Building Relationships for Sales Success with Kelly Mark

Jenn DeWall:

Hi everyone! It’s Jenn DeWall, and on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit, I sat down with sales, leadership expert and strategist, Kelly Mark. Kelly has over 25 years of experience in solution selling and managing successful sales teams. She helps them to focus on the pain points that organizations face as the pace of technology continues to grow and change rapidly. Kelly consults companies as they search for expertise around integrating technologies as digital transformation and collaboration are at the forefront of any company’s strategy. Kelly began her career with Intrado, gaining unparalleled experience in the telecommunication space while also establishing herself as a respected sales leader. Currently working as an area vice president for boss solutions, Kelly is widely known for her collaboration technology strategy and consultative approach. She has consistently been a top performer selling IT automation, collaboration, technologies to key strategic partners in large global enterprises. Kelly’s commitment to the evolving IT Industry is showcased in our passion for our relationships with our customers, partners, and peers. I hope you enjoy the conversation as Kelly and I sit down to talk about how you can build and create sustainable relationships.

Full Transcript Below:

Meet Kelly Mark

Jenn DeWall:

Hi everyone! It’s Jenn DeWall, and I’m so excited to be sitting down on this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit with Kelly mark. For those that are just getting to know Kelly, she is an area vice president of sales. And today, we’re going to be talking all about the art of building relationships because, let’s say, if we’re breathing, we likely need a relationship. Kelly, thank you so much for joining us on the show.

Kelly Mark:

Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to talk about this, especially in the times we’re in, so it’s an exciting topic.

Jenn DeWall:

Oh my gosh. Yeah, because I think it’s also a topic that we kind of forget, right. If we don’t have that face-to-face interaction, how are we building these relationships? Or how are we even getting in touch with people if we can’t do networking events or if we can’t do so much and so forth? So yeah, I think it’s a great time to have this topic, and we haven’t talked about sales in a while here at The Leadership Habit. So I’m excited to just be talking about it because, let’s be honest, we’re all in the business of influencing in some way. So Kelly, before we jump into it, just tell me a little bit about yourself. How did you become, like, how did you, what was your career trajectory? How did you become interested in sales? Because I know that you’ve had a successful sales career, clearly you’re an Area Vice President of Sales. Tell us how you came to be.

Kelly Mark:

Sure, sure. That’s such a great question. I mean, I never sought out to be in sales when I was growing up or even in my really young twenties. But I grew up in Northern California, and, after high school, I was starting to go to college, and I was really trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And I waited tables, and I was a bartender, and I was always in a relationship type of role in everything that I had been doing. And I started I actually met somebody as I was bartending, who said you would be really great at sales. And I started working for a software company. I ended up getting this job through somebody that was literally just a customer, and we hit it off. I ended up getting hired. I ended up on a very fast track, starting as a customer service rep, moving into a junior sales role, and then into more of a leadership sales role there. And from there, it just started evolving. I started working for, you know, from there we were acquired, I, you know, moved over and started doing some dot com work because, at the time in the late nineties, that was the big thing to do thinking I was going to make it really big.

And unfortunately, people around me made it big, but I did not. So I kept working, and you know, through an evolution of different roles in sales, I ended up sitting in my hairdresser’s chair one day, knowing that my job was going to come to an end. It was a brand new division that, you know, just was coming to an end of life. And she said you gotta meet my friend, Anna. She is amazing. She’s dynamic. She runs the west coast for an organization in tech. And I had a couple of years under my belt at this point and ended up meeting her. And as I was sitting in front of her across her desk, she said, Kelly, I am hiring you, and I’m not hiring you because of your skills. I’m hiring you because of your energy. You’re tenacious. You’re alert. You’re a good listener. Like I just connect with you so much that I can train you on anything you want to know. And so I’ll train you on the technology part. And from there, it was history. I grew in that specific position and then ended up following her to a couple of additional companies and ended up back at the company. She hired me. And, and there I’d spent 20 years at one organization, which evolved over time. We were acquired a couple of times over, but I really wore several different hats in the sales arena and built a very good reputation around my relationships. And when I say that my relationships were very focused, not just externally with my prospects and customers, but internally within my organization, which is another element of how we sell, right. It’s how we connect with people. So I did that for 20 years.

And then I ended up about a year ago during the pandemic making a switch. It was just time for a change. And I currently work for a company called boss solutions. And it’s really over the past 11 months that I’ve realized how critical and important the art of building relationships is because being somewhere for 20 years, you’d get comfortable. You know, everybody, you are competent in your role and how the company works and really making a jump. After 20 years into this new role, I had to start over. I had to figure out the internal processes, who I was working with internally, who might target ideal customer profiles that I was really focusing on building these relationships with and selling to essentially. And quite frankly, it worked out in my favor of having some great initial first opportunities to sell into companies that Voss had not been a part of before. And it was all due to people I knew in the industry and just people I knew in general.

The Art of Building Relationships

Jenn DeWall:

I love how that’s already coming full circle of, you know, we’re talking about the topic of the art of building relationships you recently began or transitioned to a different company within the last few years. And it’s because of those relationships that you’ve established. I mean, one company for 20 years, I can only imagine how many people you met throughout that experience. Still, coming back and recognizing that it’s thrown all of those seeds that you planted really helped you find and create more success to where you are today. How did you become like, I mean, I love that your, that your friend had, or initially not your friend, but your colleague had initially pointed out, pointed out like your tenacity, your attitude, your ability to connect, your listening skills- all to say, like, I don’t even necessarily care what you know, but I know that you have this and it sounds like it’s a secret sauce. So how did you become interested in really wanting to focus on building relationships?

Kelly Mark:

That’s such a great question. I think I think, of course, part of it’s a little bit innate in who I am as a human being. And I think just the way I was raised, I, I always knew that what made me excited every day was connecting with people, connecting with people on some level. And so, you know, as, as competitive as the job market is whether it’s today, right, 20, 25 years later, or even back then when I was sitting across the table from Anna, I knew that, you know, I needed to differentiate myself. So I needed to be different than what everybody else was doing. But I also knew that connecting with her personally first was going to help me in a professional way. And I guess what I mean by that is it’s important to engage. It’s not all about your goal and what you’re focused on. You know, obviously, my goal was to get a new job. But outside of that, I was interviewing her as much as she was interviewing me. And in order to really build and understand where you want to go, I think it’s critical to connect with somebody on a human level. And so I think, I think that’s just something that I’ve always been really focused on because of competition and because I wanted to be different. Right? And, and the challenges we have in today’s world are different than back then, but we still have to absolutely differentiate ourselves at the end of the day.

Jenn DeWall:

Yeah. And let’s talk about some of the challenges, and I love that. It’s like you initially chose, like, this will be my differentiator. Oh my gosh. I just wonder what an organization would look like if everyone legitimately like all of their actions reflected making relationships a priority because you had also said like you want to connect at a human level. Picture if leaders were connected with their staff at a human level all the time. Just the success we could have, because we’re going to talk about today, like the important things about relationships, but whether you’re in a sales role or not, you’re in the business of relationships. And so we’re just talking about that. And so even if you’re initially like, wait, but we’re going to talk about sales. No. I want you to think about the insights Kelly is going to share with you have to, how you can show up for your team, to how you can build better relationships with them. Kelly, what do you think is the most important thing to know right now as it relates to building relationships?

People are Yearning For Connection

Kelly Mark:

Ooh, that is such a good question. I think right now, when I look at the job market or when I went to relationships in general. People are yearning for connection. So I think right in the here and now, there are a couple of different components. One is we are going through a pandemic, hopefully at the tail end of that pandemic. And so we have to think about how we can connect with people in a different way than we’ve ever had to before we may not be going into the office. We may be just on a lot of conference calls. You know, people are hurting, you know, people have got different circumstances happening in their personal life that we don’t know about when we’re doing business. So how do you connect with them on that personal level? And it’s really about asking questions, getting to know people, you know, leveraging video, right. It’s starting off conversations and discussions without jumping into the goal or the purpose connect with them, right. Connect with them on a personal level because the chance, the chances are that they are going to appreciate that, especially in today’s climate.

Jenn DeWall:

I love that you share that because no one wants to be. I mean, I think I would call it “networked on,” or I think they call it the show-up and throw-up method where you don’t care at all about maybe the person that you’re talking to. You just want them to hear what you have to say. And that’s for those that are unfamiliar with that phrase. That’s really what that means. Right. Show up and throw up. You’re just giving them your pitch, and you’re not even getting to know them. You’re probably not even aware if they’re like breathing, listening, hungry, irritable just because you are more focused on making sure that your topic or what you came to do is presented and put in front of them. Like when you talk about right now that people are craving connection, that’s like the worst thing that you could do right now is show up and throw up, sorry to interrupt you on that.

Kelly Mark:

So true. And I think that’s. I think that’s really important to highlight. Not only for people we may not know very well, right. That we’re trying to get to know, but also for any leader out there that is leading a team, it’s really easy to jump into the meat of what needs to be discussed, whether it’s a weekly team meeting or a business review or business planning or collaboration session, whatever that is. If you take a few minutes to connect with your people, it helps build that trust, which I know we’re going to talk about. Trust is such a big component of building those solid relationships. So I think, and I’ve had examples of that throughout my entire career. I’ve been very fortunate where I’ve worked for people that are connectors that are very good at it. So I’ve been able to emulate a lot of the things I’ve learned over time as well. But it’s important to highlight that it’s not just when you’re in front of a customer prospect. It’s internally too.

How do We Start Building Relationships?

Jenn DeWall:

So let’s do dive into it. I, I know, like we had a few questions drafted, but the one that I really actually want to start with for those that might be a little bit more intimidated. How do you even start a relationship? How do you start a relationship? Whether it’s with a prospect that could potentially invest in your product or services, or maybe even a new hire, how do you start? What do you think is the best way to actually go about starting a relationship or maybe initiating it?

Find Common Ground by Doing Your Homework

Kelly Mark:

I love that question. So the, I think starting it, if you’re talking about a prospect, or, you know, hopefully, a new or a new customer, someone from a business perspective externally without outside your organization. I think I think into that, the one thing to think about in today’s world is information is available at everyone’s fingertips. So you can Google anything. You can Google on a technology on, you know, a product on a service. Most information is out there. So your buyers or the people that you’re working with are savvier than they’ve ever been because they can quickly get access and gain access to whatever you have to offer. So I like to set the stage there because we have to think three steps ahead. We have to think about who we are meeting with. How are we leveraging, whether it’s social media for understanding the buyer, who are they, where did they go to school? What are their hobbies? Like, are there things in areas that you can learn about those individuals that may help with connecting with that? So, and not in an ingenuine way, I mean in a genuine way, maybe there’s some common ground or some area you see that you’ve got something in common with that individual.

So I think that’s one component. As far as the company itself outside of the buyer, it’s ensuring you’re doing your homework. It’s making sure you listen to their investor relations call if they’re a public company. Are you looking at their 10 K report, which is in basically the financial documentation? Are you looking at their website? Are you looking at who you’re connected to that may be working at this organization? It’s about doing your homework, and less is more when you’re relationship building. So in the world today, there are so many AI technologies where people are trying to touch hundreds of people in a very rapid way and hoping that it’s a numbers game and something comes back, then those things are all important. They’re very important in today’s business.

However, if you’re talking about the relationship, it’s, it’s really creating a smaller target list of people that you want to connect with, Right? And, and if you’re, if you’re honing in and doing that in a smaller bite-size way, you’re able to carve out more time to do the work that’s needed to really understand the client or potential client and who they work for. So sorry, and you know, going on and on, but it’s really important to make sure you’re one step ahead, right? Before you even get on that first phone call or first live meeting.

Make a Genuine Connection

Jenn DeWall:

I feel like that’s a step that’s often overlooked. Like sometimes the, you know, whether you’re hiring a new person to your team, you may not even do the due diligence to like, get to know them, look at their LinkedIn, understand like their background and what maybe experience they have, or even just scheduling that one-on-one like, tell me about you. But this also brings me probably my pet peeve that I’ve really seen over the last two years as LinkedIn obviously is a very, very popular way for buyers to connect with potential sellers. I just find that I feel like very few salespeople on LinkedIn actually understand how to start a relationship. Or I feel like there was a minute where everyone would write something that was like, “I really like the work that you’re doing- Love, John.” Not that they say, love, sorry. If they were just generic messages, like, oh, it seems like you’re doing really great work. And in my head, I’m like, first and foremost, do not think that because it felt like there was a trend where that was the kind of technique that everyone was doing. And I was like, this is no, no, do you know how many messages I get? Like, what are you even doing? How are you trying to connect with me? All you’re trying to do is sell me. And I’m just never going to respond.

But I do dislike that so much with LinkedIn because I feel like you have a lot of information at your yet. You’re not using it. You’re just looking at my name, my title. And then you’re trying to figure out if I can sell you something. So it just drives me bananas. So I love that you talked about doing your homework and actually get to know them at a personal level. Like you can give me really, I would call them like empty compliments, but that’s not going to make me want to engage with me or engage with you, nor is it going to make me want to trust you because I don’t even know. And you’re telling me that.

Kelly Mark:

Right. And I think it’s all about. I call it earning the right, earning the right for them to take time, to meet with you. Right. Earning the right. Right. You’ve got to earn the right with understanding them as a human, you know, a person earning the right to understand our company and maybe what’s happening in that company. And then, then you can, then, then you can confidently ask for time. Right. Which is very valuable for all of us. And I love the point you make because I get hundreds of messages just like that every day on LinkedIn. And the only ones that I will take a step back and go, okay, this is really good. Is if they’re touching, they did their homework on the organization. So they know something specific about Voss. If they know something or can connect with me on a personal level, they’ve done the research on me, or they did something really fun and creative. That’s another kind of component to kind of grab somebody’s attention. Maybe they sent me a video snippet instead of just an email. And the video snippet was them. I’ve had one person who did such a great job. They held up like the white cards with writing on it. It took to get the appointment with information on it. And it was really creative and unique and different. So you’ve got to, you’ve got to think things through in that, in that regard.

Jenn DeWall:

Yeah. And not just treat me like, don’t just treat me like a transaction. I’m a human being. And maybe I’m just a little too, like sensitive to it because it really just drives me bananas. Anytime I see that someone because I’m a coach. So on LinkedIn, I’ll get a lot of the— I help coaches do X— and in my head, I’m like, great. But that doesn’t mean that I need your help. And so telling me that I do great work and you work with coaches. I know you say the exact same thing to everyone. So that’s also just, it’s like really bad pickup lines. How can we help people learn better lines to connect with people?

And I mean, I don’t even accept those requests anymore just because I feel like I don’t want them in my network. I don’t want them to also reach out to anyone else in my network if that’s the way that they go about it. But I know we’re kind of going on a tangent. So let’s yeah. One of the things that we’ve talked about is, so that’s kind of how to start a relationship, like doing your homework, making sure that you understand that. And this goes again, if you’re bringing someone onto your team, do your homework, get to know them, even down to having an open entry interview. That’s like, what, how are you motivated? How do you like to receive feedback? Like having those types of dialogues or if you’re going to actually try to sell someone, making sure that you actually get to know who you’re selling to, and that you’re not just doing the show-up and throw-up. But now we’re going to talk about how to build and sustain relationships or how to build sustainable relationships, said in a different way. And you have seven different ways that you recommend that if people were actually going to, you know, once they start that relationship, they do their homework. And then if they want to keep that going, the first place to start, but you had said is to build value. Tell me more about that.

Bringing Value to Build Relationships

Kelly Mark:

Well, I think this is a great segue into what we just talked about. We talked about doing our homework first, right before you even get in front of that prospect customer, et cetera. Once you have that, bring ideas to the table where you’re not expecting anything in return, right. Have you ever thought about implementing this technology to address the issue that I read about in an article about, you know, XYZ company?

So you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re bringing tidbits of information. Maybe you’re targeting as an example, a chief information officer, their job is to have information on all the technologies in the market and while they’re smarter than ever before, because they have access to the information, unless they have a pain point, they may not be in the know on some of the technologies. So maybe you’re just saying, Hey, did you know that this company just launched a brand new version of X software? I mean, you can bring value without really knowing exactly what, you know, what is going on in their business, but continuing to deliver something of substance, right. That’s happening, market trends, industry trends, things like that. So I think that’s a good way to start, right? To start that relationship off is bringing that value.

I love that. It doesn’t. It sounds like it doesn’t even necessarily have to be something so grandiose or really expensive in terms of resources. It could be, Hey, did you see this new article that’s in your industry that can be relevant to your organization? I just thought I would pass it on because I know this is something you’re working on. I love that approach. Like no one has sent me anything like that on LinkedIn. That’s like, oh God, I think that you would really appreciate having this. It’s like, no, try my app so you can buy it. I’m like, yeah. But so yeah, building value without expecting something in return, and it doesn’t have to be grandiose. I think it probably just has to be genuine and thoughtful. That’s where you’re doing your research.

Kelly Mark:

A hundred percent. Yes, absolutely. And it does work. It really does. I’ve had it worked time and time again.

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Active Listening is Key to Building Relationships

Jenn DeWall:

So then the second piece of building value without expecting something in return. And again, this is where it comes down to. It’s not always about your agenda. You’ve got to get into their agenda. And the second piece is all about you had said actively listen. So what are we looking for? What are we listening for?

Kelly Mark:

So for salespeople specifically, I think there’s a large percentage of us out there that have a hard time listening. It goes back to the show, right? So it’s very important, critically important to spend the first few meetings listening, data gathering, but listening. It’s the whole 80/20 rule that we used to talk about. Really, they should be doing 80% of the talking, and we should be doing 20% because if we don’t listen to what’s going on in their world, what their pain points are, what their strategic initiatives are.

We will have a really hard time bringing value with whatever we’d like to show or sell to that prospect. And so the listening is just, this is what I see most salespeople skipping over. They may think they’re a good listener, but they’re not really actively engaging and listening. So when someone feels heard, that’s one piece of it, but it’s listening enough to be able to understand exactly what’s going on in their world. And that one is just critically important.

Jenn DeWall:

Yeah. What are my pain points? And that’s where I also, you know, think about that. If you’re trying to build the relationship, you’re also talking at me sometimes when you don’t do your research with very generic pain points that actually may not be relevant to me. Like I may not need the thing that they’re selling, and they’re not even asking to see if that is my pain point. So again, it’s all about that, but I appreciate actively listening and the prescriptive advice of, you know, I want to keep that in my head that they should be doing 80% of the talking and I should only be doing 20%. So here’s the rule. If you are trying to influence someone, you’re trying to get to know them, build that relationship, practice the 80/20. I think that’s a great way to go about it because, yes, there are people like me that I love to talk to, but I might be missing a lot of valuable information if I don’t just zip my trap. Or just be asking very curious open-ended questions and then just allowing them to think about it and respond. You know, I think that leaders even forget about that too. They just are so busy. It’s that pushing, right? Like even leaders show up and throw up like push, push, push, and we don’t even recognize what’s going on. And then we’re not necessarily as adaptive leaders because we don’t. We’re making decisions off of or with limited information. So, actively listen. Yeah.

Kelly Mark:

Really listening. And I think in order to actively listen, you have to be present. And if you’re not present and you’re always thinking of what’s next, that’s when people start talking too much. That’s when people are just jumping ahead rather than being in the moment. So I think that’s another key buzzword to think about so that you can actively listen. So just another way of looking at that too.

Building Relationships Requires Transparency

Jenn DeWall:

Yeah. I love that. So your third recommendation is transparency. I thought you weren’t supposed to share it all right. Especially if you’re in sales, I thought you’re supposed to keep some things close to the vest to aid in your negotiating power.

Kelly Mark:

Think from that angle, you know, there’s a time in the, in a place for everything that makes sense. But I think, you know, when I look at my personal experience here at Voss, it’s, it’s, you know, we’re, we have our own proprietary technologies. So what we’re doing and what we’re providing is a way to tailor automated technologies that do different things for different people in different customers. And the good news is, is we can do almost anything. We’ve got open API APIs, which allow us to integrate into multiple technologies. The part where we have to really watch how we position ourselves as some things we can do right out of the box today. And some things may take development, and I’ve been in positions in my career where, you know, it’s easy for sales folks to go, yes, yes, yes. We can do it. Yes, yes, yes. Everything’s a yes. When in actuality, it’s not always a yes, right. There are things that have to be done in order to make that advance.

And so as important as it is to be able to provide these solutions right. To these prospects and customers, it’s really critical to be transparent because that’s another trust-building element to a relationship. Hey, you know what, we don’t, here’s what we do have today. Here’s what we could explore. But we’re, you know, we’re looking at, it might be six to seven months, you know, a timeline to be able to deliver that to you, but here’s what we’re committing to you. So I think it’s, it’s how you communicate in your delivery in that. But transparency is so important by just experiences with a recent partner that we’ve just worked on in the process of onboarding. And even if you even looked at the Zoom CEO, Eric, he does such an amazing job of building these relationships in the market with his customers. They have a huge security issue that happened about a year ago, but people were okay with it.

He was transparent about it. He addressed it. We talked about when the solution was coming out, and people were. People were totally comfortable and confident that it was going to get handled by the way he handled his customers. So I think it’s, it’s time for us to, to think a little bit differently, especially in sales, but for all of us to be a little bit more transparent.

Jenn DeWall:

I think that’s all important you know, at cross cabin September. And I just thought of this because one of the stories that we talked about, a few different stories and examples of companies owning their mistakes, right? So one of the notable ones that came about that we talked about was, you know, decades-old with Tylenol, Johnson and Johnson and people passing away and how they owned it. They took obviously a very quick and swift action and were able to remedy it without necessarily a big drop in sales. And it’s all because of how they manage that their transparency.

And even Netflix made price changes. And then that CEO was like, well, you know, apologize, like, Hey, I made a mistake. Let me make it up to you. I think transparency goes a long way. And it also helps because you’re hitting, you know, when I think about sales, I’m such a skeptic, right? I’m very, very skeptical. And it’s because of the fear of the oversell, the over promise, and under deliver. And I recently made a big investment while I made the investment probably in January, but still pretty recently. And when I was talking to the person in the sales rep before I was going to invest in this program, asking him all these questions, you know, he like made one like, Hey, this is what they’re going to do in the program. I asked specifics about it. He lied. But here’s like, here’s the piece is like, is it a lie? Or is it that your lack of communication or your lack of people having proper training and awareness around your, what you truly can do? Like, was that just a sign of like, there’s a complete operational breakdown, and this is why this individual presented that in that way? Or was he really just trying to get me to buy? And I did eventually buy, but I’ve now the trust is completely broken. Like I don’t even want to like very much work with that organization. It was a pretty hefty price tag. I invested in it, they over-promised and under-delivered, and he sold it one way than what it was actually like what it was. And like, I just can’t, I will never tell anyone to invest in that program, or I’ll say like, let me tell you what it really is.

Like, here’s a perfect example. So I’m in a speaking business, right? And in this program, they were like. We’ll give you leads to organizations that you can reach out to, to speak. And these would ask the leads. I’m like, oh, are you giving warm leads? Are you giving cold leads? And he’s like, oh, we’re giving warm leads. I’m like, wow, like that’s incredible. And a warm lead for those that might be unfamiliar or someone that could be a little bit closer to you at a relationship level. So then it might be easier to make that move forward. Whereas a cold lead is someone that you maybe have limited or no experience with. Then you’re just making an outreach. It’s cold. And so he told me they were all going to be warm, that they had this established partnership. They’re all cold; everything was a lie. And it’s just so frustrating because now the other people that I’ve even interfaced with that are a part of that organization. I have a reluctance to trust them because I just assume that like that one person that they’re all kind of, I don’t know that again. So over-promising and under-delivering like that, that’s what happens when you’re not transparent.

Kelly Mark:

I think that’s what happens. Yeah. When you’re not transparent, I think you bring up a couple of things that I think are really important. Number one, communication, that communication, you have that communication with the salesman, right? It’s ensuring too that, I mean, as a salesperson, we need, it’s our job to make sure that there’s no breakdown. And because what do you want for your customer? If you don’t want them to have a return on investment, then you shouldn’t be in sales. And that happens to your point. Now your ROI is affected by what you invested in. It’s the same in any business. It’s the same in anything we do in our personal lives. When we go buy a product or a service, or, you know. You’ve got to make sure that the expectations are clear, they’re in writing, and that the salesperson needs to make sure that they understand the ROI that’s expected from that provider. Right? What is the ROI that they’re expecting? Because at the end of the day, don’t you want somebody to go refer you to someone else, right. Especially big-ticket items. So it’s, you’ve got to look at the long game. You gotta look, you don’t look at the immediate wipper snap, I want the sales, and I’m just going to go sell, sell, sell. You got to look at the long game of how it’s going to impact your long-term reputation and business. But it’s really about ensuring that you’re on the same page with the ROI expected and that you have, you really want it, that stuff in writing too.

Jenn DeWall:

Oh my gosh. That I will never, probably like do that again without getting everything in writing, and I think that, you know, in, in the line of men, people try to sell to speakers, coaches all the time, right as individual entrepreneurs. And I think there are a lot of people that are still a little newer to meet me being an entrepreneur. And so you are more to, I would say, misrepresentation of sales promises or ROI. I mean, I think my favorite kind of hook that lives in the coaching space is “six months to six figures.” Watch me give you, make you a million dollar X. And it’s so interesting because if you look at the statistics, only 6% of people that are entrepreneurs actually get to or get above a six-figure income.

And so then it’s just, there are so many misleading things because it’s all about the spin, but we’re not going. I mean, there are so many different ways I could go from pain. We could talk about this all day. And this is also about reminding you of what not to do, like not to sell something that has a misleading hook or that doesn’t, that won’t realistically actually get you the ROI that you’re saying that they will, because once you do that, I mean, I forget if this is a legitimate stat real-time, but I thought what I had heard is that an upset customer will go out and tell 15 of their friends how bad it was to do business with you. Whereas someone that’s happy, it will still probably only tell like one to two. So you make someone upset. They’re going to let everyone know. And obviously, with social media, you can do that so fast. So your reputation can be changed in a second. So again, like transparency is huge and maybe that’s because I think it all really comes down to the value of like integrity and how you do your business. Right?

Kelly Mark:

And you want testimonials, well, positive testimonials, right? Or case studies, if, depending on what you’re doing. But yeah, you got to look at that long game. That’s just, that’s so important.

Know Your Buyer’s Personality Type

Jenn DeWall:

So number four, understand the different types of buyers. Oh my gosh. I wish everyone understood this one. Why don’t they know? What does that mean?

Kelly Mark:

Well, I think it’s important to look at a couple of things. When you are in a position where you’re building a relationship, and you are looking to sell something, number one, it’s the personality type, right? And then number two, it’s what, what is their role within the organization? So we talk about personality type first. There are different types of personalities. There are the connectors like us, right? We’re talking about how to become more of a connector. But there’s also the analytical, you know, there’s the reserved, there, there are different types of personalities where you kind of have to maneuver and tweak the way you work with them based on their personality. You come in all rah-rah, ready to, you know, that’s my personality, I’m a rah-rah, you know, high energy. I can be too much for people. And that’s okay. It’s knowing what type of buyer you’re dealing with so that you can, at least, maybe you can’t become analytical per se, as an analytical person, but you can come down to, you know, to where they are. I shouldn’t say down. That sounds negative, but you can tweak the way you work with them based on the type of personality type they are.

Right? So maybe you are working with an analytical person, and you need to come to the table with more numbers- numbers, percentages, stats. Maybe you’re working with somebody that doesn’t give a lot of information. So you gotta, you know, slowly prod, you know, you’ve got to slowly work and massage that relationship because that might take a little longer to get something. So it’s just looking at the different types of personalities. The other side is who are you selling into? So for me, I’m buying an IT organization, or I’m selling into the IT organization. For the most part, there are other buyers and customer success and customer experience. And there’s also the procurement, right? The person that’s in charge of the money, the vendor manager, the person that wants to work on, I’m going to beat the salesperson up until I get the price I want.

And so you have to think, how do they work? So the procurement vendor manager is a great example because we are in conflict. I’m trying to sell services, and they’re trying to save the company money. So how do you create a win-win right? How do you come in with a win-win mindset? How do you look at getting transparent with what do you need to do to be successful in your role? I want to know because there may be a creative way that we can work together. Maybe we stagger the way you pay. Maybe we focus on a more cost-effective solution for the first 12 months. I mean, there are different ways to learn about the different roles so that you can create a win-win because maybe it’s doing that for that buyer, but in the long run, you know, the ROI is going to be so great. They’re going to be happy in the long run anyway. But it’s understanding who they are because it’s easy to butt heads. This is the price. This is what you’re gonna do. No, that might not be the way you can work with that specific organization. So just thinking about the actual buyers that we’re in front of as well.

Jenn DeWall:

You know, I think that’s a valuable insight again, I think maybe it’s just that people don’t know, maybe it’s that they, you know, have so much ego that they’re like, well, whatever I’m saying is the best anyways. So then they don’t even think about the other person, but I do think people will oftentimes really forget that important piece and leaders to write for bringing it into what it truly is, is adaptive leadership. If you want to get someone to do something on your team, you don’t get to lead all of them the same, just like you can’t sell to every buyer in the same way. I had a friend that he is really successful in sales. And one of the things that he said, and sorry if I’m offending at the engineers, but he had said, if you’re selling to a group of engineers, you’re going to need an hour. If you’re selling to anyone else, you’ll need 15 minutes. And really, his point in saying that is we have different personality types. So we process information in different ways. We might need more time. We might need less time. I’m more impulsive. So I probably will need less time. My husband is an engineer, and he typically needs more time to really think through and research that. But so many people sometimes look at that as a barrier. Oh my gosh, there are two different, oh my gosh. Is it that? No, it’s preparation. Just think about what, think about it from their perspective, knowing that we could continue to go on. So yeah. Understanding your type of buyer, the next piece that you had said.

Building Trust is Key to Building Relationships

Jenn DeWall:

So number five is to build trust. And I love talking about trust. Here’s a quick plug next month for Crestcom, our webinar, complimentary webinars, all about building trust. So please join us at the end of September. But tell me, Kelly, like, how do you even, like, what are the ways that we can build trust? And also, what are the ways that we can break it?

Kelly Mark:

I think I think every step that we have talked about leads up to step five, right? The building value without expecting something in return, but active listening, that’s transparency that understanding the different buyers and connecting with them that those are all baby steps and key steps in order to build trust. I think to add to that, it’s, you know, it’s delivering, right? It’s everything that you said. All of the commitments that you’ve made that you’re pulling through that you’re following up. I think you know, ensuring that your acting, your actions are based on everything that you’ve committed to. So I think that’s really important. I think communication is also a really big one. It’s easy to be busy. We’re all multi-tasking. We’re all doing a million things at once, but being proactive and Hey, I’m going to deliver this proposal to you on this date. How about, you know, working together on this demo for this timeline. If you feel like you’re gonna miss something, communicate,  just following through and over committing or not over committing over-communicating in some sense of the word you don’t want to communicate just to communicate, but if you have something to say, it’s, it’s really important to pull that through, especially with action items and owning the relationship, taking that ownership.

So I think communication, I think, you know, exceeding expectations and making sure that you’re following through on your commitments. I think what breaks trust is the opposite of that, right? It’s saying you’re going to do something by a certain date, missing that date. Number one, you’re missing it. Number two, you’re missing it and maybe not even communicating about it proactively. I think, you know, selling something or providing something to someone where it doesn’t give the results that they were expecting, that’s going to break trust.

Jenn DeWall:

So it’s really, that’s what all these steps are. It’s just so important so that the communication is open and that you are continuing to do what you say you’re going to do. So it’s not only what you say. It’s your actions behind that. I like that example of what you say because I think that initially, there’s a certain level of trust that’s established. And I think about the example that’s coming to mind is we had to have some landscaping done, some trees trimmed. And when the individual came to give the assessment, you know, it was a great conversation. I really enjoyed him. He seemed super knowledgeable. It was fun to learn about the vegetation in my yard. Fast forward to like me being so excited. We found all this common ground and then fast forward to missed- like they just, the first one, they rescheduled the service and sad for X, Y, and Z reason.

They couldn’t do it. The next one, they never even called me and said they were going to miss it. So then I had to call them, and then I did give them an ultimatum because it was six weeks. And I’m like, if you can’t do this tomorrow, I’m going to go with someone else. And this is what floored me is that the CEO actually messaged me and said. We don’t operate like that. Like, you can find another person. And I was like, that’s totally fine. But if you want to say that, then I’m also going to assume that you never had an intent or ability to actually meet your expectations. You couldn’t own it. You couldn’t communicate with me. And I had to follow up and say, Hey, you were supposed to be here at eight, and you’re not here. Oh, he just forgot to tell me that you weren’t coming.

But I was just so taken aback by noticing that the CEO’s approach I’m like right now, I think people will give a lot of empathy to small business owners knowing that staffing is hard. But if you don’t own it, it’s really hard for me to work with that. And that’s when, when I have to invest my time, that’s when I start to get frustrated. But I’m glad that to talk about that because now it’s broken. And of course, I went right to the Yelp page and was like, let me tell you about the awful experience. I had, I never want anyone to experience this. And I’m actually a good writer. And so you don’t want like, no, I shouldn’t be that. But it’s, we don’t want that. And I, right. Speaking of all my pain points in terms of sales, but this is why trust is so important.

Proactive Communication is Key to Building Trust

Kelly Mark:

And even if you can’t meet something, that is where it comes back to transparency and ownership on it, and communicate mistakes are going to happen, right. Mistakes. Then it’s inevitable the key there. And I always like using this analogy. It’s like a bank account. You want to be in the positive. You want the deposits to continue, right? When you get into the negative, that means you’ve been making mistake after mistake, and you lost the trust. You want to continue to provide value and be good with your word and over-deliver and set the right expectations, and communicate. And that all builds as positive love in your account. But it is, you know, if you have a lot built up one, mistake’s going to bring it down, but it’s not going to bring in the negatives. So I love using that because it’s all about how much you’re contributing and giving. And I think saying that we never make mistakes is unrealistic. Right? That’s going to happen. How do you handle it?

Jenn DeWall:

Yes. So what do you do? Like how can you leverage the relationship or continue to move forward once that trust has been established? So we talked about, you know, essentially when you have that point of trust, you likely have a deeper relationship with that person. Maybe, you know, more personal things about them. Maybe you just feel like they’re more dependable, but what can you do once the trust and value have been built to the customer or, you know, to your employees? Yeah. I think this is once that is established. This is really critical because this is where some salespeople disappear, they built trust, they’ve sold their stuff. And then where are they? They’re MIA, right? Or not? They’re barely connecting and communicating with maybe the same customer as an example.

Building Relationships with a Personal Touch

Kelly Mark:

This is where you have to continue to show up, right? This is where we go back to step one, bringing value without expecting anything in return, right. You’re continuing to engage. And hopefully, when you build trust, and you have what you finally have this customer, the goal and the hope is that not only do you develop your relationship into a stronger relationship, but you know, the account and the company more, right? So then you can dig in and look at other parts of their business, but are there other areas of value you can bring, maybe without a sale, but maybe they’re just ideas. So continuing down that path is very important, bringing value, staying engaged, open communication, quarterly business reviews, where you talk about the trends of what they’re doing in their business. And it’s an open discussion of what’s working and what’s not working.

What do we need to do differently and more of and better? So it’s, it’s continuing down that journey. And I think, I think, you know, it’s important to ensure that you’ve got folks that are doing that, right? But the sales, you know, the sales strategy around, around continuing to bring that value. And then there are other little things that you’ve been doing. I mean, you stay connected through LinkedIn. You know, from there, hopefully, you can ask for referrals. But one thing that I really like doing is no. Some people do client gifts. I know something, you know, some accounts and companies in the market are very strict on gift-giving. But one thing that I think that’s gone away because of technology, right? We’ve got an email, we’ve got texting, but a lot of things that we can do, but personal cards, writing a personal card and sending it in the mail, is such, it’s been such a game-changer for me personally, in my business. I’ve had VPs reach out to me to say I haven’t received a card in the mail in 10 years. And thank you. Thank you. And it could be just thank you for your business. It could be on a personal topic that could be, Hey, I’ve got the idea. Call me. It doesn’t have to be a substantial message, but personal cards are, I think at least in my business, they’ve been a game-changer.

Jenn DeWall:

You know, I love that you bring that up because that is a really important piece. A lot of people do operate on autopilot once the sale is made or the set and forget. And you know, now we’ve made this, and they forget about keeping that relationship going that even if they might be done using your services, maybe it was a one-time thing that you have no idea who they could connect you with or who else you could potentially provide value for.

And I love the idea of even just writing someone a message. That’s just saying a handwritten card. Like, Hey, I just wanted to check-in. I hope that you’re well. I noticed this, and you’re not trying to sell anything. Or maybe you’re then also providing value by sharing an insight that they haven’t realized. But I like the check-in when there’s nothing to gain from it. It’s just truly to say, like, how are you? I think that that’s beautiful. And I’m just trying to think if I ever had that. I don’t know if I’ve ever had that. Yep. I would appreciate that a lot.

Kelly Mark:

Yeah. It’s great. It’s and I, I mean, I know I love receiving parts too, so it’s, you know, it’s a reciprocated thing I love, I love sending them, and I love receiving them, and it’s definitely a game-changer in the business world, in today’s environment.

Jenn DeWall:

Kelly, thank you so much for the conversation today. Just so many great insights and perspectives. I mean, again, I want to remind myself 80% of someone else should do 80% of the talking. I do 20% of the listening. Like there are so many things that I want to really like walk away and do differently, but really at that, you know, the one other thing I wish everyone would remember is just being, you know, taking ownership, being transparent, and then doing your research, please, as a result of listening to this, do not send me another LinkedIn request selling me something that I’ve no desire to buy or at least try to get to know me and make a connection. I don’t know, drop where I went to school. But Kelly, thank you so much for all the tips, techniques, and insights that you’ve shared with us. It’s been a great conversation. And just out of curiosity, how can people get in touch with you? How can they connect with you? Maybe they’ve got questions offline. Where can they go?

Where to Find Kelly

Kelly Mark:

The best place to go would be LinkedIn. Cause we’ve been talking about LinkedIn today, and I’m just under Kelly Mark. So you can find me there. That’s the best way to get ahold of me. I’m on other social media outlets, but I’m probably on LinkedIn the most. And thank you so much for having this conversation. I think it’s so needed. It’s so important. And going back full circle to when we started this conversation, you know, with the pandemic, people are yearning for connection. They really are. And I think some of these tips are a great way to get there.

Jenn DeWall:

Yeah. Connect with people and see them build the human connection. Hopefully, that’s one thing we can all take away, too! Thank you so much, Kelly.

Kelly Mark:

Thank you, Jenn. Thanks so much.

Jenn DeWall:

Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit, where Kelly and I talked about building relationships. I hope that you walked away with some great insights and techniques or tips that you can implement to build better relationships. If you enjoy this episode, please share it with your friends and leave us a review on your favorite podcast streaming surface. If you want to connect with Kelly, you can connect with her on LinkedIn. You can find her at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellymark/, and as a reminder, she works for Voss Solutions. I’m sure that you could reach out to her with any of your relationship-building challenges or even just how to get your foot in the door in this pandemic world. Thank you so much for listening today until next time.

 

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