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FIND YOUR EDGE
WHAT’S AT THE CORE OF EXCELLENCE? 5 STANDARDS THAT HELP CREATE YOUR VISION OF SUCCESS
2. BE CONSISTENT
When it comes to managing a business and leading a team, the standards you set for yourself and your company determine both your present operations and your future successes. Standards articulate the driving forces behind growth and change, and they allow for check-ins to see how reality matches up against the conceptual and concrete values that build engagement in your organization. In order to come up with standards that lead to excellence, you’ll need to closely observe your operating principles. While it sounds simple enough, taking the time to adequately evaluate your operations can be fairly time-consuming and difficult. Sandler trainer Brad McDonald served as a commanding officer on a submarine and used a series of five operating principles to ensure that his team lived and worked within an intentional framework. Here are Brad’s five operating principles.
Inconsistency leads to all sorts of problems. If your team notices frequent inconsistencies in your plans, treatment, or actions, they might think you are biased and that double standards in the workplace are part of the norm. “ “STANDARDS ARTICULATE THE DRIVING FORCES BEHIND GROWTH AND CHANGE, AND THEY ALLOW FOR CHECK-INS TO SEE HOW REALITY MATCHES UP AGAINST THE CONCEPTUAL AND CONCRETE VALUES THAT BUILD ENGAGEMENT IN YOUR ORGANIZATION.”
1. CHECK YOUR DEMEANOR
3. BE FAIR
Good leaders strive to stay true to themselves while finding a way to maintain their role in the organization. Make sure your demeanor is approachable so your team feels comfortable coming to you with issues. Most importantly though, stay in control of yourself. If you can’t control yourself, how will the crew believe you can maintain control of the company?
The commanding officer sets standards and determines the level of accountability the team can expect and maintain. If you are setting expectations for your crew, be fair and just.
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4. SUPPLY ENERGY
low standards for yourself and others, you will only make it so far — and the place you end up may be nowhere near where you initially aimed for. Ultimately, it is your choice whether or not you want to pursue a higher standard of excellence. Doing so can motivate and enable those around you to believe and push harder. It can also lead others to resent you for executing your plans and taking action. You’ll have to decide for yourself: Do you want to set a course for a better present and future? Or are you content with living another day surrounded by substandard results? If you need help or want support, reach out to Sandler Training. –Jim Stephens
You choose whether or not the workload weighs you and your team down. You also choose whether or not you and your team learn to enjoy and thrive in your work environment. If you are leading a group, continuously supply energy and enthusiasm for every task to keep up morale.
5. MAKE THE TROOPS PROUD
You determine the level of commitment your constituents bring to the table by modeling it for them first. Make your troops proud that you are their leader and captain. Operating principles like these determine how you will behave, so you should create and know what your own operating principles look like. The standards to which you hold yourself can be forgotten if they are not grounded. By implementing a set of realistic standards into your commitments and interactions, you can improve and grow with determination and intention. Our actions, our behaviors, and ultimately, our standards have a direct relationship with our self-esteem. If you’re constantly experiencing a drop in self-worth and personal value, then it is time to examine the standards that drive you. If you have
ARE YOU LETTING BUYERS TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR SALE? 7 STRATEGIES BUYERS USE TO MANIPULATE SALESPEOPLE
4. MAKE YOU PROVE YOURSELF This strategy is usually the most combative and quickly puts salespeople on the defensive. For example, the buyer might claim that they are dissatisfied with your product and demand better service. 5. THE TEASE Customers using this manipulation tactic will tell you that they are “thinking it over.” They might even buy from you every once in a while to keep you hopeful. 6. GET FREE STUFF Buyers will constantly ask for free and branded goodies to show your commitment to their brand. They’ll also ask loads of questions and request more information in order to gain free training.
Any successful salesperson knows that landing a big sale with an impassive customer typically involves using various strategies. No single tactic will work on every buyer, so you have to tailor your approach based on the person in front of you. Nowadays, though, selling is getting even more difficult; buyers are training themselves to manipulate salespeople in order to get the product they want at the price they desire. Here are seven strategies a buyer might use to take control of a sale. 1. LIE OR DODGE THE ISSUE If they are using this strategy, you might hear responses like “Someone else is in charge of these kinds of decisions,” or “We are in an annual contract we can’t get out of; come back later.”
7. KILLER SOUND BITES A buyer might make exclamations like “You’re kidding, right?” or “That much?”
2. CHISEL DOWN A PRICE With this strategy, you might hear “I can get a huge discount from (another company/person).”
If these strategies sound familiar, then you likely have experience dealing with buyers who try to take control of the sale. If you let yourself fall into any of these buyer strategies, you are letting the buyer dictate how your sale goes. If a buyer tries any of these manipulation tactics on you, rather than accepting the traditional role of defense, challenge the buyer to clarify and defend their position.
3. ASK FOR UNPAID CONSULTING If the buyer is using this tactic, they might ask you a lot of questions or request additional information. They might also ask you to send details in an email so they can compare them with other salespeople’s offers.
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ON THE TRAIL OF RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
Most owners operate under the umbrella of their industry. For example, if you’re in the technology realm, your emphasis might be creating new apps or hardware that consumers want to buy. If you’re in the fitness industry, your primary focus is to offer products or services that help others reach their goals. If you’re in construction, your business is houses or commercial properties. While having a nuanced knowledge of your industry is always helpful, that’s not the nature of your business. You might think you’re in the technology, fitness, or construction business, but at the core, you’re ultimately in the relationship-building business. When we sat down with Jay and Debbie from Sound Builders to discuss their relationship with Sandler, this idea was at the core of what we focused on. Jay, a builder by trade, and his wife, Debbie, a CPA, bought the business from Jay’s parents. “My folks started the company in 1975 doing exclusively insurance restoration,” Jay explains. The business had a significant impact on Jay’s life and shaped him over the years. “I remember that the first toy I ever had was a small
Sandler Training helps businesses across the country find the results they seek on a personal and professional level. While we’re synonymous with sales training, our emphasis is on building relationships.
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wooden toolbox with a little wooden handle, and inside was a tool set and a little saw. It’s been part of who I am since I can remember.” That identity continued to develop past adolescence and into adulthood. “I went to college and got a degree in construction management. I started working in commercial construction, but it wasn’t very satisfying.” In an attempt to find his passion, Jay did what many individuals do to discover a sense of purpose. He went home. “I worked here [at Sound Builders] for three years. After that, I transitioned to the office for a couple more. It was loads of fun.” Jay found a workplace he could be proud of and, in the process, discovered he wanted to do that for a lifetime. “My folks were thinking of retiring, so we decided to buy the business in the mid ‘90s. Of course, they had a way they believed the company should be run. Surprisingly enough, with me being a young man, I had my own ideas as well.” In previous articles, we’ve covered the topic of family businesses and how important it is to have a healthy transition between generations. Often, the business doesn’t survive the changing of the guard, but it turns out Jay’s pursuit of his passion was met with a new growth strategy. “One of the challenges of insurance work was that I didn’t find it satisfying because of the trauma associated with a forced restoration. It’s not necessarily about improving. It’s more about getting back to normal as soon as possible. There’s never a good time to have a fire or flood. We’re trying to get them back to where they were. It’s not exciting or fun. There’s a lot of trauma and emotion. You’re putting something back the way it was. It’s not challenging or creative, so we decided to focus on something that could be.”
Pivoting to focus on remodeling was an easy decision for Jay and Debbie. “Almost 90 percent of our business centers on remodeling,” he explains. But for Debbie, whether it’s remodeling or insurance restoration, it’s all numbers. “It’s just a business. The accounting and bookkeeping are the same. In construction, a lot of things are in progress, but for the most part, the office is the same as other businesses.” Every organization can benefit from this pragmatic approach, and Debbie’s analysis of the numbers keeps the business running on track. In 2007, Jay and Debbie noticed that their business was lacking. “I didn’t know it at the time, but I was looking for a change,” Jay says. For years, the business operated well enough, but Jay believed an adjustment needed to be made. “Remodeling is a tough business in that we have a certain way of thinking about things. Certain things I thought to be true weren’t working
well for me. As a member of the Master Builders Association, we saw plenty of other companies that were successful and enjoyed what they were doing.” Modeling is often a way for businesses to incite change. Seeing what you want your company to become is a strong motivator, so when Debbie and Jay looked for a spike in their business, they turned to Sandler. remodelers and mentors — and these associates had basically passed the info along in hope that it would bring Jay and Debbie the shake-up they were looking for. “One the first things we talked about was building a price model around what people will pay rather than being profitable,” Jay says. “That’s really true. In the insurance world, they charge the cost of the service plus a 20 percent markup and overhead. That was a challenging model for us.” They found that they couldn’t dedicate enough time They had heard about Sandler through various contacts — mostly fellow
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worth. What’s most important to us is to develop relationships with our clients that are deeper than just the project. As we worked through the Sandler process and started to understand what we offer that’s different from other businesses, we found our difference and value. We started to sell that value to our clients. Sandler helped us do that, and we’ve become successful because of it.” Jay explains that if you charge more, you need to provide more, likening the difference to that between a Ritz-Carlton and Motel 6. By the time they got to looking at their price models, Jay and Debbie knew that they were coming across facets of their business they had never truly considered correctly. When they were taken through the process, they thought they could never charge that amount of money for their services. “Yet here you are,” says Debbie. “What strikes me about that conversation is that I vividly recall us protesting that there was no way we could charge that amount, and I laugh to myself when I think about it now. One of the tenets of Sandler is sales training, and that’s when it really got through to me that I could not sell myself near as well as my past clients could.” This spawned a change. In order to get an estimate now, they require their new clients to talk to their past clients. “In this way, clients become friends,” Debbie explains. “It becomes like a family. In fact, just yesterday, I got a call out of the blue that basically consisted of them telling us to give them a call next week. They have a job for us. They didn’t even think about talking to anyone else. People will be like, ‘Your contractor is a friend?’ and I just tell them, ‘Yeah, our contractor is our friend.’ People don’t want to believe it, but that’s honestly the way it’s been turning out.”
For Jay and Debbie, the best endorsement is being invited back again for another project. One instance in particular sticks out in both their minds as something they’ll never forget. “We went in to do a remodel, and just before we started, the homeowner fell ill. She took time off work to recover from this illness,” Jay says. “The homeowner was downstairs in the living room and we were upstairs. My lead carpenter started his air compressor. It turned on and he said, ‘We can’t have that. She’s right below just trying to recover.’ So he thought fast, took some straps and rope, and hung the compressor off the rafter so the vibration
and energy to the client and the project while still making sure that the project was a success. They soon learned that it was not just about finding success as a company, but also finding success in the riches of a pool of happy and satisfied customers. Jay and Debbie were soon let in on another important tenet of a company’s functionality: the buy cycle. The buy cycle revolves around the way you buy being a direct reflection of the way you’re able to sell. The first roadblock in buying and selling is that the market will only pay you a certain amount of money for your project. “We had to figure out how successful companies price their projects so they can earn a living,” Jay explained, “We don’t want to gouge the client. We should aim to be fair, honest, and respectful while also earning a living.”
“The first thing I had to deal with was my own belief of what we are really
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customers that are a right fit for your skill set and brand. You don’t need to be worrying about covering all these different bases in your market simply to get the business. Some companies do one thing, some do another,” Debbie says. She explains that your expertise in your niche is your calling card. Sandler allowed for them to revitalize both their business’s spirit and their own. The guesswork was gone. The partners explained that the self-doubt and confusion that sometimes arose in some aspects of their business was replaced by a calming reassurance and familial energy that has made their business all the more worthwhile. While they were experiencing success before, they weren’t unlocking their entire potential through gateways they had not yet considered. Seeking advice for your business isn’t a cry for help; it’s a necessary part of growing your business. Having a company structured around relationships is been one of the most rewarding features of Jay and Debbie’s remodeling business today. With newfound insights on economical and psychological aspects of a business, they were able to translate their sales into lifelong relationships that produce something much more worthwhile than income. By partnering with an experienced team of experts with knowledge of nearly every aspect of the working world, other people’s mistakes become your words of wisdom. Sound Builders is proud to have built something their community and newfound family can rely on. The partnership between Jay, Debbie, and their business associates at
of the compressor wouldn’t go through the floor and disrupt the client, who was clearly having a rough stretch with the illness. The client was elated; she said, ‘I can’t believe he was that thoughtful, that he’d do that for us.’ Well, that’s the kind of thing that’s inspiring and satisfying to business owners like us.” When thinking of the same project they did for that particular client, Debbie remembers that a team member suggested that perhaps they should have postponed it because of the illness, but the client gave them the utmost reassurance. She explained that having the team over gave her something to look forward to every day as she was fighting her sickness. By the time they had gone, she was really sad to watch them go. These are the clients that stick for Jay and Debbie. They say they never thought something like that would happen as a result of their work, and they’re very proud it did. Through working with Sandler, Jay and Debbie now encourage their clients to talk to three remodelers. He explains to potential clients that they should be
looking for a relationship. Once they decide who they’re comfortable with, they can move on to the other steps, like estimating, project design, and budget. Choosing who to work with should be based on the best fit for your unique set of circumstances, rather than money. “If there are other contractors who are a better fit for our prospect, then why waste time and energy on something our personalities don’t match with?” Jay says. Debbie remembers a time early on when they looked at any job that came along and thought to themselves, “Well, if so- and-so can do it, so can we.” Sandler taught Debbie to change the way she viewed potential jobs. “You should have
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STAND OUT HOW CANVA HELPS YOU CREATE CAPTIVATING VISUALS
TAKE A BREAK
Let’s do a quick test. Think about the details from your favorite book. What was the weather like? What did the main character wear? How did they decorate their home? Now try that with your favorite movie. There’s a good chance you remember more of the small details from your favorite movie, but that doesn’t mean you’re a movie buff and not a word nerd. It just means you’re better at processing cues the way all humans are: visually. Recent studies on how humans perceive visuals found that your brain fires more neurons when perceiving images than words. This increases your chance of remembering images. Unless you’re a neuroscientist, this might mean nothing to you, until you consider the kinds of images you’re putting out to your customers and clients every day via social media, posters, flyers, and your website. You need visuals that are up to par with the images that stick best in your customers’ brains, but when you’re not a designer, that can be overwhelming. Launched in 2012, Canva provides free design templates and customization options to help business owners, social media managers, marketers, and even your neighbor to create fun, informative, and engaging graphics that pull in viewers. Users can customize their own images or stock photos for a variety of digital and print platforms using detailed fonts, colors, and graphics. Canva knows design might be like a foreign language to you, so it keeps its format and design hub simple and easy. Users start with a base for the kind of campaign they are hoping to create — such as a Facebook post or a website banner — and Canva’s creation space allows them to get crafty without fidgeting over what the design graphics of its platform mean. Once you have the layout of your image complete, Canva allows you to share your creation straight to social media or receive printed versions. After six years, Canva is still looking for ways to provide their customers with a simpler designing option. In 2018, Canva announced it was partnering with Dropbox to allow users an easier way to utilize their own photos. This gives users more customization options along with the detail-oriented selections provided by Canva. You don’t have to be a neuroscientist to figure this one out. If you want to be memorable, you need great — not just good — visuals for your business. See how Canva can help you be as memorable as your favorite movie. Enter Canva.
We have 20 complimentary copies of this new book to send out. If you’d like one, email joan.stephens@sandler.com or call 208-429-9275 to request your free copy!
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INSIDE THIS ISSUE
1
What Are Your Standards?
2
7 Strategies Buyers Use to Manipulate Salespeople
3
On the Trail of Relationship Building
7
Make Your Images Memorable
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Idaho Trail Association
NONPROFIT SPOTLIGHT: IDAHO TRAIL ASSOCIATION There is nothing quite like hiking through Idaho, and as far as trails go, Idahoans are some of the luckiest adventurers in the world. With more than 23,000 miles of trails, the options to explore Idaho’s landscape by foot are endless. Additionally, trails help Mother Nature keep her hazard-mitigating defenses up to prevent mudslides, avalanches, and various other disasters.
To fill in the gaps for the remaining 18,000 miles of trails the Forest Service cannot repair, the Idaho Trails Association trains local volunteers on how to repair water dams, culverts, and switchbacks; build bridges; provide safe access through marshes; and remove large rocks from the trails for both people and animals. The association offers one-day, overnight, and weeklong training programs that take volunteers all over Idaho and teach them valuable skills needed to become stewards of some of Idaho’s natural wonders. This training is available for people of various ages and skill levels. For those unable to give their time, the association also accepts donations, which provide the tools, food, and camp space needed for training and repairs. Additionally, the association serves as an advocacy group, educating the public and lawmakers about the need to preserve hiking trails in Idaho. It’s our responsibility to maintain the integrity of our trails and to keep our forests, prairies, and deserts clean and breathtaking for generations to come. Learn more about the Idaho Trail association and volunteer today at IdahoTrailAssociation.org.
Unfortunately, the Forest Service only has the resources to maintain 6,000 miles of these trails, leaving another 18,000 miles defenseless against weather hazards and reckless human interactions. For hikers, this is devastating, but for those who have yet to set foot on one of these gorgeous trails, this might not seem too important.
Think again.
Safe hiking trails provide more than just an easy, hazard-free hiking experience. These trails keep the effects of traffic from wildlife enjoyers to a minimum, allowing the nature that surrounds these trails to flourish and grow. This keeps the nature surrounding these cities and towns beautiful and clean and preserves them for future generations.
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