0:00

And now Taking Care of Business , your

0:02

hosts Craig Moen and Shai

0:04

Gilad .

0:08

Welcome to Business Owners Radio , episode

0:10

241 . Our guest

0:12

today is Mike Estraday , founding

0:14

partner and CEO of Integrity

0:17

Solutions and contributing member

0:19

of the Forbes Business Council . He

0:21

is the co-author of the new book Listen

0:24

to Sell how your Mindset

0:26

, skillset and Human Connections

0:28

Unlock Sales Performance

0:30

.

0:32

Good morning , mike . Welcome to Business Owners

0:34

Radio . Well , thank you , it's great to be here

0:36

. Yeah , we're excited to have you here to

0:38

talk about this great book . Listen

0:40

to Sell man . We've been excited to read

0:42

this one . Tell us what inspired you to write

0:44

the book .

0:45

We've been in sales skills training for

0:47

over 30 years and Shia . It's interesting

0:50

that , with all the places you can just

0:52

click online and buy something today

0:54

, there's some people that wonder if sales really

0:56

is a future profession . How long

0:58

will they need salespeople ? And we're really

1:00

advocates for this being a noble

1:03

profession . In fact , today

1:05

is probably the best time in history to be

1:07

in sales , because you go online and you might see

1:09

10,000 choices . You

1:12

need a professional who can help you think through what's

1:14

the right choice for you

1:16

as a business owner or you as an individual

1:18

.

1:19

Yeah , that's an interesting concept

1:21

. I mean I hadn't really stopped to think about it . With

1:23

all the evolution of artificial intelligence

1:25

and the different implementations of that , I'd

1:28

never asked myself the question will

1:30

salespeople be obsolete

1:32

or will that skill become obsolete ? What

1:35

got you thinking about this kind of question

1:37

and how to reframe this

1:39

and give us new ways about thinking about the future

1:41

?

1:44

ways about thinking about the future . We've seen a number of our clients that have had

1:46

reductions in force sales teams , more and more people going

1:48

towards technology . But today

1:50

you need to elevate skills and

1:52

we believe that sales success really

1:55

involves three conversations . So

1:57

, whether you're a large organization , a small organization

2:00

, an individual solo entrepreneur

2:02

, the three conversations are one

2:04

. You've got to have a good conversation with the customer

2:06

. Do I understand how to gain rapport

2:09

, ask the right questions , talk about

2:11

my value proposition and so forth ? But

2:14

there's a second conversation that most salespeople

2:16

don't realize that they have . That's

2:18

going on all day long . That's the conversation

2:21

they have with themselves . Do

2:23

I really believe in what I'm selling ? Do I have

2:25

a passion for what I'm doing ? Do

2:27

I see the benefit I'm creating

2:29

for my customers ? And that conversation

2:31

, we think , is extremely valuable and

2:34

critical to your success . The

2:36

third conversation is the one that a manager

2:38

has with his or her salespeople . So

2:41

, regardless of the size of your sales team , it's

2:44

critical to have a

2:46

conversation with people . That deals

2:49

with both the conversation with the

2:51

customer and understanding what's going

2:53

on in their head . So this book

2:55

deals with all three of those conversations

2:58

and we've broken it up into mindset

3:00

, the conversation with yourself , the skill

3:02

set with the customer and also

3:04

coaching from a manager viewpoint .

3:07

I really love the way that you're thinking about that

3:09

, especially grounding it in

3:11

this conversation with ourself right

3:13

, Because it's really creating that belief that

3:16

there's purpose to what we're doing here and that

3:18

it's bigger than just hopefully making

3:20

a few dollars , that we're helping people solve

3:22

problems .

3:24

It really is and unfortunately so many people today

3:26

. They have a poor view of selling

3:28

because of what they've seen on TV movies

3:31

, the experience they've had . If

3:34

you can have a positive view of selling , that

3:36

I'm creating value for people . It's identifying

3:39

needs , filling needs , creating value for people

3:41

. If you have a purpose and

3:43

a belief in what you're selling , that

3:46

increases what we call achievement drive . And

3:48

so we did a global study of sales leaders

3:50

and out of all these

3:52

we put them into two buckets . One is

3:54

do you have the selling skills

3:56

and selling knowledge and product knowledge

3:58

? The other part is values

4:01

, achievement drive , sense of passion

4:03

. We asked them of

4:05

those two buckets which one

4:08

is more important to your top salespeople

4:10

and 100%

4:12

of them said it's that second one , that

4:14

achievement drive , that passion

4:16

, that belief in what I have . So

4:19

, unfortunately , a lot of times sales leaders

4:21

only talk about product and

4:23

how to make the sale . But if we

4:25

can get inside our people's heads and

4:28

help them have a sense of purpose of

4:30

what they do and light that achievement

4:32

drive fire , they're going

4:34

to be much more successful .

4:36

Mike , you're talking about this traditional

4:38

view on sales and we have so

4:40

many examples being negative in

4:42

our lives , but we all remember

4:44

one or two , maybe more , salespeople

4:47

that really were not selling first

4:50

. They were part of the solution

4:52

evaluation and

4:54

recommendation side , based on their

4:56

experience and alternate views

4:58

, we have a very different experience

5:00

there . Why has this happened

5:03

that there's so many varieties of sales

5:05

, sales staff and even

5:07

the customer service side ? Why

5:09

, after all of these years , are

5:11

we dealing with such a variety

5:13

and some of them that give such a bad

5:15

reputation ?

5:17

You know you're really right , craig that the folks that

5:19

stand out . It's like wow

5:21

, that's a different experience . This

5:23

person really is here for me . They're on

5:25

the same side of the table trying to

5:27

help me think through what's the best decision

5:29

versus trying to just sell

5:32

me stuff and people can pick that

5:34

up . I grew up on a farm in the Midwest

5:36

and my dad told me you can tell

5:38

these animals if you get in that pig pen . They

5:41

can kind of tell if you're afraid of them or not , and

5:43

I believe that people are at least that

5:45

sensitive . They can tell if you're

5:47

there for them or if you're trying

5:49

to do something to them . And the

5:52

salespeople , who can truly be customer

5:54

needs focused , they're

5:56

there with an attitude . If they have

5:58

a need , I'm going to have a professional obligation

6:01

to help people get what I've got . But if

6:03

they don't have a need , I'm not going to

6:05

try to force them into something they don't need . But

6:08

if they don't have a need , I'm not going to try to

6:10

force them into something they don't need . And people can pick that up and they can

6:12

appreciate the trust and the sense

6:14

of being customer focused that

6:16

comes through loud and clear .

6:18

I guess one of the examples of

6:20

being a great salesperson is do

6:22

you get referrals ? And , just like

6:24

you're saying , this relationship and this

6:26

customer experience they've had with

6:28

what we used to call a salesperson , but

6:31

maybe they're a sales engineer or a customer

6:33

assistance . The experience is so different

6:35

that we'll recommend them to

6:38

everyone and that's rare

6:40

in the traditional historic

6:42

classification of sales , and

6:45

having those great experiences really reinforces

6:47

that this is a profession and

6:50

partially an art .

6:52

Yes , it's interesting that studies

6:54

have shown that most people , when they have a good experience

6:56

, are willing to give you a referral

6:59

. But a very small percentage of people even

7:01

ask for referrals . Now , sometimes

7:03

it's because you didn't do a good job

7:05

of selling , you didn't have

7:07

that customer-focused attitude . But

7:09

if you firmly believe that

7:11

you're there for the customer , you've

7:13

done the right thing , you've made the right recommendation

7:16

, you've helped solve their problem . You

7:18

have an obligation to try to help other

7:20

people that they know . So asking

7:22

for that referral is critical . And then , of

7:25

course , those kind of folks that are referred are

7:27

a lot easier to sell because they're coming from a trusted

7:29

source , especially if you can ask

7:31

that person to refer you

7:33

and call and introduce you .

7:35

It's amazing how we don't measure that

7:38

in our businesses . How we measure

7:40

, do the sales of

7:42

the past reflect future

7:44

sales and expansion of new customers

7:46

by referral ? It's an

7:48

interesting change in a measurement

7:51

process . Rather than just numbers , the

7:54

measurement of sales probably

7:56

defines a bit of the performance

7:58

of the sales and the reputation of the company

8:01

they represent . Can you tell

8:03

me about some of the experiences you've had ?

8:06

In our book Listen to Sell , in the

8:08

mindset part we talk about something

8:10

called the sales congruence model and

8:12

in that we look at a couple of dimensions of success

8:15

, and one is a person's view of selling , the

8:18

view of their ability to be successful , their

8:20

values , their commitment to activities

8:23

and their belief and passion in what

8:25

they're selling . Unfortunately

8:27

, too many managers focus

8:29

on activities which are necessary

8:32

. But if someone's not performing

8:34

like he or she should , it's

8:37

probably not just the activities . There

8:39

might be an underlying cause . It

8:41

may be that they don't have a strong belief

8:44

in their abilities , they may not believe strongly

8:46

enough in what they're selling . They may not have a

8:48

strong view of what selling is . A

8:50

couple of examples we were working with an organization

8:53

in Texas . There was a salesperson

8:55

who had been a school teacher . He

8:58

loved teaching but he couldn't make enough money to put his

9:00

kids through college . So he got into

9:02

sales , was failing miserably

9:04

, just didn't feel in alignment there

9:06

. So his manager worked with him to

9:09

help reshape his mindset of what he

9:11

was doing , to realize

9:13

the benefits he was providing for families

9:16

through the insurance products that he sold

9:18

. By shifting that mindset

9:20

, within about 30 days his activities

9:23

doubled and within a couple

9:25

months he was succeeding . So

9:28

it's not just the product

9:30

knowledge and not just the activities

9:32

, it's what goes behind

9:34

that . So , as a business

9:36

owner , if your salespeople

9:39

are struggling , I'd like to challenge

9:41

them to think of not just how

9:43

much you're selling , what are you measuring but

9:46

also get behind those numbers to see what

9:48

is it that drives people to be successful

9:50

. Do you know what people

9:52

want money for ? Do

9:55

you know what they want to prove ? We

9:57

had another example of a salesperson

9:59

who was newly married . He worked in a call center

10:01

and unfortunately his

10:04

in-laws were kind of embarrassed that their daughter

10:06

had married someone that worked in a contact

10:08

center . But he was proud

10:10

of what he did . So his goal was to prove

10:12

to his in-laws that he could be

10:14

the very best at what he did . So

10:17

do you know what people

10:19

want to accomplish ? What's their purpose

10:21

? Do they want to make money to put their kids through

10:23

college ? Do they want to buy a lake

10:25

house ? Do they want to save

10:28

people's lives with what they're selling ? Do

10:30

they want to make a difference in a business's

10:32

financials ? What is it they want

10:34

to accomplish ? And if you can understand

10:36

that , that could be the leverage to

10:38

help that person succeed .

10:40

I can't help but think about what a great overall

10:43

leadership concept that is

10:45

. And I think this book

10:47

has a wonderful name in terms of listen

10:50

to sell , because it really does have

10:52

to start there . You have

10:54

to certainly know some good questions to ask

10:56

, but if you don't have the skill to shut up

10:58

and actually listen carefully and

11:01

really listen not just with your ears but also

11:03

with your eyes looking at people's

11:05

body language , listening to their voice

11:07

, watching how their face changes when they talk

11:09

about the future and what they want , you know

11:11

you can miss a lot . So it's really important to fully

11:14

engage around that .

11:15

Well , I'm so much in agreement with that Shai , that shy

11:17

. Too many times people listen to decide

11:20

what they're going to say instead of truly

11:22

listening to what the person is saying

11:24

. What's in between the words ? What

11:27

is their body language ? You said what do they really

11:29

mean by what they're saying ? And

11:31

if your mindset is , I'm going to listen to understand

11:33

instead of listen to talk

11:36

, people also pick

11:38

that up . They tend to trust

11:40

you more . So , if you can listen

11:42

. Throughout the book we talk about listening to the

11:45

customer , but also

11:47

listening to what you're saying to yourself and your

11:49

mind . Are you saying self-defeating thoughts ? Are

11:51

you encouraging thoughts ? What are you listening to

11:53

your manager ? Listening is

11:55

just a critical key in success

11:58

, as it is with coaching key in success , as it is with

12:00

coaching In the book in Listen to Sell

12:02

at the end , we

12:09

have multiple chapters on coaching to help business owners and managers coach and build

12:11

their people . It's not just driving revenue , it's building people . As you

12:13

build people , they'll build your sales

12:16

. At the end of every chapter

12:18

we give coaching tips

12:20

and coaching corners with almost

12:22

200 questions throughout the book that

12:24

you can ask people to uncover

12:27

what's driving them and

12:29

how to help them improve their sales .

12:31

It's so great because that accomplishes two

12:33

things right . There's an organizing philosophy

12:36

around the book , which is actually a pretty simple

12:38

approach , but a very powerful one

12:40

. But then you have all these great tactics

12:42

about really how to apply this , and

12:44

you're also modeling some behavior

12:46

here , because you're encouraging the reader

12:49

to really reflect on these questions first

12:51

and then think about how they can apply

12:53

them in these different scenarios .

12:55

And this is not just theory . What I

12:57

find is that some books I read are really good , but

13:00

they're very complicated . Someone

13:02

told me one time a consultant . He says if you

13:04

make it more complicated they'll pay you more . And

13:07

I think that's the opposite of what it should be . I

13:09

think people need something that's fairly simple , that

13:11

say I can use that . I can use that today

13:13

in my customer conversations

13:15

and help customers and be better

13:18

in my career . In

13:22

the back folks who get the book , you'll see there's a lot of assessments too , so you

13:24

can actually assess yourself , assess your people and

13:26

with some tips on how do you help them improve

13:29

. Because that's what's the purpose of the whole book is

13:31

how do we get better at not just

13:33

listening but selling and serving

13:35

other people and coaching our sales people

13:37

?

13:38

And you know . Another running theme you have is

13:40

developing emotional intelligence

13:42

, and you know we hear this frame a lot but

13:45

it's difficult sometimes for people

13:47

to visualize . Well , yeah , but how do I get better

13:49

at that ? What are the competencies of

13:51

emotional intelligence and how do I improve

13:53

? What are your thoughts on that and

13:55

maybe give us an example of the kind of tips

13:57

you use to really help people understand that

13:59

better ?

14:00

This has been a very popularized topic over the last

14:02

30 years or so . Daniel Goldman did a lot of studies

14:05

in the 90s . Travis Bradbury

14:07

has been very prolific with his

14:09

books Emotional Intelligence 2.0

14:11

and the Emotional Intelligence Habits about

14:14

how do we understand our own

14:16

emotions and how do we pick

14:18

up on others . Some of it can

14:20

relate also to what we call behavior styles

14:22

. Am I sensitive to

14:24

how other people like to communicate , and

14:26

can I communicate in the way they want to communicate

14:29

instead of the way that I want to ? Emotional

14:32

intelligence has been proven to be a lot more effective

14:34

in success than IQ

14:37

. They call it EQ versus IQ

14:40

, and so there's a long chapter

14:42

in the book towards the back about how

14:44

do I recognize where I am on the

14:46

emotional intelligence scale . Then

14:48

how can I improve myself and

14:51

also work better with my people ?

15:03

had to do with customer service and sales and this gap that occasionally occurs

15:05

between the organizations when they're not really glued together . Well , what are

15:07

your observations and what's going on there

15:09

?

15:10

Well , customer service is not just

15:12

something done by quote customer service people

15:14

. This should be a part of

15:16

the culture of every organization . Whether you've

15:18

got two people or 2,000 people or whatever

15:20

in your company , customer service

15:23

ought to be a part of everybody's job description

15:25

. We worked with an organization in California

15:27

one time that they said every

15:29

meeting needs to start with a customer

15:32

service message and end with

15:34

a safety message . This is part of

15:36

everybody's job , not

15:38

just externally with customers

15:40

, but we also have internal customers

15:42

and studies have shown that as

15:45

we give better service to each other , break

15:47

down the silos , support

15:50

each other , that gives stronger

15:52

external service too . There's

15:54

a study called the Service Profit Chain that was

15:56

done by Harvard and published in the HBR

15:58

that goes into this in depth that

16:01

it's extremely important for us to have a mindset

16:03

that I'm serving other people within the company

16:05

and that drives profitability and growth

16:07

. When you think about customer service

16:10

, a lot of times people don't understand that if

16:12

I don't interact with quote customers

16:14

, I don't need that kind of training . We

16:17

work with a healthcare organization in Florida

16:19

and in the cafeteria

16:21

they trained every single employee on customer

16:24

service skills and the person in the cafeteria

16:26

went through this and thought well , why am I here

16:28

with all these other important people the doctors and

16:30

nurses and executives All

16:33

I do is make the Jell-O . But then she

16:35

started to realize through the training that some

16:37

people couldn't eat without the Jell-O

16:39

that I made . She thought about the kids playing

16:42

in the Jell-O . She said , now that I understand

16:44

the purpose of what I do , she said I'm

16:46

proud that I make the Jell-O . So

16:48

, whether it's in service , whether it's in sales

16:50

, whatever it is , if we can help people

16:52

see the bigger picture of how they impact

16:55

others , that tends to

16:57

drive stronger activities

16:59

and a stronger sense of purpose and

17:01

it also improves retention and

17:03

productivity of employees .

17:06

Mike looking forward , where

17:08

do you see the positioning of sales and the

17:10

profession of sales as we move

17:12

forward into the next decade ?

17:14

I believe it truly is a profession . People

17:17

today , I think , are craving

17:19

human-to-human interaction

17:21

. They want somebody they

17:24

can trust . In today's

17:26

time , when you have so many options

17:28

and sometimes there's parity

17:30

of products , how do I figure out

17:32

what's best for me or for my company ? We

17:35

need someone who is truly a professional that's

17:38

addressing it with a customer

17:40

needs focused attitude , asking

17:43

questions to truly understand what the customer

17:45

needs , making the right recommendations

17:48

, and when you do that , you help

17:50

solve problems . And when you

17:52

do that , you create a long-term

17:54

customer who's willing to give

17:56

you repeat business referrals

17:58

, and good work turns

18:01

into more business . In this book

18:03

, we celebrate sales

18:05

as a profession . The salespeople

18:07

are respected , valued

18:09

partners for customers and

18:12

we see the profession growing .

18:14

That's a great point , mike , and I can't help

18:16

but think about not only there being

18:19

a bright future for people in the

18:21

realm of sales , but , more

18:23

importantly , how universal

18:25

this skill really is

18:27

, and it's still worth the investment

18:29

to develop more in your own personal leadership

18:32

of any kind of company

18:34

and developing your team . These skills

18:36

will help make you a better leader , no

18:38

matter what the context , and

18:40

I know that I'm very excited about the book and

18:42

I'm sure a lot of people will be too . So thank

18:45

you so much for joining us today . We really enjoyed

18:47

having you .

18:48

Shia and Craig , thank you for having me on . I

18:50

appreciate you sharing some of these ideas and

18:53

hopefully , if people pick up the book , you can get it at

18:55

listentosellbookcom and

18:58

it's available on Amazon and bookstores

19:00

, and in the book there are a number

19:02

of QR codes . You can get some free

19:04

resources , assessments

19:06

and things you can download to work with your team

19:08

. Also , on our website , interiorresolutionscom

19:11

, there's over 200 articles , blogs

19:14

, videos and tools that you can

19:16

use to help increase your business too

19:18

. So thank you for having me and anybody that has

19:20

any questions feel free to reach out to us .

19:23

Our guest today has been Mike Estraday , co-author

19:26

of the new book Listen to Sell

19:28

how your Mindset , skill Set

19:30

and Human Connections Un unlock

19:32

sales performance . You can learn

19:35

more about Mike , as well as find

19:37

links to his book and resources

19:39

all on our website at businessownersradiocom

19:43

.

19:45

Thank you for joining us on Business Owners

19:47

Radio . We hope you enjoyed today's

19:50

show . As always , you can

19:52

read more about each episode , along with

19:54

links and offers , in the show notes

19:56

on our website , businessownersradiocom

19:58

. We

20:00

want to hear your feedback . Please

20:03

leave comments on this show or suggestions

20:05

for upcoming episodes . Tell

20:07

your fellow business owners about the show and

20:09

, of course , you would love the stars and comments

20:12

on iTunes . Till next time , keep

20:14

taking care of business .