Communication skills, boy oh boy! I’m sure excited about this topic. I have a huge treat for you when it comes to having influence in sales. It’s super important to know how communication affects your influence on sales to the consumer.
I have the philosophy, give for the sake of giving. Detach yourself from getting anything in return. In sales we should give to give, not to get. I teach seminars on it, have done since day 1. So when I connected the first time with Bob Burg, he had this whole Go-Giver thing, it was like synergy galore. It was great. And my goodness, since then what an influencer Bob has been throughout the world.
Let me introduce Bob Burg…
- Co-Author of the “Go-Giver series
- Sought-after speaker
- Former television personality
- top-producing salesperson
- 30 Most Influential Leaders
- Inc.’s 100 Great Leadership Speakers
- Richtopia named him one of the top 200 Most Influential Authors in the World
Bob has shared the platform with some of today’s top business leaders, broadcast personalities, coaches, athletes, political leaders, including a former US President.
In addition to the “Go-Giver” Series Bob has authored some popular books including;
Endless Referrals (which I highly recommend that you read)
- Network Your Everyday Contacts Into Sales and;
- Adversaries Into Allies
His total book sales are well over a million copies.
I remember having great conversations with Bob back in the day. We had very similar philosophies. I mean obviously, Go-Giver was huge for me and I’ve been teaching the concept of what you send out is what comes back to you.
Watch this interview where he shares valuable communication skills and talks about his brand new book ‘The Go-Giver Influencer.’
Shifting your focus.
The premise of The Go-Giver is again, how to align with you, who you are and what you do. Just shifting your focus from getting to giving. That being said, giving in this context, means continuously providing value to others. Also, understanding that doing so is not only a nice way, a pleasant way of conducting business. It’s the most financially profitable way as well. ~Bob Burg~
So is that really true?
Well, knowing that there are a lot of naysayers out there who say, “Yeah, this new age philosophy of give, give, give,” can’t be that simple! I need to go close a deal. So when I say it’s the most financially rewarding, there are people right now who say, “All right, that’s great but show me some proof. Give me some proof of that.”
Naturally, most people are skeptics, and it would make sense that they would want proof because we’ve sort of been brought up where the bad guy is the one who gets and wins. But let’s really look at it from not some woo-woo kind of thing, “Oh, just give and be …” no! It’s not that at all.
“Nobody is going to buy from you because you have a quota to meet.” ~Bob Burg~
Don’t laugh because you know that’s true. No one is buying from us for that reason. No one is going to buy from you because you need the money and no one is going to buy from you because you were a nice person who really means well. They’re going to buy from you because they believe they will be better off by doing so than by not doing so.
Because of this, it means that the entrepreneur, the business owner, the salesperson must focus on bringing value to another human being or that person is not going to do business with them.
Wouldn’t it make sense that the top communication skill is being able to move the focus off of yourself and place it on the other person?
Focus on making;
- Their life better and;
- Looking to bring value to their life
When you do this, people begin to know and feel good about you. They like, trust and feel safe and comfortable with you. They want to do business with you. This is the person who consistently is going to get the business.
Are you a con-artist or a salesperson?
When we think of selling, there’s such a backward notion with so many people about what selling is. They can say, “Well, selling is trying to convince someone to buy something they don’t want or need. That’s not selling. That’s called being a con artist. Selling by definition merely is discovering what the other person wants, needs, or desires and helping them to get it.
Consequently, in the process of helping them get what they need, you assess your prospect’s needs. You’re there to serve them. What’s hard for salespeople to get is, there are times when you know in your mind that what you’re offering is not what’s best for them. It’s tough for salespeople. If you’re there to serve, you’re going to tell them what you think is best for them to do regardless if it’s your product or not. Service is knowing what they need even if it’s something that you don’t sell, and it’s from a competitor of yours.
This in many ways has to do with character. It’s a fact that if someone has integrity, they stand for something. In other words, they act congruently with their values. And if your highest value concerning being a salesperson is to provide value and the highest service to your customer, you certainly do the best you can to do that.
Think about it, that’s just the best thing you can do even for selfish purposes!
Guaranteed, if you come across with integrity, character and being trustworthy, they’re going to refer people over to you.
Ask yourself this question…
Why are you in sales?
Is your answer going to be “Well, I’m in sales to make money” versus “I’m in sales to add value?”
By and large, the top producers are in business to bring value to the lives of their customers. Money is the result.
The 80-20 rule.
20% of the salespeople make 80% of the money, and that’s how it works. So 20% are there to create value, and they make 80% of the money. The 80% who are there to make money only make the 20%. It’s logic and how it just kind of works.
I think it’s essential especially to people who are in sales management and sales training. Such an important principle of how to influence by giving and being of service to others. Go out and give. Send out to give. Give for the sake of giving. Detach yourself from getting anything.
Give without attachment to the result.
This means that you know you’re doing the best you can, you know you are looking to provide immense value to everyone’s lives you touch, well, you know that the money is going to come.
Think about this big word right here, influence. We hear that word a lot. We hear it now more than ever with social media, “we got the people of influence.” I mean that’s a huge word. So what does that word even mean?
A word like influence nowadays has got so many different meanings, depending upon who you ask.
Influence basically can be defined in two different ways. Primarily, on a fundamental level, we can define influence as…
“The ability to move a person or persons to a desired action, typically within the context of a specific goal.”
By definition, that’s influence. However, I don’t believe in any way that that’s the substance or the essence of influence. The essence of influence is pulling. Pull as opposed to pushing, as in how far you can push a rope? And we know the answer is not very far, at least not very fast or very effectively which is why great influencers don’t push. You never hear people say, “Wow! That person is so influential. They have a lot of push.”
No, of course not. They would say, “That person is very influential. They have a lot of pull.”
With that said, It’s an attraction. A great influencer or what we call genuine influencers attract people through;
- themselves and then;
- their ideas
And they do this again not through pushing their ideas or will on others, but through its opposite, pulling.
That’s what influence is.
How does that pull happen?
Take Dale Carnegie’s classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People, this really is where he said it all…
“Ultimately, people do things for their reasons, not our reasons.”
So the genuine influencer self-questions, asking themselves questions to check their focus and make sure it’s in the right place for the other person.”
Questions Bob suggests asking yourself;
- How does what I’m asking this person to do, align with their goals, wants, needs, desires?
- How does what I want this other person to do, how does it align with their values?
- What problems am I helping them to solve?
- What am I helping them to get or attain that they want, that they can’t without my guidance?
And when asking ourselves these questions thoughtfully, intelligently, genuinely, authentically, not as a way to manipulate another human being into doing our will but as a way of building everyone in the process. Now, we have come a lot closer to earning that person’s commitment rather than trying to depend on some type of compliance.
Are you an influencer or a manipulator?
It’s kind of the old school influence, that word manipulation and some – a lot of times when people think of themselves as influencers, pushing if you will, the word manipulation comes up. It’s a way to manipulate people to an area that you want them to go. Influencing is pulling on the rope. Pulling people towards what they want, not what you want.
Stephen M. R. Covey, son of the famous Dr. Stephen Covey of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, well, Stephen M. R.’s book, The Speed of Trust…says…
“Trust is the very root and source of your influence.”
I do these personal development seminars around the concept of acting on your promptings and reaching out in kindness to other people.
But in that – in some of those early events, I used to do this thing where I put up the letters I with a slash and ME versus YOU/WE. A lot of people in sales mainly, focus on I/ME. Trying to become influencers, especially when creating an audience on social media, it’s I and ME. Look how great I am. It’s all about ME versus YOU/WE.
So in the sales process or becoming an influencer process, focus on the other person, and what can we do together. It’s this kind of that shift influences.
All things being equal…
“People will do business with and refer business to people they know, like, and trust.” Quite frankly, allowing themselves to be led or influenced, cultivate trust through YOU/WE.
There’s just no faster, more powerful, or more effective way of eliciting those feelings toward you in someone than by again, genuinely and authentically moving from that I/Me focus to You/We making your win all about the other person’s victory. When you do that, consistently and continuously, you develop a reputation as that person who does that, that’s when people really just feel so good about you, that trust is really right there, and you develop that army of personal walking ambassadors.
When I was growing up, my mother used to always say to me, parents are cool because parents plant seeds, my parents always planted seeds into my subconscious which really helped me later in life.
- First she would say, “Kody, you are a special boy.” She would say that to me all the time, “Kody, you are a special boy.” And then she would say;
- “I want you to remember, if you remember this you will always be happy.” She says, “You need to find out who you are and then give yourself away to other people.”
So what do you think about that advice from my mother? Find out who you are so that you can give yourself away to others.
I was blessed in the parent department. I had parents who encouraged me and helped me really have a foundation of self-competence and the ability to grow. What she said to me was just such great advice. We can really discover what we are here for in our own minds that’s the best thing we can do, both of our self and others. Then give that away, share it. Make giving a part of our lives and hopefully make it a part of the lives of those people we touch.
A couple tips to genuine influence
- Mastering your emotions;
Take position to a potentially negative situation or person and turn it into a win for everyone involved. Too often we allow emotions to push our emotional hot buttons. For this reason, we allow ourselves to be upset. Feeling victimized, frustrated, angry, we say or do something that is entirely counterproductive to what we’re looking to accomplish.
Now, we’re human beings, and it’s part of human nature. As human beings, we are emotional creatures. Certainly, we’d like to think we’re logical and to a certain extent, of course, we are. But we are basically emotion-driven. We make major decisions based on emotion and back up those emotional decisions with logic. We rationalize, which basically just means merely we tell ourselves rational lies. And this is part of being human. Make sure you’re the master of your emotions as opposed to your emotions being the master of you.
I had a college professor, a psychology professor that said and it was his theory, and it’s debatable I’m sure, but his theory is about the power of love. Love is the ultimate – it’s ultimately the most powerful thing there is. And scripturally, those who – Christian people read the Bible or whatever, scripturally, it talks about love is the only thing that will prevail. I mean after everything fails, love will be the only thing standing. So he talked a lot about the importance of love.
But then he went on, and he said, “Love is not an emotion.” Because most people think, and well, love is an emotion. He said, “No, love is not an emotion. Love is a state of being.” Emotions are the levels. They are the levels of when you feel something. So if you feel despiteful or hateful, there is a level of that hate. That’s the emotion you feel. Love is a state of being. Now, you can feel a higher level of love and those kinds of things.
And then he referred to a scripture in the Bible that basically says this. “Bridle your passions so that you may be filled with love.” It’s like you’ve got to control your emotions so that you can allow the powerful things in your life to work.
Indeed this is saying that when you’re in control of your emotions, you can think from a constructive, proactive basis. And so, when that’s the case, now we can proactively act out of conscious choice rather than a type of reactive programming.
2. Step into other people’s shoes;
Most of us have different size feet. Figuratively, we can’t step into another person’s mind because we all come from our own set of beliefs. What is a belief? A belief is a subjective truth as we understand the truth to be, which means it may or may not be the truth.
Far too often, it’s really not because we all see the world from our paradigm. Most of our belief system was given to us, right? Meaning it’s a combination of;
- upbringing
- environment
- school and;
- news media
Most of us grow up living from what I would call an unconscious operating system. Thinking that we’re choosing proactively and actively when usually we’re pretty much operating within a matrix if you will, of some predetermined choices. What happens is we see the world a certain way according to our belief system. So does the other person. But as human beings, we tend to think that most people see the world the same way we do. I mean it makes sense. How can it be anything different? It’s all we know.
Effective Communication
Now, most conflict is the result of two people seeing the same basic thing from two different points of view without even realizing it. Hence, that’s why it’s so important to ask questions, to not assume we know what they are thinking. Not to assume they know what we are thinking. Simply, we need to ask questions and then listen.
“Listen not just with your ears.” That’s the surface listening that most people do. That’s listening in order to speak. That’s allowing them to get their two cents in so that we can get in our ten cents, right?
Instead, listen with your eyes. Listen with your posture and the back of your neck. In other words, just put your entire being into listening to this person. Now when you do this, two beautiful things happen.
- You actually do learn more about this person by stepping into their shoes. Getting to know their thought process, what’s meaningful to them, what do they value, what do they need from you.
- The primary need of human beings is feeling heard and understood. In-turn they feel good about you and begin to trust you. Dr. Covey says, “Listen in order to understand. Seek first to understand.” We are really creating the context for a very beneficial relationship.
Stepping into somebody else’s shoes, now excuse me for using politics as an example here. But I do want to talk about an issue that’s going on in our country right now, there is this separation because of a non-willingness to see things from somebody else’s point of view. So in other words, a Republican ought to step into a Democrat’s shoes, and a Democrat ought to step into a Republican shoes.” Now, I know your going, “Aaargh! He just said something about politics.”
But in all seriousness, I don’t want to talk politics, and I’m not picking sides, simply just pointing out the challenge going on in the world today.
Understandably, most people have the same primary goal. Reframing your conversation from a “seeing point of view” can help you come from a tactful point with kindness. This takes a controversial conversation from adversarial to one of two allies looking for the same result just different points of view of how to get to the desired outcome.
People are looking for who is making their point in a way that is genuine, that is respectful, that brings people into the conversation. Watch the other point of view, not to agree with it, but to understand it.
What are you feeding yourself on a daily basis?
If you are watching the news every day and you’re involved with the controversy on a daily basis by getting on social media and looking at all of the things that are being said and done then that becomes your influence.
Most importantly, nourish yourself with personal development, positivity, nourishment-oriented books which will be a reflection of the best version of yourself to give away.
We can choose what we put into our mind. Now, there’s a lot of stuff we can’t choose that goes in because we hear and see things, and so forth. But we have a choice of what we’re going to study.
Above all else, it is essential to gain a balance in your own mind to make up your own mind.
I appreciate all of you tuning in to my blog today. Bob Burg is a sphere of influence that will nourish your mind and soul. Visit TheGoGiver.com and pick up your copy of The Go-Giver & The Go-Giver Influencer!
So take care, everybody. Appreciate you!
Kody B.
P.S. We have a big conference coming up in Salt Lake City. August 8th and 9th is the Relationship Marketing Grand Summit…
This life-changing event will help you:
- Understand the power of Human Connection
- Accelerate your business by putting relationships first in relationship marketing
- Leverage a turn-key tangible touch follow-up system
- Set and achieve personal and professional goals
- Implement daily habits that will set you up for success
- Create core purpose statements for your business and personal life
- Learn and follow a manifestation process
Pick up your seat before they are gone…
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/relationship-marketing-grand-summit-tickets-45903962989
