2004 - Relationships and Their Impact on Doing Business - Building Trust and Authenticity

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1:05Welcome back to our special retrospective series celebrating 2 ,000 episodes of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. I'm Elisa Nolan, Chief Operating Officer for Up My Influence, your guest host. And today we're closing out this series by focusing on one of the most fundamental aspects of business, relationships. Over the years, we've learned that it's the relationships we build that truly drive success, not just in terms of sales, but in creating lasting impact and value. Josh, you know, I was really looking forward to doing this series and now we're wrapping it up and now I'm a little sad. No, it's been a lot of fun.

1:46And, you know, obviously I listen to a lot of podcasts. I love, we don't do solo episodes very often. The last one we did was 2000, which was, again, all kind of part of this special thing here. But I think the last one we did was maybe 1500. So every 500 episodes, you get a little bit more Josh. If you, by the way, message me back, respond, you know, email, join our social media. Let me know if you like this or if this was a complete waste of your time. I'm cool with whatever, right? I'm just here to serve. Well, throughout this journey, you've had the opportunity to speak with so many incredible entrepreneurs about the role of relationships in their businesses.

2:27Why do you think relationships are so critical to long-term success? And how have you seen this play out in your own experiences? Right. So the world is run by humans. Until the elephants rise up and assert their dominance in the kingdom, it's humans that run everything. So our success, our results are all based on humans, right? If you show up today and you're all transactional with your team as a leader, in other words, everybody that comes into work, you say, I'm going to give you an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. You know, that was big back in the day, you know, during the Industrial Revolution and stuff.

3:14And, you know, that's kind of how we looked at it. We're not in that age anymore. People need to feel like they belong. People need to feel like they're in the right place. Similarly, if that's how we show up in leadership, we would never do that today, right? It's about our why. It's about, you know, what we do matters. Here's the impact we're having, right? That is essential. You have to have that in your workplace culture, okay? That extends into your engagements and relationships with other high-level leaders where you could do amazing stuff together, right? If it's based on, we're going to make some money, you can do that.

3:56And I'm sure that there are cultures that that's just the way that it works. But what I find, Elisa, is that most high-level leaders, they need the values alignment. So when we strategize, and again, I work as a fractional chief revenue officer for our clients, I just need to get them more at bats with people that are not just going to fit demographically. There has to be psychographic fit and values alignment. In other words, there's no sense in facilitating an introduction to our client of someone that, yeah, they're the right person at the right type of company, but they don't believe in what you believe in.

4:39It's just not a good use of time. Right. I would what you have to have and even more critical, I would say, than perfect demographic fit would be perfect psychographic fit. If you have values alignment, there is something that there's something magical that happens behind the scenes. There's almost this, you know, almost like kind of like this tribalism, like, oh, good, you're one of us. You believe like we do that, you know, that, you know, to make the world a better place, you know, we believe in, you know, equity or something like that. You know, it's like, this is not nefarious. I mean, these are good things, but you, you know, and this was absolutely something that I used in public relations when reaching out to the media is trying to find out their values and their biases.

5:25Because if you learn someone's values and biases, you can say, well, what are my biases and values that are aligned with that? And how can we lean into these things that we both care very strongly about? Because friends love kind of those common passions, these things that we really believe in and are important to us. You know, again, I think there's countless examples of, you know, why people need meaning in everything that they do. And so if you can tap into that and just show up in that way for other people, well, you're going to get far better results in the long term and short term. One guest who really articulated the importance of relationships and sales was Wayne Maloney.

6:07Back in March 2022, Wayne talked about how relationship selling isn't just about making a sale, but about building strong, trusted business relationships where you help your clients achieve their outcomes. He emphasized that people buy from those they know, like, trust, and respect. Let's listen to Wayne's insights on how relationships are the foundation of successful selling. We are going to talk about B2B sales, and I couldn't be more delighted because, Wayne, you and I both see so much bad advice out there. And in fact, I would argue that I think it's the predominant voice out there is incredibly harmful.

6:54It's a waste of money. It sells a lot of guru packages and stuff, but it is designed to fail. I know that personally, but I'll let you, Wayne, be the star of the show and talk about what does work in B2B sales. Yeah, well, I look forward to that, Josh. I think one of the things that's annoyed me for many, many years on sales training, sales coaching, sales development, is that people are forgetting the basics. They're forgetting the things that have worked and been proven over many, many years. There's a lot of talk out there now about, you know, if you use this, if you do that, you're going to get a mega full pipeline.

7:41you're going to close more business. And all you're really going to do is you're going to annoy a lot of people along the way. You know, I mean, I'm sure you've been hit with it as well. All of these bot generated invites on LinkedIn that just come through saying, oh, you know, I've just been viewing your profile and nothing could be further from the truth. You dig a little bit deeper into it and there's absolutely no relevance to the invitation. And that's happening in sales too, as far as people going out there trying to prospect. One of the things that happens with anything in life, Josh, is the foundations have to be right.

8:17I mean, you're talking, you live in Florida, I live down in Sydney in Australia. And if we build a house these days, we build it on a strong foundation. If we go back thousands of years, they're still building standing. And the reason they're standing is they're built on a strong foundation. The basics are the same, but how they build that foundation has changed. The technology has changed. And what we've got to do in B2B sales is we've got to master the basics to build that strong foundation and then adopt and adapt the technology that's out there so that we do it more effectively and more efficiently.

8:54So that's what I believe in the way we work out there at the moment. Yeah. All right. So Wayne, I would love for you to give us what are some of those foundational basics that have worked in the past? They work today. And, you know, aside from all the shiny objects and stuff out there, this is tried and true. And experienced B2B sales professionals know this. What works? But the first thing, and it's been too hard by a lot of people, is building strong relationships. relationships. Could you imagine if I say building strong relationships, and then I insert a sound effect that's kind of like, wah, wah.

9:38How ridiculous is that? Absolutely. But if you have a look at some of the so-called gurus of sales out there these days, Josh, they've been saying that relationship selling is dead. What they mean is kowtowing to your prospect or your client is not the way to do it, but that's not relationship selling. Relationship selling is about building strong, trusted business for business, not just business to business, but business for business relationships so that you're working to help your client buy, not to sell to them, but to help them buy outcomes. And the only way you can do that is, again, that old metaphor, that old cliche in sales, people buy from people they know, like, trust and respect.

10:30And you have to have a strong relationship to do that. And that's been overlooked so often these days, because people are out there, they're using that old term social selling. And social selling is important, but it's just another way of building up a relationship by keeping people informed of what's happening out there. Wayne's perspective really highlights the shift from traditional selling to a more relationship-focused approach. Josh, trust is often cited as a cornerstone of strong relationships. How can entrepreneurs build and maintain trust with their clients and partners? Well, look, you're going to earn and retain that trust, not based on what you say.

11:22It's going to be built upon based on how you show up, what you do, right? And this could look like a lot of things, right? It's the exercise, the demonstration of our love that I believe is love, right? Love that's just lip service. Like if you say, well, listen, I love my friend, but you never demonstrate that or show that. Or it's just like, we wouldn't be able to know other than you just saying it occasionally. Like the difference between smiling with your mouth and smiling with your eyes. Like you can see the difference. Oh, absolutely. Right. Listen, you can't fake a vibe check. And today, what I can tell you is that audiences have never been more skeptical.

12:16People certainly in anything that resembles a sales conversation are absolutely going to be on guard, right? Because they've all been sold at. It feels icky. And it's almost like we're kind of like, when we're talking with someone, we think that they might want our business. We're nervous. We're like, don't ruin this. Don't get pushy. Like, let's just work together and figure out what makes best sense for us. And so, but I think a lot of us are sometimes a little bit on edge. Like, please don't, please don't take it there. Right. And so we earn that trust by never violating those kinds of things and also showing up in the way that a friend would want to show up.

12:53And Lisa, I don't know if I shared this in a previous episode, but this is really, really critical. Your goal, I believe in, in nearly every kind of sales call out there should not be to get the other person to say, yes, I will buy your product. Now, this sounds controversial, the way I'm saying this. Your goal for how you are showing up in the conversation, and I'm sure I'll get blowback for this, should be to evoke in the other person, if you want to win the most amount of good in the world, should be to evoke the sentiment from your guest of, oh, good. Now, Now I have a friend who does what you do.

13:33Okay. This is a lot of ways. This is a mindset thing because sometimes people freak out when they think I have a job to do. And that's to get this other person to buy my thing. It causes you to do sloppier behavior. Right. And then you're like, you have to stay stuck to a script and then it feels robotic. And then the other person's picking up on that. And they're like, man, this is, doesn't feel authentic to me. If you always show up as how a friend would show up for this other person, and you are okay with whatever the outcome is, you're going to win the most amount of deals, in my opinion. That's my take on this.

14:12And I tell you, we've got a lot of it. We've got a lot of data to back this up based on the fact that we've been doing this for five years and launched a couple of hundred of these. We've seen it full well. uh elisa you and i know that we do not work with broey salespeople it's a hard no for us and you know when we were first starting to serve clients we had a couple that slipped between the cracks and it was an abysmal failure for them and they were getting pushback right that is there's one listen there's one thing when we talk about the go-giver okay there's one thing that people hate more than a pushy salesperson.

14:51You know who it is? It's a manipulative salesperson. Pushy, hey, homeboy wants to make a sale. It just is what it is. No, thanks. I'm not interested. Manipulative, people will hate you. They will hate you. They will feel deceived. They will feel yucky. And they will, they not only will they turn into a non-customer, they become a little bit of an anti-customer and they'll warn their friends, just like, you know, we're in, when we're in that mixer and there's a me monster prowling around trying to slap business cards in people's hands and pitch and sell at them. Like leaders will send signals to other people.

15:34Hey, watch out, you know, and it's not trying to ruin anyone's business. It's just, I don't want you to go through the same negative experience that I went through. I mean, both for your part and for their part, right? You know, the person who's doing that, they're just, I don't judge them. They're just badly informed. And I actually feel very badly that someone convinced them that that's what they're supposed to be able, that's what they're supposed to do in order to do what they really want to do. And if you were a true friend, you wouldn't treat your friends like that. Never, never. That's so short-sighted.

16:10Yeah, don't be that person. Don't be a narcissist, which is, again, should be an easy bar for all of us to, you know, it's like quit being Machiavellian, just make it all about other people. And I go, again, I think a lot of people intellectually agree with me, but then yes, but how might we be able to prove that based on how you're showing up in the lives of other people? That you can't fake. No. So with the rise of digital platforms and social media, the way we build and maintain relationships has certainly evolved. And we've witnessed that here in our own company. What are some of the strategies you've seen that are particularly effective for maintaining strong business relationships in the digital age?

16:58Keep on giving. Maintain that pattern of generosity, right? Just because someone says, no, I don't think I'm going to be able to do anything with you right now. Like I've got all these other things. You know, it's probably not going to be another six months until we can have a serious conversation about this. Okay. You can make a decision on that. You could either say, all right, see you later. Next. or like a friend, you'd be like, cool. I think that makes a lot of sense. It sounds like you got a lot on your plate. You know, how else can I help in the meantime? Or better yet, you know, here's some things that we can do.

17:33And then down the road, sure, if it makes sense for us, great. Love to take a look at that. Hey, so what you don't write off people, because then it's like, yeah, I can tell what you really wanted, right? Right. It's like, I'm not going to go into any dating analogies because I don't want to get too dicey there. But you know what I'm talking about. Right. It's it's like, you know, if if you can demonstrate time and time again that you don't like somebody just for their business or budget, you're going to do all right. You're going to earn their trust. You know, it's like lose the battle, win the war kind of thing.

18:08And I don't even really like that analogy because, again, it suggests, you know, that that's our sole focus is to do business. Obviously, we want to do business, but again, it's presumptuous for us to assume what other people want and need. It's the advocate for their own businesses, and you've got to trust them in that. You don't know better than them. I mean, you might know your area of expertise really well, but you don't know what they've got going on in their life. So don't begin to presume you know better than that founder. You don't. You get to inform them, enlighten them, show up in the most generous way that you can, given what your, you know, constraints might be.

18:45But show up as a friend and don't give up on that friendship. Do you think it's easier today in the digital age to have these strong business relationships than what it used to be? I mean, I used to work for a very popular power tool company, and I know that we had salespeople who were hitting the pavement. But the problem is, is with salespeople who do door to door like that, you know, from business to business, they're in the door one day and then maybe they're not connecting back again later on. And I think with the digital age, especially for those who are podcasting, I mean, we're kind of giving back by sharing who these people are, our network, with our network.

19:35And I'm not sure that that was something that was really could be accomplished prior to the digital age. Yeah, right. Well, it's just it's OK. So here's the thing. We have new tools over the past 10, 15 years, 20 years, right, that have made the ability to connect easier. Here's the problem, however. Amateur marketers have decimated the crops. They've decimated the fields. They got sloppy. They abused these amazing platforms we have, and I'm talking about like email, LinkedIn, other social media type stuff. Certainly, Lisa, I don't know how many anonymous calls you pick up on your voicemail. I pick up zero.

20:23100 % of calls that come into my phone go through a screening service. If you're not a contact, 100 % chance you are not talking to me. It's a hard no. I never pick up those calls. So that option is now closed to you as a sales professional or marketer. It's closed. It's not available to you. And Alisa, 90 % of the population is absolutely in line. We do not do business with spammers. It's a hard no. Right off the bat, 90 % of the, and this is based on, it was either, it's in my, the source of that study is in my Attraction Mastery Workshop, which if you want to watch the whole thing, and I'll have all the citations and everything.

21:13You can watch that at upmyinfluence.com. It's www.upmyinfluence.com. Just click on, watch the Attraction Mastery Workshop. I don't need your email. I don't need you to opt in. You can just click and you can go through the data on this. But yeah, 90 % of people refuse to do business with spammers or the door-to-door kind of people. It's not your fault. It's just marketers have ruined it for everybody. So marketers flock to great ideas until they ruin them. But here is where we have sanctuary. It's that if you can use what's left, you know, again, anything resembling activity that any amateur could do, don't do it.

21:54That's the red ocean. Okay. It's way over fish. It's bloody. The, you know, the fish are, you know, just way too much competing for available fish. You want to go to the blue ocean and do it only leaders like you can do. And if you'll do that and hang out in those rooms, then you're going to do way more business in your own whisper network. So how can entrepreneurs cultivate and maintain strong business relationships over time? What are some of the key elements that make these relationships last then? Well, ongoing, don't ever violate that trust. Don't burn your list. Don't sell it, people. Just maintain friendships.

22:33So we're like, I always want to be the friend. I'm a fractional chief revenue officer and I work in B2B and I work with account-based people. I only focus on relationship-based sales. Okay. My goal is to be that person who is a friend in many, many, many friends' lives. Okay. I'm there to be a resource. I'm there to provide them value. Hey, if they decide that they want to engage with me, cool. If they don't, that's fine. Like I already have a good book of business. And again, I realized that I am speaking from a little bit of place of privilege because I've been doing the hard stuff for a while, but it was the same thing at the beginning.

23:14Right? So I'm not as stressed out about it because my bills are paid and, you know, I love who we get to serve. And we have co-created some really big sales activity with our clients. We have clients that do seven figure transactions. Holy criminy. That's really exciting to see that stuff happen. And it all began with a relationship. Our next clip is from Liz Wolf, who joined us in July 2021. Liz is incredibly passionate about relationship building. It's at the core of her business philosophy. She believes that selling should be an authentic expression of what you love about your business and that authenticity is key to building meaningful relationships.

24:01Let's hear how Liz approaches relationship building in her business. Liz, from a high level, would you mind just kind of giving us your 101 on your main thrust, kind of your topics that you coach on? Absolutely. So what I do is I coach entrepreneurs who feel stuck in some way. And certainly as entrepreneurs, we feel stuck a lot, especially because we want to maybe launch a business or grow our business and we want it to be abundant. So that's what I do. I help people launch and grow an abundant business. And I specifically say the word abundance because the approach that I take is going to be a lot different than this very, let me go out and chase down my prospects and clients and work it.

24:52You know, I don't think that that's really how we're going to create our success. So we have to, the biggest thing, of course, that we want to be focused on is relationship and having selling be an authentic expression of what it is that we love about our business. Yeah. What's an example of doing that wrong? Oh, well, well, one example of doing that wrong is where you will try to sell something to somebody and they really don't want it. So, and then walk away from that feeling rejected. I mean, how silly is that? Yeah. You are going to be like, Hey, don't you want to sell this? Excuse me. Don't you want to buy this?

25:36Don't you want to buy this? Don't you want to buy this? Don't you want to buy know. And you say, but why not? It's really great. And by the way, I'll give you a really big discount. And then now they, they just are like, no, back off, back off. So what selling is, is it's providing a solution to a problem that somebody actually has. And by the way, what I was saying early about, you know, the, the natural expression of, of what you love about your business, I'm borrowing that directly from a friend of mine, Marilyn King, who does says that also about marketing, because this, these are the two areas where we feel so much like, we don't know how to talk about ourselves.

26:20So we're going to just ramble a lot in people's faces and hope that they catch on and really want to buy what it is that we're selling. And that's not how it works. How it works is you find out if they have a problem, see if your solution fits it, you create a relationship with them, and then you see if it's a match. That's really what it is. Yeah. So what are some great ways of maybe, I guess, you know, a lot of this is just like asking better questions and finding out, can we be of service? And if it's a no, like it's okay, right? 80%, 90 % of people you talk with, they probably don't have a need for what you have to offer.

27:00And that's not to say that your product is a failure. It's just, it's designed for 10 % of that population. Yeah, you're hitting on so many things that I'm actually taking notes because I want to come back to them. Okay. So first of all, when someone says no to you, whenever anybody says no to me, my first question is, well, my first response is thank you. But my first question after that, you mentioned asking questions. So my first question is why not? Don't you want to know why it's not a fit? Because it could be many, many things. One of which by the way, could be, I'm just not ready yet. I love what you're selling and I'm just not ready yet.

27:46And what we do is we hear no, we go, oh, it's all over. And we run in the other direction rather than saying, no, it's just a no for now. I have people that have come back to me after years. And I just keep pinging them. I just keep pinging them. And the second thing that you mentioned is, um, this, this thing about rejection, or if we don't, what we do is if we don't get an immediate, enthusiastic, positive response, we go, Oh, there's a, you know, it could be a hundred reasons why somebody hasn't bought anything from they're not ready. They don't have the money right now. It wasn't quite a fit.