Andrew Sykes - Transforming Sales through Trust

In addition to leading the Habits at Work team, Andrew Sykes is a Lecturer of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and a member of the Kellogg Sales Institute Executive Education Team, where he instructs the acclaimed course "Entrepreneurial Selling." This course has been recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the "Top Ten" courses in the United States.

With a career spanning 30 years, Andrew has held roles as a salesperson, entrepreneur, speaker, and expert in behavior change. His professional journey commenced with the establishment of one of South Africa's largest healthcare consulting companies.

He is also a co-author of the book "The 11th Habit," which distills the research conducted by the Behavioral Research and Applied Technology Laboratory (BRATLAB). This research focuses on identifying the habits that truly contribute to sustained high performance, competitive differentiation, trust building, and organizational growth, and offers guidance on how individuals can develop and practice these essential habits.

SHOW SUMMARY

In this episode of Selling From The Heart, Andrew Sykes discusses the importance of trust in sales and how to build trust in the first few minutes of a conversation. He shares his insights from years of research on trust and offers practical advice for sales professionals. Andrew emphasizes the need for salespeople to be committed to helping others make progress in their lives and to understand and meet their customers' expectations. He also challenges the common belief that trust takes time to build and explains how trust can be established in a matter of minutes. Andrew provides a framework for creating a strong first impression and highlights the power of genuine smiles and eye contact. He also discusses the role of apologies in trust-building and the importance of self-trust.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Trust is something we give to others by vulnerably exposing ourselves to their potential deception or incompetence.
Trustworthiness is assessed by others based on their experience of people like us in the past.
The first few minutes of a conversation are crucial for building trust, and salespeople should focus on creating a strong first impression.
Salespeople should introduce themselves by sharing one thing about their credible past and one thing that led them to choose their current profession.
Apologies often break trust instead of restoring it, and salespeople should focus on acknowledging the impact of their actions and fixing it.
People often lack self-trust and easily break promises to themselves, which can hinder their personal and professional growth.

QUOTES

"For me, selling from the heart means being committed to helping another human being make progress in their life."
"Trust is something we give to other people. It's choosing to vulnerably expose ourselves to someone else's deception, incompetence, or lack of a track record."
"Being trustworthy as assessed by someone else couldn't be more different because we assess trust based on false signals."
"Trust is a generous thing to give, but being worthy of trust is assessed by someone else based on their experience of people like you in the past."
"The feeling most people have when we're approaching them as salespeople is not unlike that feeling when you see three young adults with clipboards on the street."
"Rather than saying, 'My name is Andrew, I'm the head of sales,' I encourage people to say one thing about their credible past and one thing that led them to choose their current profession."
"Apologies usually break trust, not restore it. It's important to acknowledge the impact of your actions and focus on fixing it."
"People often lack self-trust and easily sell themselves down the river, quitting on their dreams or promises to themselves."
"The only way to unlock the greatness in us that hides behind our blind spots is to have generous people point to things in our potential that we don't see in ourselves."

Learn more about Andrew Sykes:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewsykes1/

Learn more about Darrell and Larry:
Darrell's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrellamy/
Larry's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larrylevine1992/
Website: https://www.sellingfromtheheart.net/

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