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SALES: Mastering the Art of Sales with Mike Esterday: Insights from "Listen to Sell".

• Craig Moen & Shye Gilad | Business Owners | Entrepreneurship | Mike Esterday • Episode 241

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In this enlightening episode of Business Owners Radio, Mike Estraday, co-author of "Listen to Sell," delves into the evolving world of sales, emphasizing the importance of mindset, skillset, and human connections. Discover how embracing a noble approach to sales can transform your interactions and lead to sustained success.

In this episode, we discuss: 

  • The relevance and future of salespeople in the digital age
  • Key conversations in sales: customer interaction, self-reflection, and managerial coaching
  • Overcoming negative perceptions of sales
  • The importance of emotional intelligence and listening in sales
  • Integrating customer service into company culture for better business outcomes
  • Predictions for the sales profession moving forward

Mike Esterday, CEO of Integrity Solutions and Forbes Business Council member, has over 30 years of experience in sales skills training. He is deeply committed to promoting sales as a noble profession that helps people make informed decisions in a complex market.

Links and Resources:

If you found this episode insightful, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network. Explore further by picking up a copy of "Listen to Sell" and visiting our website for additional resources.



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Announcer:

And now Taking Care of Business, your hosts Craig Moen and Shai Gilad.

Craig Moen:

Welcome to Business Owners Radio, episode 241. Our guest today is Mike Estraday, founding partner and CEO of Integrity Solutions and contributing member of the Forbes Business Council. He is the co-author of the new book Listen to Sell how your Mindset, skillset and Human Connections Unlock Sales Performance.

Shye Gilad:

Good morning, mike. Welcome to Business Owners Radio. Well, thank you, it's great to be here. Yeah, we're excited to have you here to talk about this great book. Listen to Sell man. We've been excited to read this one. Tell us what inspired you to write the book.

Mike Esterday:

We've been in sales skills training for over 30 years and Shia. It's interesting that, with all the places you can just click online and buy something today, there's some people that wonder if sales really is a future profession. How long will they need salespeople? And we're really advocates for this being a noble profession. In fact, today is probably the best time in history to be in sales, because you go online and you might see 10,000 choices. You need a professional who can help you think through what's the right choice for you as a business owner or you as an individual.

Shye Gilad:

Yeah, that's an interesting concept. I mean I hadn't really stopped to think about it. With all the evolution of artificial intelligence and the different implementations of that, I'd never asked myself the question will salespeople be obsolete or will that skill become obsolete? What got you thinking about this kind of question and how to reframe this and give us new ways about thinking about the future?

Mike Esterday:

ways about thinking about the future. We've seen a number of our clients that have had reductions in force sales teams, more and more people going towards technology. But today you need to elevate skills and we believe that sales success really involves three conversations. So, whether you're a large organization, a small organization, an individual solo entrepreneur, the three conversations are one. You've got to have a good conversation with the customer. Do I understand how to gain rapport, ask the right questions, talk about my value proposition and so forth?

Mike Esterday:

But there's a second conversation that most salespeople don't realize that they have. That's going on all day long. That's the conversation they have with themselves. Do I really believe in what I'm selling? Do I have a passion for what I'm doing? Do I see the benefit I'm creating for my customers? And that conversation, we think, is extremely valuable and critical to your success. The third conversation is the one that a manager has with his or her salespeople. So, regardless of the size of your sales team, it's critical to have a conversation with people. That deals with both the conversation with the customer and understanding what's going on in their head. So this book deals with all three of those conversations and we've broken it up into mindset, the conversation with yourself, the skill set with the customer and also coaching from a manager viewpoint.

Shye Gilad:

I really love the way that you're thinking about that, especially grounding it in this conversation with ourself right, Because it's really creating that belief that there's purpose to what we're doing here and that it's bigger than just hopefully making a few dollars, that we're helping people solve problems.

Mike Esterday:

It really is and unfortunately so many people today. They have a poor view of selling because of what they've seen on TV movies, the experience they've had. If you can have a positive view of selling, that I'm creating value for people. It's identifying needs, filling needs, creating value for people. If you have a purpose and a belief in what you're selling, that increases what we call achievement drive.

Mike Esterday:

And so we did a global study of sales leaders and out of all these we put them into two buckets. One is do you have the selling skills and selling knowledge and product knowledge? The other part is values, achievement drive, sense of passion. We asked them of those two buckets which one is more important to your top salespeople and 100% of them said it's that second one, that achievement drive, that passion, that belief in what I have. So, unfortunately, a lot of times sales leaders only talk about product and how to make the sale. But if we can get inside our people's heads and help them have a sense of purpose of what they do and light that achievement drive fire, they're going to be much more successful.

Craig Moen:

Mike, you're talking about this traditional view on sales and we have so many examples being negative in our lives, but we all remember one or two, maybe more, salespeople that really were not selling first. They were part of the solution evaluation and recommendation side, based on their experience and alternate views, we have a very different experience there. Why has this happened that there's so many varieties of sales, sales staff and even the customer service side? Why, after all of these years, are we dealing with such a variety and some of them that give such a bad reputation?

Mike Esterday:

You know you're really right, craig that the folks that stand out. It's like wow, that's a different experience. This person really is here for me. They're on the same side of the table trying to help me think through what's the best decision versus trying to just sell me stuff and people can pick that up.

Mike Esterday:

I grew up on a farm in the Midwest and my dad told me you can tell these animals if you get in that pig pen. They can kind of tell if you're afraid of them or not, and I believe that people are at least that sensitive. They can tell if you're there for them or if you're trying to do something to them. And the salespeople, who can truly be customer needs focused, they're there with an attitude. If they have a need, I'm going to have a professional obligation to help people get what I've got. But if they don't have a need, I'm not going to try to force them into something they don't need. But if they don't have a need, I'm not going to try to force them into something they don't need. And people can pick that up and they can appreciate the trust and the sense of being customer focused that comes through loud and clear.

Craig Moen:

I guess one of the examples of being a great salesperson is do you get referrals? And, just like you're saying, this relationship and this customer experience they've had with what we used to call a salesperson, but maybe they're a sales engineer or a customer assistance. The experience is so different that we'll recommend them to everyone and that's rare in the traditional historic classification of sales, and having those great experiences really reinforces that this is a profession and partially an art.

Mike Esterday:

Yes, it's interesting that studies have shown that most people, when they have a good experience, are willing to give you a referral. But a very small percentage of people even ask for referrals. Now, sometimes it's because you didn't do a good job of selling, you didn't have that customer-focused attitude. But if you firmly believe that you're there for the customer, you've done the right thing, you've made the right recommendation, you've helped solve their problem. You have an obligation to try to help other people that they know. So asking for that referral is critical. And then, of course, those kind of folks that are referred are a lot easier to sell because they're coming from a trusted source, especially if you can ask that person to refer you and call and introduce you.

Craig Moen:

It's amazing how we don't measure that in our businesses. How we measure, do the sales of the past reflect future sales and expansion of new customers by referral? It's an interesting change in a measurement process. Rather than just numbers, the measurement of sales probably defines a bit of the performance of the sales and the reputation of the company they represent. Can you tell me about some of the experiences you've had?

Mike Esterday:

In our book Listen to Sell, in the mindset part we talk about something called the sales congruence model and in that we look at a couple of dimensions of success, and one is a person's view of selling, the view of their ability to be successful, their values, their commitment to activities and their belief and passion in what they're selling. Unfortunately, too many managers focus on activities which are necessary. But if someone's not performing like he or she should, it's probably not just the activities. There might be an underlying cause. It may be that they don't have a strong belief in their abilities, they may not believe strongly enough in what they're selling. They may not have a strong view of what selling is.

Mike Esterday:

A couple of examples we were working with an organization in Texas. There was a salesperson who had been a school teacher. He loved teaching but he couldn't make enough money to put his kids through college. So he got into sales, was failing miserably, just didn't feel in alignment there. So his manager worked with him to help reshape his mindset of what he was doing, to realize the benefits he was providing for families through the insurance products that he sold. By shifting that mindset, within about 30 days his activities doubled and within a couple months he was succeeding. So it's not just the product knowledge and not just the activities, it's what goes behind that. So, as a business owner, if your salespeople are struggling, I'd like to challenge them to think of not just how much you're selling, what are you measuring but also get behind those numbers to see what is it that drives people to be successful.

Mike Esterday:

Do you know what people want money for? Do you know what they want to prove? We had another example of a salesperson who was newly married. He worked in a call center and unfortunately his in-laws were kind of embarrassed that their daughter had married someone that worked in a contact center. But he was proud of what he did. So his goal was to prove to his in-laws that he could be the very best at what he did. So do you know what people want to accomplish? What's their purpose? Do they want to make money to put their kids through college? Do they want to buy a lake house? Do they want to save people's lives with what they're selling? Do they want to make a difference in a business's financials? What is it they want to accomplish? And if you can understand that, that could be the leverage to help that person succeed.

Shye Gilad:

I can't help but think about what a great overall leadership concept that is. And I think this book has a wonderful name in terms of listen to sell, because it really does have to start there. You have to certainly know some good questions to ask, but if you don't have the skill to shut up and actually listen carefully and really listen not just with your ears but also with your eyes looking at people's body language, listening to their voice, watching how their face changes when they talk about the future and what they want, you know you can miss a lot. So it's really important to fully engage around that.

Mike Esterday:

Well, I'm so much in agreement with that Shai, that shy. Too many times people listen to decide what they're going to say instead of truly listening to what the person is saying. What's in between the words? What is their body language? You said what do they really mean by what they're saying? And if your mindset is, I'm going to listen to understand instead of listen to talk, people also pick that up. They tend to trust you more. So, if you can listen.

Mike Esterday:

Throughout the book we talk about listening to the customer, but also listening to what you're saying to yourself and your mind. Are you saying self-defeating thoughts? Are you encouraging thoughts? What are you listening to your manager? Listening is just a critical key in success, as it is with coaching key in success, as it is with coaching In the book in Listen to Sell at the end, we have multiple chapters on coaching to help business owners and managers coach and build their people. It's not just driving revenue, it's building people. As you build people, they'll build your sales. At the end of every chapter we give coaching tips and coaching corners with almost 200 questions throughout the book that you can ask people to uncover what's driving them and how to help them improve their sales.

Shye Gilad:

It's so great because that accomplishes two things right. There's an organizing philosophy around the book, which is actually a pretty simple approach, but a very powerful one. But then you have all these great tactics about really how to apply this, and you're also modeling some behavior here, because you're encouraging the reader to really reflect on these questions first and then think about how they can apply them in these different scenarios.

Mike Esterday:

And this is not just theory. What I find is that some books I read are really good, but they're very complicated. Someone told me one time a consultant. He says if you make it more complicated they'll pay you more. And I think that's the opposite of what it should be. I think people need something that's fairly simple, that say I can use that. I can use that today in my customer conversations and help customers and be better in my career. In the back folks who get the book, you'll see there's a lot of assessments too, so you can actually assess yourself, assess your people and with some tips on how do you help them improve. Because that's what's the purpose of the whole book is how do we get better at not just listening but selling and serving other people and coaching our sales people?

Shye Gilad:

And you know. Another running theme you have is developing emotional intelligence, and you know we hear this frame a lot but it's difficult sometimes for people to visualize. Well, yeah, but how do I get better at that? What are the competencies of emotional intelligence and how do I improve? What are your thoughts on that and maybe give us an example of the kind of tips you use to really help people understand that better?

Mike Esterday:

This has been a very popularized topic over the last 30 years or so. Daniel Goldman did a lot of studies in the 90s. Travis Bradbury has been very prolific with his books Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and the Emotional Intelligence Habits about how do we understand our own emotions and how do we pick up on others. Some of it can relate also to what we call behavior styles. Am I sensitive to how other people like to communicate, and can I communicate in the way they want to communicate instead of the way that I want to? Emotional intelligence has been proven to be a lot more effective in success than IQ. They call it EQ versus IQ, and so there's a long chapter in the book towards the back about how do I recognize where I am on the emotional intelligence scale. Then how can I improve myself and also work better with my people?

Craig Moen:

had to do with customer service and sales and this gap that occasionally occurs between the organizations when they're not really glued together. Well, what are your observations and what's going on there?

Mike Esterday:

Well, customer service is not just something done by quote customer service people. This should be a part of the culture of every organization. Whether you've got two people or 2,000 people or whatever in your company, customer service ought to be a part of everybody's job description. We worked with an organization in California one time that they said every meeting needs to start with a customer service message and end with a safety message. This is part of everybody's job, not just externally with customers, but we also have internal customers and studies have shown that as we give better service to each other, break down the silos, support each other, that gives stronger external service too. There's a study called the Service Profit Chain that was done by Harvard and published in the HBR that goes into this in depth that it's extremely important for us to have a mindset that I'm serving other people within the company and that drives profitability and growth.

Mike Esterday:

When you think about customer service, a lot of times people don't understand that if I don't interact with quote customers, I don't need that kind of training. We work with a healthcare organization in Florida and in the cafeteria they trained every single employee on customer service skills and the person in the cafeteria went through this and thought well, why am I here with all these other important people the doctors and nurses and executives All I do is make the Jell-O. But then she started to realize through the training that some people couldn't eat without the Jell-O that I made. She thought about the kids playing in the Jell-O. She said, now that I understand the purpose of what I do, she said I'm proud that I make the Jell-O. So, whether it's in service, whether it's in sales, whatever it is, if we can help people see the bigger picture of how they impact others, that tends to drive stronger activities and a stronger sense of purpose and it also improves retention and productivity of employees.

Craig Moen:

Mike looking forward, where do you see the positioning of sales and the profession of sales as we move forward into the next decade?

Mike Esterday:

I believe it truly is a profession. People today, I think, are craving human-to-human interaction. They want somebody they can trust. In today's time, when you have so many options and sometimes there's parity of products, how do I figure out what's best for me or for my company? We need someone who is truly a professional that's addressing it with a customer needs focused attitude, asking questions to truly understand what the customer needs, making the right recommendations, and when you do that, you help solve problems. And when you do that, you create a long-term customer who's willing to give you repeat business referrals, and good work turns into more business. In this book, we celebrate sales as a profession. The salespeople are respected, valued partners for customers and we see the profession growing.

Shye Gilad:

That's a great point, mike, and I can't help but think about not only there being a bright future for people in the realm of sales, but, more importantly, how universal this skill really is, and it's still worth the investment to develop more in your own personal leadership of any kind of company and developing your team. These skills will help make you a better leader, no matter what the context, and I know that I'm very excited about the book and I'm sure a lot of people will be too. So thank you so much for joining us today. We really enjoyed having you.

Mike Esterday:

Shia and Craig, thank you for having me on. I appreciate you sharing some of these ideas and hopefully, if people pick up the book, you can get it at listentosellbookcom and it's available on Amazon and bookstores, and in the book there are a number of QR codes. You can get some free resources, assessments and things you can download to work with your team. Also, on our website, interiorresolutionscom, there's over 200 articles, blogs, videos and tools that you can use to help increase your business too. So thank you for having me and anybody that has any questions feel free to reach out to us.

Craig Moen:

Our guest today has been Mike Estraday, co-author of the new book Listen to Sell how your Mindset, skill Set and Human Connections Un unlock sales performance. You can learn more about Mike, as well as find links to his book and resources all on our website at businessownersradiocom.

Announcer:

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Craig Moen

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Shye Gilad

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