Team Trust = More Sales

Rob   00:09

All right, welcome back, everybody to The Slow Pitch. And today we have Natalie Doyle Oldefield with us. And she is going to talk with us a little bit about trust and trust in your teams, how to build a sales team that not only trust each other. But there’s a way of building your sales team, who isn’t really a sales team. You will get into that it may sounds a little bit weird, but but we’ll get into that. So let’s get started.

V/O  00:36

This is The Slow Pitch Podcast.

Rob  00:40

All right, Natalie. Well, welcome to the show. I am glad you’re here. So thank you for joining me.

Natalie  00:45

Happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Rob.

Rob  00:48

My pleasure. And today, Elaine is not joining us. He’s been tied up today. And he couldn’t get off work from what he was doing. So he had to say sorry, he texted me just beforehand. So I apologize for that. But tell me a little bit about what you do. Because when we spoke before, we talked a little bit about a variety of different things. But really, you focus on trust and building it within a team. But that translates in several different areas. And we’re going to talk about how that applies to sales. But tell me a little bit about what you do.

Natalie  01:15

Well, Rob, I am all about helping companies grow. And I do that by working with teams, and working with individuals to help them build relationships of trust with customers. And I love what I do. I work with technical folks, non technical folks, people that are in customer facing roles. And in the background.

Natalie  01:40

One of the things that is very rewarding is I work with a lot of folks who aren’t in sales roles, or aren’t business development roles, but I help them become more sensitive to sales more sensitive to the customer. And when everybody on the team focuses on the customer, not only does the customer benefit, but the company’s due and sales increase, that’s usually a benefit. That

Rob  02:05

makes sense. And so let’s first start out with what it takes to build some trust, because there’s a bunch of different layers to that. So can we talk about what does it take high level to just earn it? Like, what does that mean?

Natalie  02:18

Well, there are a lot of different levels. So I’m really happy said that I, I could talk all day long about it. But at a very high level, I believe that trust comes down to deciding to trust and I think it’s a choice, Rob, I think we make a choice. There’s a pendulum, for some people trust really easily some it’s more difficult.

Natalie  02:39

But deciding comes down to three components, how we communicate, how we behave, and how we serve. So when we’re assessing the trustworthiness of another person, that’s really what we’re looking at, how do they communicate, how do they behave, and how they serve? We’re looking at all of the cumulative interactions. And out of those three components.

Natalie  03:06

I’ve created a proprietary framework based on science and evidence, I actually went to graduate school did my thesis on how is it that in a b2b environment, customers decide to trust and partners decide to trust and stakeholders, what came out was there are actually eight principles that we should apply to build trust or protect it or restore it. When we apply these principles on a regular basis, we build trust, we build what I would call trust equity, the most trusted people, the most trusted organizations have high trust equity.

Rob  03:43

Yeah, and I can see that in I can see that in businesses that I work with, in, in a sense of like, I don’t even mean helping, I just mean, when I interact with other businesses, yeah, you can see it in here and understand it, you have clients, so you watch them interact together, and you can see that person doesn’t trust that person to do their job correctly. And that’s never a good place to be.

Rob  04:07

But on the flip side, you also see these interactions where people just go, they start a sentence, the other person almost finishes the sentence, they’re on the same wavelength, they know what each other needs, and it’s just taken care of. And without even like, you could tell that they just, on another level, know what the other person means. And just will take care of what they need to take care of. And they don’t have to worry. Yeah, so that’s really kind of cool to see it when you’re firsthand. How do you build that though?

Rob  04:33

What are some of the pieces so when we kind of talked a little bit we talked about you have a sales team, a lot of people what they’ll do is they have a salesperson or a team. And then they have the actual people doing it. And my experience has been that the people doing it are saying yeah, the salespeople don’t know what they’re talking about.

Rob  04:51

They think they’re selling what they’re what we do, but what we actually do is this over here, or they’re not very good at it communicating or they over promise, and then we ended up under delivering and that’s not good. Now. So how? Yeah, so how do you? How do you start that conversation?

Natalie  05:06

Well, when I, when I work with customer facing folks, sales teams and their support teams, I usually start the conversation with, it’s all about building trust, first we decide to do it, then we decide to look at a company or a person’s capabilities or products. That’s actually what we do.

Natalie  05:28

First, it’s the foundation for all of our decisions, Rob, then I usually say, you know, all of us are looking to buy but nobody really wants to be sold to, I really, truly believe we all want to buy from a trusted advisor, Rob, someone that that provides value, something that gives us great advice that’s going to help us that’s going to be there when they say they will, that’s going to have our back, if you will. Yep.

Natalie  05:55

And it’s like you said, we all know what it feels like when it’s there. And we all know what it feels like when it’s not there. So when I’m working with a team, usually we start with putting ourselves in a customer’s shoes. So you know, I always say, Okay, let’s, let’s actually talk about what it’s like to walk in the customer shoes, you know, what’s the typical day like for them?

Natalie  06:17

How are we helping them so that everybody on the team, whether they’re in sales support, or they work on proposals, or they’re in a sales engineer, or they’re in a technical role, or project manager, they all get a sense of who the customer is not necessarily how the customer uses your product or service, but really who the customer is at a more holistic level.

Natalie  06:42

Because if we think about it, if we’re going to give trusted advice to a customer, we need to know what’s important to them, what motivates them, what their challenges are, what their opportunities are, so we can help them in every way. So that’s really where I start and to build trust with a customer, or actually someone inside your team too. That’s a great place to start. Because we trust people that get us that know us, right? So it’s all about understanding their situation. And then it’s about listening, listening to what they’re saying.

Rob  07:18

It’s, you know, it ties in, I’ve had an experience, and it wasn’t there personally, okay. But this is the experience that I understood went on behind the scenes at a team level, I was in retail for quite a while. And they have a store brand. And the store brand we were selling was a dog food and the dog food wasn’t selling the store brand wasn’t selling, but the other brands were now I don’t know if everybody knows this, but store brands are always another brand. Just relabeled. Right? Yeah. So.

Rob  07:45

So what happened was, is the person running that category was like, why are these not selling? And nobody could answer the question. And he went to the actual buyer and said, Have you asked the dogs what they like, and they looked at him like he was crazy. But what ended up happening was is he told this person, let’s go through an exercise, let’s take these four or five different dog foods.

Rob  08:10

Let’s ask our employees to bring their pets to work today, tomorrow, and they’re gonna come in, and they tested the dog, which one did the dogs like? And the dogs didn’t like the storebrand. And it was obvious that the dogs didn’t like it, because the dogs just smelled it and walked away. And he was like, never again, do we ever bring a product into the store in any of our categories? without testing it? Or what he said was without asking the dogs first.

Rob  08:36

And what you’re describing is kind of along the same lines, what is it like to be a customer? Yeah, what’s their process like to go through, if they under if, if you as an employee, understand what your customer is going through, and can verbalize that explain that feel that they’re going to be able to communicate with that customer. So much better. So that’s what you’re saying is kind of first step right? Is that what I’m understanding

Natalie  08:59

are a step. And So principle number one, in my model, which which outlines how to build, manage and protect trust, is listen carefully with empathy and compassion, question and involve the other person in the conversation or discussion that affects them. So that’s a big loaded principle.

Natalie  09:23

But there’s a lot in that the start is around listening and understanding. And I love your example about the you know, the no name storebrand dog food, it’s the start of building a relationship of trust is knowing what’s important to the customer.

Natalie  09:43

And you know, well, I’ve never worked with a company that sells or makes dog food. I’ve worked with lots of manufactured factoring companies and actually many in the food industry but for people and not only is tasting an important Part of it, but it’s understanding, you know, what would be most important to the buyer? And, you know, what, what, what types of activities does the buyer go through every day to make it easy for the buyer to buy from you? Yeah.

Rob  10:16

So that somebody listening now is probably sitting there going, Okay, what does this have to do with sales? Okay, I think that’s where we should segue right now, because that fits in exactly with another element is you’ve, you have been able to bring a team to not only trust each other, but how does that apply to sales? Let’s talk about that.

Natalie  10:36

If everyone on your team has a relationship of trust with the customer, that means everyone on your team is helping support new sales. You see, because when whenever once a trusted advisor, you get more referrals, there are more conversations about additional products and services to purchase and or develop. There are more recommendations, there are more opportunities, customers start bringing you into meetings. Here’s an example I worked with a manufacturing company.

Natalie  11:14

And you’re making me think of this because they are on the food industry too. But they sell products to people. And like the company you talked about, they actually sell to wholesalers, and groceries and distributors, grocery companies and distributors. They have a relatively small sales team for this manufacturing company. They had several people as part of their leadership development program, participate in my trusted advisor program, they had one gentleman who’s in operations participate.

Natalie  11:46

And so he’s responsible for maintenance of the machines. And he’s on the he’s on the manufacturing floor. He’s an up and coming leader. By week two of this program, he said, You know, I’ve never visited a customer, I actually don’t really know what it’s like, not only do I not know what they do with our product, because their product went inside another product, okay.

Natalie  12:13

And he said, You know, I just really liked to get to know them. He checked with his manager, because I said, Sure, you know, go and visit them go have a site visit. He checked his manager who actually went along with him because he’d worked for this company for 30 years, Rob, and had never talked to a customer, which is not that uncommon when you’re in an operations role when you’re in production.

Natalie  12:38

Now, my clients, they all do, but it’s not that uncommon. So anyway, long story short, he actually went to visit them. It was a five hour drive. He learned a lot about that company. And a couple weeks later, he was part of the team to sit down together to sign a brand new contract. Yep, he’s not in sales. Yep.

Natalie  13:00

However, he learned, they use the product this way they could use it this way. And he was there. And he said, Oh, did you know we have other clients that use our product? In ABC product? Oh, we never knew that. Oh, yeah, you could do that, too. So that’s an example of how everybody on the team can be in sales.

Natalie  13:21

It was so successful that everyone that went through that program, we then did another series of workshops, which I called the Socratic approach, everyone’s in sales to really give people the confidence and the practical how to ask questions to learn about the customer and their perspective, drill down and probe to find out if there’s a way that they can provide more service or more product, sometimes there is sometimes there isn’t.

Natalie  13:52

But what’s so amazing is now everyone from operations to supply chain management is not only talking to customers, but talking to their suppliers about who they are and what they manufacture and asking, Do you know anyone that could use ABC type of product, and what happens is the sales start going up. And this is the same company that has this, you know, a small little sales team,

Rob  14:18

I’m what I’m hearing is exactly what I would have expected, in that you go visit a site, as an operations person doesn’t matter. You go you go visit, you’re gonna learn what it is that they run into problems, you’re gonna learn what their, what their issues are with your product.

Rob  14:34

But more importantly, you’re gonna see opportunity for them that they’re like, I didn’t you know, you guys aren’t using it this way. You should be using it this way, too. So part of that is going to be approach so do you ever teach and should people teach the approach to saying, Hey, I see you using it this way, but you really should be using it this way.

Rob  14:54

Or in addition to that, you should be using it this way too. Is there an approach that you would use because I want comes Don’t mind for me, but I’m not sure if it comes to you or you have that. Yes,

Natalie  15:03

we do talk about approaches. And so what I might suggest is, instead of someone saying Why don’t you use it this way is I might say, Well, can you share with us why you use it that way? Or tell us how it came to be that you use it this way? Yeah. Because you never know what’s going to come out. Right? They might tell us something that we never even thought of. Yeah.

Rob  15:28

And I think that’s the critical component of a lot of people is, by asking a question, you are getting answers to why they’re doing what they’re doing so that you under better understand what they’ve already gone through. And guess what, when you get to the other side of that, and you say,

Rob  15:43

“Okay, I’ve watched and I’ve learned and I’ve listened, and I understand I see an opportunity here?” Yeah, I don’t know if you want to, I don’t know if you want me to share them with you or not. And they’re always gonna go well, yeah. What do you what do you see? And then all of a sudden, they’re selling more product, because they’re suggesting other uses other ways?

Rob  15:59

Other products or processes? Yeah. And so it’s fits into again, fits right into what what our show is all about, too, is selling the way people want to buy not being sold. Right? Yes. So that’s critical. And I think the listening component is a big part of that. Have you found that there are people that are in the process of on the operation side and the doing side? Who say, Okay, fine, I understand that, but I’m just not a salesperson, I can’t do that. They say that? What happens then?

Natalie  16:31

Well, the majority of people that start in the trusted advisor certification program, who are very high skilled, technically, maybe their engineers are great project managers, or their computer scientists, or technical people, the great machinists or welders, or maybe they’re really good in sales support, and they’re really excellent at proposals.

Natalie  16:55

They don’t have the confidence to say, I can do sales, and maybe they’re afraid to do sales. I know for me, I spent 20 years of my career in marketing, I was terrified when I agreed to take over sales, because nothing happens until a sale is made. And it’s so accountable. You either make a sale or you don’t, right, it’s true. So I actually know what it feels like to be terrified.

Natalie  17:25

And I also know what it feels like Rob, to have to go to every single customer meeting, because you’re terrified what your colleague is going to say or not say. Or you’re terrified that the tone is going to be like, or No, I don’t know that. Yes. Right. Yes. Oh, yes, I get that all the time.

Natalie  17:45

And, and if if people are open to learning, and they want to learn, I love having them in the program. Yeah, they become trusted advisors, they, they know how to focus on the customer and see that it’s all about serving the customer. That’s what trust is, is, is having such a wonderful relationship and such a strong relationship, that you give trusted advice.

Natalie  18:12

It’s about being customer focused. A lot of folks are very technical, and they’re awesome at what they do. However, in order to progress in a most firms, you have to be great communicators. You have to be really great with customers, you have to know when to recommend a product or service or advice.

Natalie  18:38

And you have to be able to manage relationships, not only internally, with your customers internally and externally, but you know what, they’re soft skills. And a lot of people rob don’t learn these skills in university, or college. Some people grow up and in environments where they learn them, but it’s not on the curriculum. And universities were told to build trust, but a lot of people don’t know how to do it. And it is a skill and and you can learn it.

Rob  19:07

So look, that’s a good segue. I think. We’ve talked a lot about trust. We’ve talked a lot about how to build a team that trust each other. But then how do you get that team to, like, extend that understanding of the customer in a different light. So they earn trust from that customer, which then allows them to actually sell more in the end.

Rob  19:29

So you’ve we’ve we’ve kind of gone full circle here a little bit, and they don’t even have to try and they just do sell more because it’s just natural, right? It’s a natural conversation. So let’s think about it this way. Yeah, exactly. So if somebody wanted to find you and learn a little bit more wanted to contact you for help, how would they do that?

Natalie  19:49

There’s a couple of ways you can go to my website, which is SuccessThroughTrust.com. There actually you’ll see an assessment Rob that you can download it and I would encourage your listeners to download that assessment. It’s complimentary. And it’s very short.

Natalie  20:08

And it looks at the trustworthiness and the customer focus of the people on your team. And it’s just a great way for people to assess their company. How focused are they on customers, I also wrote a book called The Power of Trust: How Top Companies Build, Manage and Protect It, you can find that on Amazon. I’m also on LinkedIn, and we’d love to connect with your listeners on LinkedIn. You can find me there at Natalie Doyle Oldefield, and I post articles on a regular basis and stories, and we’d love to connect with you there too. Perfect.

Rob  20:44

And I’ll put those links on the show notes page. When we when we post this, you’ll see that there and anybody that’s listening, they can click on that within their own phone, their app, whatever they listened on. And, folks, if you’re out there listening, and you’re hearing all this, this resonates with you, by all means click the link, go visit Natalie’s site to learn a little bit more about what she does reach out to her.

Rob  21:07

Because the trust piece is very, very important. And it is one of those things that I have over the years become more and more focused on more and more like almost to the point where what what is it that that person has that people trust? What is it that that person has that they don’t trust, and it’s, it’s a funny thing, it’s a one little thing can throw everybody off the line and say, I don’t trust that person anymore.

Rob  21:33

And it’s one little thing, and sometimes that person knows it, sometimes they don’t. And we’re talking about an operational side, we’re talking about in personal relationships, all of that kind of stuff. It can be that easy. So it’s really powerful stuff. And so Natalie, I really appreciate you coming on, and sharing your insights on what trust is all about.

Rob  21:50

But then also, how do we bridge that gap and going into how that applies to the team, how that applies to letting the team understand the customer better, and earn that trust so that they can sell more. And I almost guarantee that if they start to do that, and get the team to earn the trust of the customer sales are gonna go through the roof. Like it’s amazing how much that changed. I see that with my team.

Rob  22:12

They, they look at what they’re doing. And they say, why don’t we do this? And why don’t we add that? And the customers always go, Yeah, that’s a good idea. I hadn’t thought of that. And they just let us and more and more and more over time. That’s what starts to happen. So I’ve seen it. I know what it’s like, I know what I understand it, but I wish we could do more of it.

Rob  22:31

So I’m going to take some of this myself and apply that to our team. So Natalie, thank you for coming on. I appreciate it. And for everybody out there. Don’t forget remember, slow down and you’ll close more. Till next time guys. Thanks.

V/O  22:42

Thank you for listening to The Slow Pitch. Do you have a question about sales? Call or text your question at (608) 708-SLOW. That’s (608) 708-7569. Or you can email them to Questions@TheSlowPitch.com. Slow Down and Close More.

Rob  23:33

Thanks as always for listening today. If you like this podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review. We really appreciate it. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at The Slow Pitch. We were mixed today as always by Johnny Polakis. We were produced by High Gravity Studios. Music credits and other notes are in the show notes section on TheSlowPitch.com And we’ll be back with another episode soon.