presented us with.

It was odd that someone would do this, but as I learned when sales people hear the same thing over time it becomes real.  I’ve since learned that with all areas of our life that the more we hear the same message, the more it becomes truth.  Having an individual come in from outside the organization annually that aligns with the organization’s goals will help solidify with this. 

We would spend a couple days in sales training and at the end of the training from the individual outside of the organization, we would then be held back for a debrief.  Now the organizational leader was ex-military, but it is the same thing as watching the game film from professional sports teams.  The team discussing what they learned and what they can add to their tool box for becoming better is very useful.  

When we discuss with others on our team that we trust and they give perspectives and items they learned that we may not have caught from the training it is very helpful.  We are typically drinking from a fire hose with information that we cannot capture everything, so discussing with others will help us catch some things we missed.  

By discussing this information, the team will form bonds and will become stronger together.  This is crucial as the team will start calling each other instead of the leadership when the trust levels are high between each other to bounce ideas off of each other before bringing to leadership.  This is crucial because as the team unites in trust, it becomes more efficient and drive faster sales growth.

The last thing we did was do competitive analysis and each person from the group chose one specific area to teach on.  The easiest way for us to learn is to actually teach.  It took time to prepare for this, but was very beneficial for all of us to learn.  

Yes, this took us out of the market for a few days, but it was sharpening out axe to chop down the tree.  If we sharpen ourselves, we will be able to cut mor efficient.  Sales organizations need this investment to become better especially since they are so limited in actually selling these days.  Typically, only 36% of sales time is actually spent in the sales process with customers with all of the other activities that are required.  Sales teams need to be invested in if we expect them to grow sales!  

Do you team this favor and invest.   By doing so, you will benefit greatly!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business.  I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

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

Travel and Staying Fit. How Do We Do This?

Now that vaccine numbers are up and the COVID numbers are getting lower in many locations in the US.  Business organizations are starting to open up customer visits and traveling to see customers.  In person events are even starting up at the end of Q1.  Things are starting to get back to normal. I hope!!!

With things opening back up, the question is how to we stay fit while traveling.  Maybe it’s summer vacation, maybe it’s work travel, maybe it is even trying to shed the COVID 15+ lbs.

What fitness programs can we do anywhere at any time?

How do we schedule time for fitness as our schedules get tighter and tighter? 

I have spent a great deal of time on the road in my career and I can say that it is extremely hard to stay fit when traveling.  I have spent hours trying to plan workouts whether traveling for business or pleasure and was mostly unsuccessful.  I had excuses like not enough time, too stiff from sitting too long, to Oh they came out with vanilla oreos!!!

Some things I would do was research where I was traveling to in order to find hotels with fitness centers that were not just a treadmill and an exercise bike, map out gyms near hotels, or figure out routes to run.  I would get so exhausted from all of the planning that I would usually just give up and find something on tv to watch.

My epiphany happened one day I was watching informercials when I could not sleep from an extensive business trip.  One caught my attention mainly because it was stating that fitness could be done in a small amount of space with limited workout equipment.  The infomercial was for P90X taught by Tony Horton.  This is where my beach body adventure started.

I bought the program and I have to say it worked.  I was able to get in the better shape than I was in college.  The program worked so much that I have done it at least once a year for the past decade.  I was able to travel with minimal workout equipment.  Usually just fitness bands and running shoes.  I could also plan my workouts.  I could do plyometric training, kick boxing, and yoga while I was on the road.  I was even able to use a small 8’ x 8’ space to workout at home.  Beach Body now has streaming service called Beach Body On Demand (BOD)

There are over 40 different workout programs on this system with different coaches. There is a great variety of workout programs on this service so whatever you are feeling like that day you can push play and get to work easily on your schedule.  Now here is the cool part about this.  You don’t need a gym membership, a bunch of gym equipment at your home, or a great deal of space.  You also don’t have to waste time waiting for people to get done sweating over equipment you need to use.  It’s efficient and wide open for you to decide what you want to do that day.  You can also stream it on your phone from the app, or from a laptop.

They even have nutrition programs that go along with the workout programs.  One stop shop to help us stay fit when traveling and even at home.

Peloton, Nordic track, and mirror all have similar formats for working out without needing much equipment.  Some work out facilities and hotels even have equipment set up to use these programs as well. Getting outside and walking / running is also a great way to see the location, but that will take some planning on how far you want to go for your fitness goals. 

No, I am not a beach body coach, I don’t sell the materials, or their magic shake formula (which I don’t use), but I do endorse this format especially if you are a busy individual.  It works if you put forth the effort and push play.  I have used this workout formula which helps me mitigate stress, process ideas, and clears my head.  If it worked for me then it can work for anyone.  

Also, when I finish a workout program entirely, I treat myself to something as a way to set a goal to complete a program.   

We are getting back into the swing of things as well as the summer travel so it will take some planning and execution if we want to stay fit as we get back to normal.  It is achievable, but we need to start now if we want to hit our goals!

As a side note the new 645 program that has come out on BOD has really helped me learn more about why we do certain workouts, and why we need to stretch.  My hip flexors have been tight all my life, and now I am able to move better with less pain.  Check out a program that works for you and if it doesn’t then find something else.  They key is to try something and learn something new to make yourself better.  

See you out on the lakes!  

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business.  I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

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

Why They Don’t Trust You

Have you ever wondered why someone you have been trying to build trust with just won’t give you trust?  No matter how hard you try, they just won’t do it?

Did you know there are different levels of trust and that trust is a marathon, not a sprint?

If we want to have trust with others, we need to take the focus off of ourselves and focus on others.  We need to answer three questions at every interaction.

Do I like you?

Do I trust you?

How can you help me?

Those three questions have a great deal of parts to them, but if we struggle at any one of them, we will not be building trust.  I wouldn’t trust my life to someone who read about packing a parachute online once compared to someone who does it for their business.  It took time for the person to get qualified.  So why do we think that everyone should just trust us?

There have been a great deal of stories about people trusting someone with their finances and it is all gone.  Nest eggs crushed by somone that wanted to use the money for their own lifestyle instead of investing for the client.  Organizations have done this as well.

Ever heard of Enron or Bernie Madoff?  Fraudsters are like social media experts as they can swindle people out of money with all the new trends.  People are even being taken advantage of for Covid with new scams.  It is crazy how good these people are.

Life has taught people to not blindly trust each other.  Experience after experience has taught us that we need to be on guard.  The old way of innocent until proven guilty has been flipped upside down to where we are now guilty until proven innocent.  Even now if we are proven innocent people still think of us as guilty due to all the fake news out there.  

People do need to extend trust, but that is not likely to happen freely right away.  It is like climbing a large staircase.  One step at a time answering the three questions every time we interact with the other individuals.  We need to take the focus off ourselves and we will start building trust to some day have that trust level we desire others to have for us.

Focus on the marathon and not a sprint when building trust and you will build the levels of trust with others, but it takes time.

Have a great week!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business.  I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

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

What Employees Think Management Does

Most employees wonder what their management and leadership teams are doing day to day.  Constant commands of new requests rain down from above constantly.  When employees state that they are too busy the response from management is that they just need to prioritize.  

The funny thing about prioritization is that each day it changes to the new fire that has popped up as being the most prioritized issue.  Employees are just asked to do more without clarity or help in some cases.  This is a huge frustration with employees and typically drives burn out.

Employees want to feel like they matter. When management tells the employee to do a new task that has popped up without support that feeling of frustration sets in.   It can feel like a hamster on a wheel every new day.  When it comes time for the end of year review the main goals that were requested at the beginning of the year have been missed.  The only trigger for a raise, promotion, a future with the organization was missed because of the ever changing priorites.

What can employees do?  Can they fight back?  Should they push back to management?  Will management accept this stance?  What is management doing to help the employees become more successful?

Most employees think of management as people sitting on a couch enjoying their favorite cereal, in their comfy pants. Meanwhile the employee is struggling to keep going.  The employees become resentful that the manager is just barking orders to keep from being on the hotseat like an underperforming NFL coach.

Managers are meant to keep things moving forward by managing people and processes to maintain the flow.  Just like a flowing river, if something gets jammed up then the water becomes stagnant and smells awful.  Managers are there to keep things flowing.  They manage a group of employees typically called the span of command.

Managers are working hard trying to manage priorities of the organization as those issues arise.  They don’t want to keep pushing new orders, but they have to so they can stay in their position and collect their paycheck.  Far too often new managers are not equipped to grow trust and influence with those that they manage driving dissention and hate in their groups.  This then turns into having to fill another spot on their team when employees have had enough and leave.

Gallop did a poll and found that this lack of loyalty to the company can cause turnover, which can cost businesses approximately 1.5 times the annual salary of every person who quits.

What managers need to think of themselves is team leaders.  Leaders help their teams by pouring into them and helping the team grow together.  By investing into the team and helping them get better as well as fighting for their team, the leader will be rewarded with trust and influence.  Leaders don’t just bark orders, they serve the team members.  They serve by going the way and showing the way.  

If you are in a management position, think about how you can serve the team so that they can improve.  By serving you will get higher levels of engagement and success with your employees.  Heck, they may even stay with you instead of chasing a pay raise at another organization.

Employees want to feel like they matter.  If they feel like leadership and management does not care for them, they will ultimately disengage and look for other opportunities.  We have just gone through what people are calling the great resignation.  Leadership and management need to look themselves in the mirror and evaluate how they are leading their teams.  They are costing the organization a great deal of money if they don’t take this hard look in the mirror.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business.  I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

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

The Supply Struggle Is Real

In the past couple of years with a pandemic and supply chain issues, it has become crucial to make sure we still deliver at high levels with low costs.  Organizations have had to pay higher costs to ship goods from overseas, weather has affected larger parts of the country, and there are constant requests from suppliers to increase pricing in the name of higher costs.

As sales people we don’t always want to go to customers with price increase after price increase.  It sometimes feels like death by a thousand cuts as one VP states.  Sales people want to sell and then collect a pay check in most cases and hate the constant requests to get price increases.  It is a difficult balance between customer relationship and keeping our organization afloat.

If you are in leadership, or in sales these issues have been hitting all of us quite regularly.  It seems everything is increasing and there is no end in sight.  There are plenty of factors to blame, but pointing the finger never resolves the issue. 

I’ve worked in organizations that do not want to hedge market stability so they set up raw material adjustments.  Now it seems like there is a request for logistics adjustments that will be needed.  A great deal of purchasing and sales teams are wishing things would go back to what they were, but unfortunately the reality is that it will take a market crash to really level set.  Especially with the consumption of raw materials increasing to where even lumber mills can’t keep up with demand.

There will need to be quite a few things that need to change in order for us to make things get to a calm state and fluctuations to calm down.  Better forecasting will be crucial with greater levels of communication from customers and suppliers.  There will need to be a seize to just in time delivery imposed by some industries.  There will also need to be some holding more materials to support the demand right now.

We all need to work together, customer and suppliers creating a better communication system with lower finger pointing if we are to get back to a better quality of life.  Every industry is impacted with these issues so simply jumping to a new organization is not necessarily the resolution.  We need to really work together to find a better way. 

Yes some ideas that we try, will not work.  But that is the great thing about the lightbulb.  It took over a thousand attempts for Thomas Edison to create the lightbulb.  We now have the technology to improve efficiency, but we need to look at how we can work together, team up, and give each other the benefit of the doubt.  No one software package, communication tactic, or demand will cure this.  We have to have empathy for each other and work together to solve the issues.  

Greater levels of communication and transparency will be required to move forward.  Those are crucial in building trust.  Let’s stop the finger pointing and find solutions and we will all get to a better life soon enough.

Have a great week!

Sincerely,

Kevin Sidebottom

“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business.  I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

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

Don’t Forget About Customer Service

I have walked into a local package delivery service and the customer service representative was obviously not having a great day.  I was talked to as if I had just spilled my sippy cup all over their carpet.  I was questioned as if I had put something inside that might explode with a raised eyebrow.  Finally, after the interrogation I was politely asked if I wanted to complete a customer service survey.  

I have been placed on hold and bounced between multiple departments of call centers and treated as if I was a burden on the representative from the other side of the phone.   I’ve been rudely supported and told to have a great day in a sarcastic tone as well.  

I have also experienced great service at organizations from IT people and have bought their product by the referral from that IT person.  They walked with me through the entire purchase and guided me away from extras that were not needed.  They did not leave my side until I was fully satisfied with the product and thanked me.  That is right they actually thanked me for spending time with them.

The interesting thing is though is that does not matter what the position in the organization is whether it be CEO, a sales person, an engineer, or a janitor.  We are a representative of the organization to the outside world.  We have the opportunity to build up or tear down the reputation of our organization by how we treat others.  We are ambassadors for the organizations we represent.  We need to keep that in mind when we are sporting our organization’s name, at events, and even what we post on social media.  We are all in customer service.

It also does not matter if we are not a paid employee of the organization either.  When people see us representing an organization, they are making the association no matter our affiliation.  People will make their perceptions based on the people they interact with.   

I have had people in organizations tell me they don’t care if a customer likes it or not because they don’t have to interact with the customer regularly.  It’s frankly, not their job.  Unfortunately, what these individuals don’t understand is that the customer is buying products / services that are in turn funding the individual’s paycheck.  Make enough customers stop buying from you and then you are looking for other employment. 

When the customer has a bad experience now, they are able to send all over the world in a matter of seconds.  The customer can influence their friend network faster than ever sharing their story.  Organizations do not have the ability to respond to every negative comment on all of the social media platforms.  There is just too much area to cover, but we can make sure we do our part and give the customer a great experience each and every time we interact with them.  

No one is above customer service.  We are all serving customers.  Whether we like it or not, our organizations are judged by how we interact with others.  Make the interaction a positive one.  Be courteous, helpful, gracious, and humble. 

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!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

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

What Leadership Is Missing These Days

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!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

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

How Selfish Are We?

Today let’s talk about the most important variable in building trust with others.

Over the past few weeks, we have been walking through the trust equation explaining three other variables in building trust.  If you have not read them, I highly recommend you go back through and read the past three weeks.  It will likely take less than ten or so minutes, but will help you understand the variables that affect trust.

Today we focus on the denominator of the fraction on building trust and the 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 selfish gain.

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 hide our selfishness for a little while, but trust is really a long-term plan.  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  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 others we can influence them, but I challenge that thought because once that leverage is gone there is no more influence.  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 in to.  My goal is to help others 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.   

Just remember what our math teachers taught us.  It does not matter how large the numerator of a fraction is.  The denominator will affect the outcome greater.   Below is a picture of the complete trust equation for you to have.  Take a screen shot, or make it a graphic for yourself and keep where you can see it often to remind yourself what trust is affected by.

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!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

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

A Crucial Contributor To Building Trust

Today we are finishing up the numerator of the trust equation.  For those that don’t remember, the numerator is all of the variables above the dividing line in a fraction.  So far, we have talked about credibility and reliability in building trust.  The third and most important numerator variable is vulnerability.  

I was raised in a single parent family for most of my younger years and being vulnerable was not a soft skill I was taught. I was taught to “man up”, “suck it up”, etc.  We didn’t show emotions that often except for anger and sarcasm.  Vulnerability was something I have and continue to work on to this day.  This was one of the hardest skills for me as a man, but one of the most beneficial skills as a person of influence.  If you can be vulnerable and go deeper with people you will gain more trust and influence with others over time.  

I know what you may be thinking at this moment.  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 your team or customers that gives you the benefit of the doubt in bad situations.  The kind of trust that will provide you help when fighting against the competition.  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 a soft skill that is not typically taught.  Vulnerability is about going deep and opening up ourselves to be potentially judged, let down, hurt emotionally, and disappointed.  It is that uneasy feeling when we are about to disclose something about ourselves to someone because we are risking our comfort level.  Vulnerability is deeper than honesty. 

When being honest, we can speak the truth, but still not show our true self.  People can be rubbed the wrong way with honesty and not trust us.  We can’t gain the connection with others when we are just being honest.  We need to develop our level of vulnerability with those individuals to gain the next level of relationships.  Vulnerability is a scary place for most people because there is that risk of being hurt, but the payoff is definitely greater than the risk.

I have worked with ex-navy seals, business owners, entrepreneurs, engineers, contractors, etc. and those that are most successful are vulnerable to those they need high levels of trust with.  Leaders learn how to be vulnerable.  Leaders strive to grow the relationship with those around them so that when the time comes to dig down the leaders will have the buy in from those around them to work together and accomplish great things.

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 and built strong bonds that helped me when working on new businesses, growing a men’s ministry, my marriage, and some close friends that would drop everything and run to help if I truly needed it.  

This week I want to challenge us to open up when we are trying to bottle up things that we don’t want to let others know about.  It’s okay to take off the mask of perfectness and let others see our true identity.  Let others open up to us while we use active listening and not just give solutions.  I should also say that “suck it up buttercup” would not be the best phrase when someone opens up to us and is vulnerable.  That might get you quickly thrown out of their circle of trust.  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 your next step today to be more vulnerable with those around you?    

Go ahead and post your next step in vulnerability in the comments below.  

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!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

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

Reliability, The Second Variable In The Trust Equation

Ever think it’s no big deal if I pass up on this one meeting with a customer?  Ever think that it’s just one appointment in my busy schedule that I can just skip?  What about that promise that we broke to our family to do something fun that we are going to have to push back on the calendar yet again?

The road to eroding trust is paved with good intensions.  It is sealed with no follow through.

My father once told me that I should do the right thing no matter if anyone was watching.  At the time as a young adult, I was thinking that what does it matter if no one is watching.  In today’s age with technology, someone is always watching.  Just do a google search on yourself and you’ll find tons of websites with all of your information out there.

If we want to be considered trustworthy, we need to make sure that we are showing up in a consistent manner each and every time.  We need to be Reliable.

That’s right Reliability is key to trust building.  People begin to trust us when we are consistent in how we show up.  That can be personality, work ethic, promises, etc.  The more consistent we are the more reliable we are.

Think of that restaurant that you have visited multiple times because the food was great and the service was fantastic.  We can’t help but tell people they have to go visit that establishment because of the great experience.  That is what others want of us.  They want to know that they can get a consistent experience from us when they interact with us.

Whether it is our boss, our significant other, our kids, etc.  It doesn’t matter who we are interacting with, they want to have consistency with us.  That makes the reliability go up.  If we are consistently showing up with our work, we get to stay employed and more money with raises and promotions.  Children get more freedom when they are reliable.

If we are there for our friends in times of need, they will open up to us more and we have more influence.  If our kids know that we will be there for them they will have more confidence in us as parents.  They will trust us more.  

We need to be constantly showing up in the same reliable manner if we want trust.  Yes there are times that we fall short and have to ask for forgiveness, but if we have been reliable more often than not, we will get the benefit of the doubt. When we can have a minor slip up, but still be considered trustworthy and reliable that is when we know we are doing well.

In sales too often the customer is provided all of these reasons why this interaction will be different from other suppliers.  Delivery will be exceptional and on time, our customer service team will support them and not leave the customer on hold for hours on end, etc.  

Far too often in sales we over commit and under produce.  We have this grand promise that falls short of expectation for the customer.  Guess what happens…Trust goes down and we are put into the commodity bucket on the next time we are thought of as an option for suppling goods and services.  In sales and business, we also need to make sure that we are showing up in a reliable manner if we want to be considered the best option and maintain good profit margins.

When we are considered commodities, the only differentiating factor is price.  We need to make sure that we are providing exceptional service to help the customer along through their lives and support them in a reliable manner.  If we do that trust will go up and we will gain more opportunities in the future.  That is why I try to under commit and over produce for my customers as much as I can. 

If I am not able to guarantee something, then I don’t.  I am not like one of those informercials from the 90’s promising that this product will solve everything from small messes to world hunger.  I make sure that my customers know how, when, and what my product / service will do and make sure that it achieves those goals.  I have built solid levels of trust with customers and friends by being consistent and reliable.

The final thought is yes, we need to commit to something and push hard to make that happen.  Never committing to anything will stop trust in it’s tracks.

Be reliable and you will gain trust with those you interact with.

Have a good 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!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

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

To Build Trust You Need To Have The Letter C

The last couple of weeks I have been helping you with understanding that there are different levels of trust needed for different levels of relationships and the three questions that we need to answer to build trust and influence.  Today I would like help you with a concept that I created for people to visualize an easy way to understand what goes into trust.  I call it the “Trust Equation” and it has helped many people start building trust easily by understanding the components of trust.

There are four main components of the trust equation and I will break down each of them in the next few blogs so that you can better understand each and excel at building higher levels of trust in 2022.   Without trust we can’t make movements, sell, lead, or do anything of substance with others.  We need trust.

Without any more delays let’s get into the first component of trust:

Credibility  

We have have credibility before people will trust us on a specific topic of concern.  This is crucial, but does not mean that we have to go to school to learn about everything and anything.  No one knows everything.  

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 I call “being the bridge.” 

I have seen very intelligent individuals lose credibility because they could not effectively communicate their topic.  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 simple understandable pieces.  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 actually 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 credibility because we are associated as one that adds vallue. 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 with others.  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!

The next few weeks I will discuss the other variables in the trust equation.  Look forward to helping you gain more trust and influence in the weeks to come!

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://www.amazon.com/Sales-Process-Uncovered-Success-Influence/dp/0578421518 - SPU Book

https://kevinsidebottom.kartra.com/page/5AF12 - Sales Process Uncovered Online Training

https://kevinsidebottom.kartra.com/page/68N10 - Trustworthy Online Training

Trust begins with three questions

If you want trust, you must answer three questions every time you meet with others.  Too often people focus on how others will answer these three questions and not how we need to be answering them.  The three questions are:  

Do I like You?

Do I trust You?

How can you help Me?

Those three questions that everyone asks at every interaction are crucial for us to put our best foot forward.  Otherwise, we will not grow trust levels with others and possibly erode trust with others. 

The first question has a lot that goes into it, but the main thing is that if people do not like us then they will not trust us.  There is a radar in our fight or flight system that has likeability as a key indicator.  Ever have that feeling that something was wrong with someone you just met and you needed to leave.  That is the radar trying to keep you alive.

Likeability is crucial.  The colors we wear, the way we make others feel, our pace of speech, and even the scents we wear can affect the likeability factor.   See we don’t know other people’s pasts, experiences, and triggers.  That means that we can subconsciously step onto land mines that we did not know where there.  A land mine is an explosive that is buried under the surface that when stepped on creates a large explosion usually killing the person that stepped on the land mine.

 This does not mean that we just avoid contact with others.  What we need to do is make sure we are consciously approaching those that we come in contact with awareness and humility.  We can’t avoid contact with others, but we can however focus on understanding and help them.

The more we put the focus on learning about others and minimizing ways to trigger others the better we can build relationships with them.  

When I first meet with others, I tend to wear colors like light blue, whites in my shirts.  I don’t wear power ties, dark colors, or a ton of cologne.  I also focus on learning about them by asking a great deal of questions.  Not so I can sell them something, but to learn and help if possible.  I want to help people and by investing in helping others, I have also benefited in my careers and personal life as a by-product.

The first step in taking the focus off ourselves and onto others is start by learning about them.  The best way to do that is build a profile about them.  That means we are focused solely learning about them (not to leverage them, but to help them).  I use a profile sheet when I prep for meeting with individuals and do research on them prior to the meeting if possible.  I have also asked if I could take notes and 9 times out of 10 the people are receptive and actually get more engaged by me attempting to learn about them.  

I have attached a link to the profile sheet I use to learn about others a.  If you’d like a copy just click here and you can have it.  No, I am not trying to track your email through this.  It is free to you.  There are some questions you might have on this sheet so if you haven’t read any of my blog posts about the client profile sheet you can look back at those, or reach out.  I would be glad to help you.

For today, focus on not stepping on land mines and learning about others and you will start building trust with others.  

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 high margins!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

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

How Trust Works

I hope you are doing well this week and ready to move forward with others that you interact with.  In order to do that we need to make sure we are elevating the trust levels with those we interact with.  

In order to do that we really need to understand how to build trust, why others give us some trust levels of trust, and what effects trust over time.  Even though some people say they just give people trust when they meet them, would they trust someone to hold them a high rise building with just a rope?

We give some levels of trust to people, but don’t typically put our lives in their hands right away, unless there is some kind of emergency.  I have made a diagram for trust levels that is in the picture of this post above.  This gives an idea that the closer we are to people the more trust that is needed.  That is why we do not have as many people in intimate relationships with us like our significant other and children.  

We would not tell the world our deepest secrets like we would those in intimate relationships with.  

That means that we have different levels of trust and we have to grow trust with others if we are going to learn more about them.  Not to leverage them with their secrets, but to learn about them.  Sales professionals for years have learned how to build rapport with customers and grow the relationships as well as trust levels.  Sales professionals know that if business transactions are going to occur then there must be high levels of trust established. 

Investments of trust take a lot of work and we need to be ready to do the work to grow trust.  People will only interact with those they know, like, and trust.  So, in order to build trust, we need to answer three questions on every interaction.

Do I like you?

Do I trust you?

How can you help me?

In order to build trust levels, we need to focus on these three questions and what I can tell you is the techniques that sales professionals use (not the sleazy ones) will help you understand how to do this effectively.

I would encourage you to pick up a sales book, or take and online training to help yourself learn and equip yourself to succeed in growing trust with others.

If you’d like to use mine that is great, but not a necessity.  My links are below for my book “The Sales Process Uncovered” and the link to my trainings are also below:

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

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!”

Influencer or Influence, What Do You Want?

Have you ever thought about how to build influence in your marketing efforts?  Have you ever thought about using an influencer to endorse your product / service to gain more customers?  

Marketing has made a shift in the past few years relying on those social marketing influencers to endorse their products / services.   Marketers believe that followers of these influencers will buy whatever that influencer has mentioned.  Unfortunately, there is a limit to this theory?

By using an influencer, we are essentially using social proof with customers.  That is the basis of gaining trust from someone else’s endorsement that others trust their recommendations.  It’s literally a exchange of trust.  This will work for commodities, but if you are offering a service, you may find it difficult to capitalize with this type of marketing.  

When it comes to influencers, they hold up products, but to show how a service works it may be difficult and take time for them to really show how it works.  When getting our marketing plans secured, we really need to understand what we are offering before we just throw money at the effort.  If we believe we have a commodity then we have already lost because a commodity is only differentiated by price.  That is why we need to make sure we have figured out how we are different from others in our same product / service demographic.

Successful organizations that have focused their efforts on customer service have secured reoccurring customers.  That’s right the customer experience is more impactful than having a super star wear our products.  We need to focus on building customer service and trust with our current customers and yes this takes time.  We live in an era with two-day shipping, moves on demand, and grocery shopping online world, but the one true way to gain reoccurring customers is to serve them consistently over time.  

Ever try to get a chicken sandwich from Chick-Fil-A at lunch or dinner?  It’s a chicken sandwich, not a new cure for cancer, but because they have focused on customer service over time, they have passed up the other fast food competition with fewer locations.  That’s right the golden arches which have been a staple were passed by Chick-Fil-A.  Their customer service has accomplished this cult following.

We need to focus on the long-term vision of building trust with our customers.  Without trust we will not gain influence with our customers.  We need to have high levels of trust with our customers before they will tell their closets friends and family members to use us.  That is also still the best form of referral.  I am also not talking about bribing the customers with a coupon if they share with others.  

I am talking about natural raving customers that can’t help but tell others to do business with you.We need to serve our customers well consistently if we are going to having reoccurring customers and eventually partners that will only buy from us and all that we sell.  Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to market because our customers are buying everything we sell and partner with us?  

That is why I consistently post blogs every week for over three years and consistently post videos online to help customers gain more knowledge and understanding about sales and influence.  I am here as a guide to help you become successful in your endeavors. 

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!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

Why all successful leaders know sales and how it can help you gain momentum

Have you ever wondered why certain friends, managers, executives just seem to have a certain way about them that people engage and follow them so easily?  Ever wonder if you could have people working with you to that capacity?

Did you know that all the successful leaders know sales?  Now before you stop readying because you got a cold shiver about sales people, let me ask you this.  Have you ever been on a job interview, or a first date?  In each case you were selling yourself as the best option.  See that phrase, “selling yourself”.  That is right you are selling during those two examples and many more scenarios.  We are actually all selling anytime we are interacting with others.  Whether it is our ideas, a product/service, or that your son to not stick his tongue to a frozen metal fence won’t end well.

I know the persona that is out there about sales people.  Unfortunately, a few bad seeds and various movies have bruised the sales persona.  Not all sales people are bad, just look in the mirror after an interview J  We are not inherently bad are we?  Most of the not so successful sales people is just plainly, they just don’t know how to sell well.

I am not what some people would think of as a sales person.  Most people think of sales people as the life of the party, extroverts, and people that like attention.  I am an introvert and hold an engineering degree.  Not what you would think about when you think of sales person right?  I can tell you that I have secured multi-year multimillion contracts in my career and all the way down to thousand dollar deals.  Anyone can sell and everyone sells all the time, including leaders.

Here is how I got into sales which was something that I never thought I would do.  I was sitting on a boat on one of the great lakes when a well-known business owner that wanted to have “the talk with me”.  See I was dating his daughter so he was wanting to know what my intentions were.  The question started with “where do you see yourself in five years.”  I know, not the kind of question you’d think a father would have, but as a business owner and successful person he thought about business al great deal. 

Being fresh out of college and in a job… I thought about it and said, “I want to be a manager.”  I know high aspirations right…  What he said next was definitely not what at the time I wanted to hear.  He told me that I needed to know sales if I wanted to cast my vision and get people to follow my lead.  I didn’t like that idea because I had that same mindset when it came to sales people.

What I learned through the process of learning sales has actually helped me to understand why people can build high levels of momentum in movements.  It’s because they had influence.  A great deal of influence.  In fact, the more they have the more people wanted to follow these individuals. 

What does sales have to do with influence? 

Sales is actually the art of building influence.  Not in a sleezy way, or creating leverage over people either.  Selling is about helping people with their current situation and understanding their issues as well as helping to avoid the ramifications with not making the best decision for them.  That’s right, sales is about helping people get to where they want to go.  Helping them make a difference in their lives and others.  I know at this point you may be thinking that this guy is on something, but hear me out.

People ask three questions at every interaction.

Do I like you?  Do I trust you?  How can you help me?

It has been programmed into our brains since the beginning of time.  Not for selfish reasons, but for survival.  We ask these questions and form answers in the first seven seconds of every interaction.   

If we want to be successful and have momentum with others we should at least learn about sales.  We should understand why certain colors, the environment, and how we interact with others affects trust.  In the sales process uncovered training that I teach it is how we take the focus off ourselves and focus on helping others.  Zig Ziglar once said, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.” 

That is what sales is meant to do.  Help people find solutions to their issues and avoid the ramification of making the incorrect decision.  That is what a true sales professional is supposed to do.  Help others and not focus on just selling something.

Selling well will start building influence with those that we help.  It has worked for me with over 15 years of sales experience in multiple industries, in different demographics, and different regions. 

If we focus on helping people through the sales process, we will gain influence and momentum with people.  I’m not sure where you are and where you want to go, but if you want to go anywhere with others, you need to learn sales.  There are tons of books, podcasts, and blogs out there.  You don’t need to know everything, but having a basic knowledge will help you grow your influence levels and lead well.

Have a great day and if you need anything feel free to reach out with any questions!

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!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com

Goal Setting with Purpose

Wow, just like that 2021 is gone and we are in 2022.  Can you believe how fast 2021 went?  All of the events that happened in our world, the good, the bad, the ugly.  How about you, did you accomplish all your goals in 2021?

Chances are that 2021 had us stumbling a bit in our goals and we also needed to shift our goals with the everchanging environment. 

This year when we sit down in some of our quiet time to think about 2022 we need to make sure we have some firepower behind our goals.  That’s right just because we have a goal does not mean we will achieve the goals.  We need to have a “WHY” behind our goals.  The why will keep us moving forward when times get tough.

There are areas we can grow and should be focused on that for 2022.  I will be taking the next two weeks to plan out 2022 to make it a better than this past year.  The reason why, is if we are not growing, we are dying.  That is right we need to constantly be growing.  I choose growth and for that I need a plan for whatever I am shooting for.  Even if I do not hit the bullseye ever time. 

I will be sitting down to make a plan for 2022 by looking at where I want to be.  It’s like shooting a long-range shot, we need to plan before we pull the trigger to hit the target accurately.  To do this I start with the end in mind.  When I was a child, I used to do mazes all the time.  I loved them.  I learned early on that to find the path through the maze, it was easier actually start at the finish and work my way back to the start.  Try it if you don’t believe me.

I was able to attend an event at the church I attend and there was this thing called a “purpose statement” that they were talking about.  Before you leave because I talked about church, hear me out.  This purpose statement aligned with my DISC profile, my passions, and my gifts that I have.  This purpose statement is “WHY” I am here.  Why I am on this earth and why I matter.

This purpose statement is a compass when things get tough, or we get knocked off course by something like a pandemic.  This purpose statement will allow us to focus on why we are here so we can dust ourselves off and get back to putting one step forward at a time if needed.  It will keep us moving forward.  Those that do not have purpose are easily tossed back and forth like a boat by the waves.  Those that know where they are going and why, will keep moving in the direction they need to go and find that extra strength from within to keep going.

This means yes, we need to pause and really thing about our why before we just start throwing goals up on the wall.  We really need to focus in on this target if we want to hit it.  Take time to understand your purpose and you will have more energy and determination to achieve your goals.

I will have quite a few stretch goals for myself and my business to grow in 2022.  I have personal goals that I will also be putting in for this year.  All of them will align with my purpose which will give them more strength and foundation. 

I will also use the EOS system (insert link https://www.eosworldwide.com/hubfs/EOS-VTO.pdf) for planning goals.  This is a fantastic system that anyone can use for work, or personal goals.  I have adapted it to work for me in both areas of my life. 

The key is to still plan because if we don’t aim at anything, we’ll hit it every time.

We need to make plans even if we do not hit them all.  It’s okay not to hit all of our goals, but we need to try to grow and move forward, not get down on ourselves, and have that target we are trying to strive for each and every day.

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!”

www.kevinsidebottom.com