Belief is Contagious

Belief is Contagious

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 41 of the Business Development Podcast, and today we are talking about belief. Do you believe in your product or service? Does it matter? Stay tuned. We're gonna chat about it.

Intro: The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the Business Development Podcast, podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development advice. Tips and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business, brought to you by Capital Business Development Capitalbd.ca.

Let's do it. Welcome to the Business Development Podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 41 of the Business Development Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. If this is your first time or if this is your 41st time, it's amazing to have you and we are so thankful.

Today I wanted to chat about belief in what you sell, belief in yourself, belief in your products. I'm really excited to get to this topic today, but today we are gonna start out briefly by saying a gigantic thank you to Esther Hall. Esther Hall is a marketing manager at Fluor Corporation. She works for the operations and maintenance division in the United States.

It was amazing to have her on and share her experience. Her episode was episode 40. Content is king, and if you missed it and you're looking for some expert marketing advice, some just great tips. Go back. Listen to Esther. She's amazing at what you do. Thank you Esther, for coming on the show and chatting with me.

It's always a pleasure. Just a quick update on the show itself. It's been a minute since I've kind of given you guys an update, but we have done some growth. Some growth has happened at the Business Development Podcast and we couldn't do it without each and every one of you. So before I give the numbers, just let me say thank you.

If you are if you're a constant listener to this show, if you come back week over week, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you. I appreciate your listenership, and this show really is for you. And so if that is you, if you are liking us, following us, subscribing, leaving us ratings and reviews on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

It is immensely appreciated. And if you have not done so yet and you're looking to do something for the show or you're wondering what you might be able to do to contribute, please follow us, like us. Leave us ratings on your platform of choice. It helps us grow. The show, helps us to reach greater and greater audiences.

And We will provide you amazing business development advice along the way and help you grow your business. So we are sitting at 49,740 downloads. Holy crap. I cannot believe that. I would've never thought when I started this show, you know, when we started this show. So we were only growing about a hundred downloads a week.

Like I kid you not, we were, if you go back to the beginning where we're giving these show updates, we are literally going up by, I think it was about a hundred downloads each week. And I remember being so proud of that. And now we're sitting at 49,740 show downloads, and we're not even at our five month mark, everyone.

So, My gosh. Thank you so much. Thank you for for making this show a hit. Thank you for coming back week over week because I could not do it without you. This show is done for you and I hope that week over week I can deliver amazing advice that helps you grow business, that that takes you to the next level.

And we aim to do that with each show. We aim to do that with each expert interview. And thank you, thank you to the Business Development Podcast listeners. We could not do this without you. I could not do this without you, and I appreciate your support. Okay, so just another quick update. We are at five months next week, next Thursday, marks the five month mark of the Business Development Podcast, so I'll make a quick note of it on next Wednesday's show to let you guys know.

But that's it, guys. Five months we've won. We've won an award from Quill Inc. For Best Business Podcast 2023. We're sitting at 50,000 downloads by that point. And yeah, I, I'm ecstatic. I'm incredibly pleased with the results of this show, and I hope that you are as well. All right. One other thing before we move into today's show topic.

I wanna chat about community questions. So I intend to host a monthly community questions. I need to have enough questions to do it though. So I would like to do one episode a month. We'll be a community questions episode, and I will answer the. Around eight. I'm thinking eight is a good, good amount of questions to try to answer in a show period.

So I think right now we're sitting at about three or four. So if you have a business development question or something that you would like me to address on the show that I could address potentially in, in a single point answer or in a multis answer please send it to me. podcast@capitalbd.ca. That's podcast@capitalbd.ca.

And if you could just put in the subject line community questions and write out your questions, sign it, give me your name so that I can announce who asked it, and we will start answering your questions on this show. I think that that could be incredibly valuable for all listeners. Remember. If you have a question, there's probably a thousand to 10,000 other people who also have that same question.

So it doesn't matter whether it's relevant to your business, shoot it in. I will do my best to answer it on the show, and let's help not just you, but thousands of other people over time. Okay. All right. Today's topic is going to be. Believing in your product or service? This is something that I've kind of touched on on a couple previous episodes.

I didn't get into it too in depth, but I do think that it deserves its own show. And while this show, maybe, I'm not sure how long this is going to go, but I did decide that this particular topic is important enough to have a conversation about it because I know there are a lot of business development people out there.

Who have an amazing product or service and they, you know, they may or may not believe in it, or they're out there and they are selling products or services they do not believe in. It is just a job. They don't care about what they do or what they sell. However, unfortunately for you, it shows okay, if you do not believe in your product or service.

You are articulating it, whether you are doing it consciously or subconsciously through like aware body language or, or through body, body language you're not aware of, you may not be demonstrating confidence in what you sell. Okay? And believing in your product or service is truly critical to both your success and the success of the product or service, and obviously the company who sells that product or service.

Okay. So, you know, I know that there's a lot of people out there doing business development or. Or sales or marketing, and you are doing it because it's a job. You know, maybe it pays well, maybe you've been there a while and you like the people you work with, but the product or service you sell, you don't believe in it.

You don't think you know whether consciously or unconsciously that it is worthy. And unfortunately, when you are in business development, when it is your job to shout. A product from the rooftops to truly love what you sell, to sell something that you truly believe in. Oh man, it's really, really hard. Okay.

It's hard because we talk about it in self-motivation. Right. You have to be motivated to go to work and it is really, really, really hard to be motivated to go to work and sell something that you don't believe in. You really, really need to believe in a product or service to sell it well. Okay. And I do think, you know, we're gonna get into this later in the episode, but I.

I do think that if you are working at a place right now, you know it's a little bit tough. If you're an entrepreneur, I imagine you truly believe in what you, what you sell. Because the reality is you wouldn't have started a business or, or created a product or service if you didn't believe in it. You've poured your heart, your soul into it.

You very likely believe in it. And so, Entrepreneurs and new business owners, they don't struggle with belief in their product. What they actually struggle with is self-confidence and imposter syndrome. It's, it's different. It's different than a business development rep selling a product or service that they didn't create.

Okay? But belief in your product is critical to your success in selling it, both on your ability to articulate the value of that product and, and demonstrate your confidence in it to a customer. And in, in essentially your ability to just do your job. Because if you don't believe in the product or service you're selling, you're probably not giving 110% at work.

And, you know, we talked about this in business development. That self-motivation and the ability to, to the drive to want to win is so critical in a, in somebody who's in business development, marketing, and sales success, you have to really, really believe in what you do. You have to. You have to want it.

You have to want to sell that product. You have to want to set up those meetings. You have to truly, genuinely want to meet people and shout from the rooftops, the value of that product or service you sell, which makes it incredibly hard if you don't believe in it. Okay, so what are some critical things with regards to belief?

How. Do we just automatically believe in a product or service? The answer is no, no, no, we don't. And this is coming from me, and I've worked for plenty of different companies selling many, many different products, belief. Takes time, it takes knowledge. You have to sell yourself. Remember we talked about this, you have to sell yourself on the product or service before you can sell it to somebody else.

And yes, that can take time. I find typically if I'm working with a new client and I'm learning a new product or service, there's genuinely, there's typically a interest. Usually what, what interests me is, I like the services or products they sell. I see a use for it in the marketplace. So when I make the pitch that, hey, you know, capital would like to work with you and, and, and build your company, usually I have a pretty good idea that I can believe in that product or service that I can do it.

I can genuinely sell that product because I like it. I find it interesting. And so the people that I pitch it to will also find it interesting cause it'll show through in my conviction. But, It takes me time to truly learn that product or service enough to really see the value in it. And that happens anywhere you work.

Okay? It doesn't matter who you work for, there's gonna be no business development, marketing or sales rep who will automatically. Be able to sell that your product or service with conviction. It takes experience. It takes some time with that product. You know, for me, sometimes it takes a few, a few business development meetings where I'm sitting in with the owners pitching that product and really explaining the value of it, and then me truly feeling that value, right?

I have to feel it and I do with every single company I work with. I feel the value. At some point, I extrude the value. You know, like I, I, I just glow value because I truly believe in that product or service that much. But it takes a little bit of time to get there. So no, if you do, if you just started at a new company and you're like, shit, Kelly, I don't believe in this product or service yet.

Don't give up yet. Okay, don't give up yet. It does take a little bit of time. My argument though would be if you're working at a company and you've worked there for say, six months. You've been there six months and you still can't quite see the value, or you just can't quite get behind the product, move on, move on.

If after six months you're not seeing it, you're not able to connect with that product or service, you're struggling to, to demonstrate that value or believe in that value, you're probably not gonna get there. It would be better maybe to move on to someplace else that, that you believe in that product or service more.

Okay. So It takes time. But I would say give it six months. If after six months you're still not quite there, you're still struggling with it or you're just not quite getting there you know, I guess you got a couple options depending on the size of company you work at. Maybe they have multiple product or service lines, so potentially you could ask to be transferred to another product or service line that aligns more with you.

Or like I said, if it's just one company. You're just not quite feeling it. The reality is it's going to show, okay. You know, and I'm talking to my business owners too here. Okay. You know, monitor your business development people, have them provide weekly reports and, and keep on it. Keep looking at these reports because if you got a new business development rep, they've been with you for a while and they're just not doing it.

They're just not getting you those meetings. There could be a challenge with their belief. They may just not believe in what they're selling, or it might just be a job. And unfortunately with business development, it can't just be a job. It can't. You really have to believe in that product or service. You have to, because if you can't.

Get behind it. You won't put in the extra effort that it's going to take. That's just the truth. You need to really be able to get behind a product or service to put in that extra little bit of effort to really push for that meeting, to really, you know, to portray confidence over that phone to be able to say, you know, Mr.

Customer, we have a product or service. I'm confident that it's going to work for you. I know you're gonna be interested. Let's line up a meeting with chat further. You have to be able to say that with conviction, and it's really hard to say that with conviction. If you do not believe, okay, so the number one in this is belief takes time, but not too much time.

If after six months you're still not there, you know, rethink it. Rethink it. I think it might be time for you to move on to something else. Belief has to align with your values. Okay. This also goes back now to people that are working business development, and they're just doing it as a job. You know, I'm, I'm working at a b, c company.

Let's say that you work for a liquor company, but you know, maybe you don't believe in drinking or you have a moral. Obligation to say like maybe you you grew up in a household where, you know, drinking was forbade per se, or smoking was pervade, you know, this is bad examples cuz you know, they are bad, but, but, but let's just, let's just touch on them for a second.

Right. And now you go and work for a cigarette company, right? No one wants to work for a cigarette company anymore. But let's say you work for a cigarette company or you work for an alcohol company, but you don't believe in those things, okay? That is going to be a huge problem once again, because you're gonna have to say and do things that you don't believe in.

And if you, if it's not lining up with your morality or with your morals, it's going to be a problem. It is 150% going to be a problem. And you know what's funny? I. I think this happens a lot. I, I don't think that, this is like a weird thing. I think that there's a lot of companies that people work at where their products or services that they are supposed to be shouting from the rooftops conflict with their belief systems.

Okay? Now, if that is the case, once again, my automatic opinion to you is get out. Get out, let someone else do that job who believes in that product or service? Because you are doing a disservice to the company you work for if you do not believe in their product or service and business owners. You don't want this, you don't want people who don't believe in your products or service selling your products or service.

Why? First off, they're gonna be horrible at it. And then second off, you know, who knows what they're saying to your customers. You just don't know. You need them to be saying, I love this product. You're gonna love this product too. Give it a shot. That's what you need your BD people to be saying. That's what you need, your your salespeople, anybody marketing your company, you need those people saying those things.

So you need to be making sure in the interview process, In your, in your in-house qualification programs, in your in-house training programs, that you are double checking and triple checking that the people who work for you believe in your products or service. They will get behind it 110%. It's just gonna be better all around.

It's gonna be better for your employees. It's gonna be better for your business development people, and it's gonna be better for you as the business owner. Okay? So beliefs, it needs to align with your values. Okay? Number three, belief drives confidence. We talked about this in the last episode, right?

Confidence is key. It's king, it's everything. You need to be the most confident person you can be because if you have confidence in a product or service and you have confidence in yourself, my gosh, you were gonna sell the crap out of that product or service. If you can stand behind something with total confidence, with total conviction, and say, This product and service is going to improve your business.

It is going to help you. I am confident I will stand behind this product and I will shout it from the rooftops. It is what you need. My gosh, BD people, marketing people, salespeople, you are gonna, you were gonna sell and book meetings like you have never booked before. But you need to believe in your product or service.

You need to believe in it. If you cannot believe in it, if you don't have confidence in yourself or in your product or service. It's, it's showing it's 150% showing. It's showing in your day-to-day work. It's showing in your meetings, it's showing everywhere. And, and even though it might not be direct, it might not be like necessarily on your face.

It is showing in your actions, it is showing in the level of effort you're putting. Believe me, believe me. You know, confidence is key. Confidence is also something learned. Okay. Once again, let's go back to the beginning. That, that point #1, you have time, right? Belief can take time. Confidence also can take time.

Confidence in a product or service also takes time. It takes, you know, a few months to really get behind that product or service to really understand it, to refine your pitch in a way that you are feeling confident about it. Maybe you've sat in a few sales meetings and you've really learned a lot about it, or you've learned how the customers use it and the benefit it, it provides them.

But over time, if you know, your confidence should be building, your ability to really stand behind a product or service should build and build and build and build, and one day you're just a rockstar. When you get into those meetings, right, you, you have all the talking points. You're confident, you wear it on your face.

It shows through in your body language. Confidence is key, and believing in a product only only improves that confidence. It only makes you more confident, more strong when you are articulating that product or service. So, Confidence is also key. And belief, believing in your product will drive confidence.

Okay. Belief can be learned with each product experience. So we kind of got into this before, you know, you might be selling multiple products or companies are coming out with new products all the time, right? Are you gonna believe in it immediately? Maybe not. Maybe, maybe not. Once again, go back to the beginning, you know, work with pitching it for three, three to six months.

Learn the product. Learn the service. Sit in the business development meetings. You know, sit in the client facing meetings, learn how they're using it, learn what benefits it's brought to them, and if it's six months, you still, you know, are struggling to really get behind that product or service, you're struggling to believe in it.

It's just a job. You don't see any real value in that product or service to the world. Probably time to move on. That's probably what's best for, for both the business and for yourself, because there's a million other places that you can work, right? Like the reality is in business development, in sales, in marketing.

Every company needs these things. Really, they do. And so, why don't you go work for a place that you really believe in? Why don't you go get behind a cause you love? You know, if you wanna, if you, if you're one of those people who really believes in causes, why don't you go work for one of those? Why don't you go really get behind something that you can get behind you guys, if you can get behind a product or service, you can get behind that.

My gosh. You were gonna be, you're, you're gonna be happy first off, which is critical. You know, like, BD people. We need to be happy. We need to, we need to enjoy our life, right? We need to come across happy. We need to come across confident. It's a lot easier to do if you are actually selling and marketing things that you like or that you believe in, okay?

So you know, you can learn it. Once again, it can be learned with each new product experience, however, If you're marketing or selling a product you don't believe in, you know, either ask to switch to a product or service, you do. If the company's large enough and they have multiple products or find another place, there's a million of them, right?

You're going to find a better opportunity. And if you can work somewhere where, where you believe in what you're doing, you know it's best for everybody. A hundred percent. Best for everyone. Okay. Belief by you translates into belief by your customer, right? Like I said, if you radiate confidence, if you radiate confidence in a product or service, if you really believe in it that much, and it's just shining off of you.

It's contagious. Your customers are gonna believe, you know, they might not even wanna believe they're gonna believe. You get 'em in a room and you're like, look, Mr. Customer, this is what you need. I have this product or service. It's great. It's going to save you money, it's gonna increase productivity.

You're gonna love it. Just give it a try. It's pretty hard for that customer to say, no, I'm gonna hate that product. I'm not, I'm not gonna love it. Right? Like, it's just really hard. If you can show up to a room with that much confidence, it's really, really, really hard for them to just turn around and say, yeah, no, this isn't for us.

Right? Unless it really isn't, you know, maybe it isn't. That happens, but. You know, if you, if you've qualified your customer, well, if you've done your target research, you know that this industry needs your product or service, and you can get into a room and you can pitch it with confidence and the value, you can build up the value, right?

Because remember, that's what it's about. You have to build up value in the product or service, and confidence. Confidence builds value. Belief builds value, right? If you can build that value high enough, you can charge almost whatever you need to charge within reason for that product or service. The secret isn't the cost of the product or service, it's the level of value that you built for the customer.

And if you're in business development, marketing, sales, it is your job to drive up the value above the cost of the product or service, right? If the value is higher than the cost of the product or service, then the choice is obvious, but it is your job to build the value to that level, okay? And belief by you will translate into belief by your customer.

Work for companies that sell reputable products or services. So, you know, let's go back to that other point where we were chatting about cigarettes and, and booze. Right? You know, it, it comes down to what you believe in, okay? But there are definitely companies out there that are selling crap products and crap services.

We know this, right? We know this, and. Yeah, I get it. Somebody's working for them. But it doesn't have to be you, right? You don't have to be the person selling the crap product or service. You could be the person selling the, the top-notch product or service. You could be the person selling high level, high value services.

Ones you believe in ones that are going to benefit humanity, not drag humanity down with it. Okay? You can choose to do this. You can choose to work for a company that is reputable. You can, anytime you want, you can make that choice. And my suggestion is, you should always, whenever possible work for companies that sell reputable products or services, it's only going to improve your game.

It's only gonna make you better. So in my mind, take that option every time. If you're working for a company that does not sell reputable products or services, something you don't believe in, or you, or the sales process is shady, or you're having to lie or misinform people. Don't do it. Don't do it.

Don't compromise your mor, your morality. Don't compromise yourself to sell a product or service. You should never have to do that. You should never be asked to lie. You should never be asked to compromise your values or your beliefs. To sell or product or service, if you are being asked to do that, get out, get out for your own benefit and, and the benefit of frankly, the world.

Get out and go work for a company that you do believe in that sells products or services that align with your values. Okay? You're only gonna be better for it. And my last point here is be proud of what you do. Be proud of it. Work for companies that you are proud of. You know, if you started a company and you sell a product or service that you created, be proud of it.

Good for you. Congratulations on on improving the world, frankly. Frankly, to my entrepreneurs out there, to my business owners. Congratulations and thank you for what you do. Thank you for having the belief to go out and take a stand and say, you know what? This is gonna be flipping hard, but I'm gonna start a company and I'm going to improve the world.

Thank you for what you do. Thank you. Because it's people like you who improve the world that I live in, that my kids live in, that your kids live in. And we need more people willing to take that stand, willing to, to improve the world instead of just. Going along with status quo or selling products or services that suck or that, that don't improve things.

Okay? We need more people to believe in what they do, to be proud of what they do. And proud and pride shows through. Pride shows through just like confidence, right? Just like belief, pride shows through. Be proud of what you do and you will sell more. You will sell more. Mark my words. Okay. That is that is closing it for today's episode.

Thank you so much. It's been belief in your product. If you've enjoyed this episode today, it is brought to you by my business Capital Business Development, and if you need business development services, we operate in Canada. We offer full service, business development, everything from Con helping you create, you know, amazing brochures and content creation right down to full service business development.

We can take over your business development process for six months a year, and we can get you the meetings that you are looking for. We will revamp your system. We'll put in a process that works. And we will get you in front of decision makers and people who will buy your products and services over time.

And our goal with capital is to provide exponential value to our cost over time. And that is my belief. A hundred, a hundred percent, a hundred percent every time I want to drive exponential value to our cost over time. Okay? That is all for today. I just wanna give shout outs. Shout outs this week. Just have a couple.

Matt Gorman. Thank you Matt, for reaching out, providing some community questions. We got a few coming in and I'm excited to answer those for you and as well as Alexander Javier. Thank you so much for reaching out. Sorry. It was Alexander Javier who reached out and gave community questions. Matt, just. It gave me a really, really kind message.

Sorry about getting you guys mixed up. Until next time, this has been the Business Development Podcast. If you've enjoyed this show, please follow us, like, subscribe, share it with your friends and family, share it with your coworkers. Share it with the world, cuz that is how we get this out here. That's how we improve the business community and we can't do it without you.

I will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry, and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization. Is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca . See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.