The Significance of a Well-Defined Sales Process with Kaivona Parker

Wesleyne (: 00:01

Hello, I am so excited today to have Kevanna Parker joining me. How are you Kevanna?

Kaivona Parker (: 00:07

doing well. How are you? The lips is giving everything is doing what he's supposed to today as usual.

Wesleyne (: 00:15

Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I'm loving your hoops, your big old hoops. So for those of you who are just listening to us on Apple or Spotify, Kavonna has some beautiful hoops on and some beautiful necklaces. She is just blinging all over. I am excited to tell you guys about Ms. Kavonna. So let me introduce her to you. With experience in growing billion dollar routes.

Kaivona Parker (: 00:18

Like always, always.

Wesleyne (: 00:41

out of Nestle's 18 wheelers in Metro New York, wearing a hard hat, selling industrial supplies for Grainger and leading the top 10 % of sales in the tech space, Kevanna has continually demonstrated her passion for driving sales success and has gained valuable insights into what it takes to succeed in the sales industry. It was through this greedy learning process that she was dubbed as the most un -boring and saw the critical importance of engaging sales trainings and workshops.

effective recruiting and onboarding strategies, real -time coaching and inspiration. As a founder of KPA, Kevanna provides tailor -made, unboring workshops on EQ and IQ, defining authenticity, building your brand, transferring transferable skills in sales fundamentals workshops, all of which create career -ready champions with accelerated ramp that boosts retention while promoting the message of embracing authenticity. So...

How did you go from wearing a hard hat to being dubbed as the most unborn?

Kaivona Parker (: 01:42

Well, sales found me because I was going to join the Air Force. I have a military family and I wanted to fly planes. I wanted to be a pilot. And my college, what do they call them? Advisor was like, Nope, you're going to be a lawyer or are you going to be a salesman or something? So she sent me off to the career fair and I actually got hired on the spot at Nestle. No, like they just, they saw me. I talked to them. I'm chocolate. So.

Wesleyne (: 01:54

Mm -hmm.

Kaivona Parker (: 02:09

Naturally, the thing was like Coco K. That was my Instagram handle back in the day. So I was like, I'm going to go to the chocolate company for no other reason. And it was, it was history from there. I had to get my CDL. I had to wear steel toe boots and it was just a very male dominated industry. I'm five, two. I was young managing 60 year old men. it was very tough, but I was like that.

Wesleyne (: 02:14

Okay. Okay.

Kaivona Parker (: 02:38

What is it? Little person complex? Or are you going to do what all the big people do? So I just went from there. and so I was doing field sales and, went into tech and at Yelp, they had a bunch of different names for folks and they, you get nominated and I had no idea. And all of a sudden I was nominated most unboring. cause I felt like if you're going to do cold calling, if you're going to be picking up the phone and calling people like.

Wesleyne (: 02:41

Yes.

Kaivona Parker (: 03:03

Make up a character, do something, like figure it out. Make sure your day is fun. Make sure that, you know, people are having fun when they talk to you. And I just found success that way. And that's how I started to coach people and train and they just, I'm boring from there.

Wesleyne (: 03:19

Wow, so you literally started your career with a hard hat and steel toe boots. And so you said you were in field sales and you transitioned to more of a tech company. What were some of the lessons that you learned as a field salesperson?

Kaivona Parker (: 03:35

Field sales, timing is everything. I became very organized in field sales. You don't know how long it's going to take from one client to the next. If you're picking up the phone, it's like, hang up and dial. You have to be very strategic when it comes to the timing and working with reps who are all across, I did Metro New York and New Jersey. So I really had to get direct to the point real quick. This is what we're here for.

Wesleyne (: 03:50

Yeah.

Kaivona Parker (: 04:04

All right, cool, well, I'm gonna catch you. Say you just recap email in the car and move on to the next one. So I became really calendar oriented in Phil sales for sure.

Wesleyne (: 04:16

Hmm, that's a good insight because I'm kind of like a calendar ninja and I think that it might be for the same reason because when I would be traveling it's like, okay, I'm going to this place. I have these three appointments. I have my little, so back in my day when I started out, we still had printed maps. So I would have a little map quest or I would have my little Garmin that I would take with me and I would literally be like, it's gonna take this long to get from this place to that place.

Kaivona Parker (: 04:20

Yeah.

You

Kaivona Parker (: 04:34

No question.

Wesleyne (: 04:42

I have exactly this much time and this much wiggle room, right? And it's because you have to be really efficient with your time.

Kaivona Parker (: 04:49

Yes. And on top of that, I was driving trucks, so we had to do the no truck route. So it wasn't like I could just hop on any parkway or highway and get on. Like I had to figure out routes where my truck can go. So efficiency was really key. I had to figure out how to get the goal that I needed to accomplish with that client, still build rapport, still build a relationship, make sure like, I would be calling them on the head of time to get stuff done before I got there.

When I get there, do what I need to do and be out.

Wesleyne (: 05:21

So how did that experience impact you being in this very, very male dominated world of trucking, right? Like literally you had a CDL. How did that, like what are some of the, how did you feel? First we'll start with how did you feel when you first stepped into that position?

Kaivona Parker (: 05:37

It was an identity crisis for sure because well, I've always grew up around males. I was big in football. My dad was a boxer, so he coached me how to box. So being around men wasn't a big deal, but being around men in a leadership position, then there was.

Leadership, there was an age gap, there was a race gap, there was gender gap. I mean, it was all the gaps there. It was definitely identity crisis. I didn't wear skirts, I didn't wear heels, I didn't wear, I didn't dress up. I tried to like blend in, in a sense. And when I found that that didn't help or hurt, it was just an unnecessary weight that I put on myself. I was like, all right, I'm tired of this. I'm just gonna show up. I'm just gonna show up.

Wesleyne (: 06:23

Yeah.

Kaivona Parker (: 06:25

And I put back on my heels, because I'm a heels mama. I love me some heels. And when I didn't have to wear the steel toe, when I was able to actually go into the locations and show myself, I just dressed how I felt empowered and comfortable. And the respect came that way, because the authenticity which I talk about, I had to learn that and how to show up in that unapologetically.

powerfully and not compromising that just because you look like this and I don't or you've done this for this long and I haven't doesn't disqualify the value that I'm bringing to your route, to your business. So it was definitely an identity crisis for a long time, slowly but surely. When I didn't see it helping or hurting, I said, well, why don't I just be myself and see what happens from that? And it was sort of like a fake it.

Wesleyne (: 07:16

Hmm.

Kaivona Parker (: 07:19

till you make it type of thing where I didn't believe it at first, but the more that I stepped into it and the more that I did it, I was like, hey, nah, this is cool. And it's easier now, because I'm not trying to front for anybody. It's just me, so.

Wesleyne (: 07:31

So what advice would you give to your younger self if you could go back and do it again? What advice would you give yourself?

Kaivona Parker (: 07:40

Fail faster.

We try to do the right things first, not knowing what's right or wrong, as opposed to just doing either what we know or what we feel to be right, what we feel to be true, and being okay with that not being the thing at first. So instead of trying to fit into a space or do something that you've seen,

or take an advice that you've heard because you admire that person, but it doesn't really align with you spiritually or just internally. Do what feels right to you first and make that work instead of making everything else that's being told or that you see around you work only for you to realize that it's not making you happy or serving you in any capacity. So when I coach to fail first, typically it's like,

Read the script, you know, trust the process, fail at the process, but in this case it's like...

Identity is evolution. It's not a period. It's not a destination. It is as you experience things, your identity evolves and just don't be afraid to play around with search for who you are while you're doing all the things.

Wesleyne (: 08:58

Hmm. And what would you say to a person who is in a space where you are, where they feel like they're the only or they're different and it could be they came from being a teacher and now they're trying to step into sales. So it's like, this is a different language, it's a different environment. And they have lost touch with who they are because they're trying to fit into this box so much.

Like how do they get back to the core of who they are and that their inner secret sauce?

Kaivona Parker (: 09:31

Yeah, for me, it's just quiet time with God and that prayer life is crucial. The mornings where I prioritize reading my word, the mornings where I prioritize spending some time just talking out loud, pacing the house, just saying all the feels, I find that the answers might not come in the moment that I'm praying, but they show up throughout the day. And like, you just have these confirmations with you. When I...

Sorry, KPA, you were one of the first people that I spoke with and you affirmed, I prayed that morning, like, Lord, so we can put ourselves in a bubble. When we are comfortable, when we have our role, when we're in our jobs, when we don't need anything from LinkedIn, we're not on it. We're just searching in the background. I would have built a network even though I didn't need.

Wesleyne (: 10:22

Yeah. Yeah.

Kaivona Parker (: 10:28

from it yet. I would build it just to build it. When I started building it was because I needed the money. I needed the connections. I needed the resources. I was like desperate for it. When you're in a role, that doesn't mean that you can't still connect with people and talk with people. And when I thank you for Ronel for tagging you in the comments and I reached out to you and you, I was like, hold on, you were here this whole time.

So, so the two answers that will be like the quiet time with God, which is just saying all the things out loud so that God could hear you. And then he always ends up showing up somehow. And when you step out and reach out to people that you see and just don't be afraid to like ask for the help or just get some insight, then he'll use people like you to, to, to give some answers and some perspective to make you feel or know that it's normal girlfriend.

Yeah, it's normal. Keep doing it. You'll figure it out.

Wesleyne (: 11:23

Keep going. Yeah, I really emphasize for a lot of people to wake up before you have to. 10, 15 minutes, like start small and find your center, right? Read, meditate, pray, do whatever you need to do.

Because when you find your center before you step into your day, it helps you anchor, right? And so when I have people who are like, I'm not doing really well, I feel anxious or I'm depressed or things aren't growing well, I always go back and I'm like, tell me about your morning. Well, I just wake up and I do, do, do, do. I'm like, but how about we stop doing so much and we start just being. And then we get into our bubble, especially when we're on the struggle bus or when we're.

Kaivona Parker (: 11:53

Ehh

Wesleyne (: 12:05

just starting out something fresh, we're like, I'm the only one out here like this. There's no one that can help me. There's nobody that can guide me. And so we often don't reach out for help. And you know, as I've told you often, I'm like, somebody help pull me up. So I feel like I want to do the same for other people. How can I come alongside you? How can I really help you and ensure that you are showing up in the best way that you can?

And you know, another thing I love to say is there's enough cake for everybody to get a slice. Like I don't need to compete with you, right? And so I think that when we internalize those things, and even when we are within a corporate realm, we often think that our colleagues are our competitors, but they're not. You're not competing with anybody in your company, right? So figure out who you can tap into as a resource.

Kaivona Parker (: 12:34

Ayyyy

Kaivona Parker (: 12:53

I, you live that and, and it's not by accident that you were one of the first people that I spoke to when I started at KPA because when you pointed into me in that meeting, I think every time I have like a free session or someone reaches out to me or DMs me, I think about you. And one of our first meetings we talked, we said planting seeds and the things that we do for free when we know we need the money, but we do it for free. Like those are seeds that will.

somehow, someway bring fruit and it's true because I need to sustain life. I'm a single mom. I have, you know, about to be like, we got to do this thing, mortgage to pay at the same time. What can I give that's just like, listen, this, this is the tea. This is what you got to do. Here it is. And then comes back around. and one thing that Ronnell said was like intentions, like intentions always show itself to be true. And I, I'm.

Like I balance that sometimes because I know that I need to make a living. So when you're posting on LinkedIn, the intention is somebody find somebody be impacted enough to send me a DM and we can make some money. At the same time, the intention is what I'm saying is valuable. What I'm saying is true. And it is worth the intention of wanting the financial gain from it. So, you know, it's like, I -

Wesleyne (: 14:06

Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 14:15

Yeah.

Kaivona Parker (: 14:22

I kind of teeter that line sometimes between generous giving from your heart and then being like, but this is valuable right here. So I'm gonna eat some coins.

Wesleyne (: 14:36

So how do you go about that balance for people who are just starting out or on their entrepreneurial journey? How do you go about your intent, your intentions, your big heart, your sowing seeds as, and still ensuring that you are taking care of your house?

Kaivona Parker (: 14:54

would say that because I start my day really praying and saying God draw me to who needs me today allow me to give to whoever needs

and also connect me with the people who either need you, like, I'm just like, guide my hands, guide my mouth, guide my, like, I'm just like, take whatever you need from me today and like put me in the place that I need to be. The level of discernment that I have when I have conversations will allow me to say to myself, okay, I can drop this here and see if it's picked up. And if it's picked up, that's what was intended because I already prayed for the day, I'm covered. So whatever it needs to be, needs to be. And if it's not,

then it may not be for that day, it may be for the future. So if it's a conversation that someone's seeking advice, give them advice, put it on my calendar, let's do it, here's a free session, boom boom, just so you know. Here's what I have for here, it costs this much and da da da da, something you can use right now? Okay, cool, listen, let's chat, let me know how I can support you, future, whatever, so take that, run with it, circle back with me, I'll follow up with you and hopefully we can benefit each other.

Wesleyne (: 15:41

Yeah.

Kaivona Parker (: 16:06

where I can uplift your business and you can uplift mine.

Wesleyne (: 16:10

I love that. I love that. And you know, for me, I am very intentional about I so, you know, there's this whole concept of people talk about giving a portion of your income to charity to your church to whatever. And I do that with my time. So I am very intentional about donating 10 % of my time to people to causes that matter to me. And a lot of times where I am right now in the season, it's helping business, small business owners or

people who can't necessarily afford my services, but I have to balance that with, I'm like, okay, have I given my 10 %? And if I've given my 10%, I have to say, I would love to help you, but I don't have time for the next couple of weeks. And so I think that when we, again, we find our sensor, we have like, these are the things that I know I'm holding dear to my heart, and we have those intentions. We're not giving everything away, but we're also ensuring that those same people, because the people that you pour into today, you never know who they're connected with.

Kaivona Parker (: 17:01

Right.

Wesleyne (: 17:09

When I'm working with salespeople, I'm working with like some, I call them baby sales reps at a company right now. She's like, what's lean? I can't like, nobody's answering the phone. What am I supposed to do? I can't get any meetings. I'm like, I just need you getting stuff on the calendar. I don't care who you talk to. It don't matter. I need you to practice. And so even in when we're having those meetings and those sessions with people, we are practicing our skills. So if you're a service -based business, you are practicing your skills when you're working with somebody in that way.

Kaivona Parker (: 17:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great.

Kaivona Parker (: 17:32

Okay.

Kaivona Parker (: 17:38

Absolutely, absolutely. My coaching sessions sound just like yours, so I feel you.

Wesleyne (: 17:43

Yes, I know because they're like, what, wait, what, what am I supposed to do? So you went from a very industrial type world to the tech world. What were the biggest differences that you saw from that industrial sector to the tech sector?

Kaivona Parker (: 18:00

Not that I had to be quick and industrial, but you have to be quicker on the phone or for tech. There's an aspect of rapport that just comes naturally from you seeing somebody, right? You just see them. So your mind starts thinking about things to talk about, think about shoes, jacket, whatever, that's natural. You have to build from nothing when it comes to...

the tech, well, specifically the cold calling route. And for me, it's more fun. For some, it's daunting and it creates anxiety, but I've always been a creative. I've always been an artist. That's art, music, that's my jam. So I just infuse the things that I love in every day, but that was a challenge at first, or at least realizing that...

those five minutes in person where we was just chopping it up.

That may not be the case every single time that you hit the phone. You might try to do that. They're like, what are you calling? Who are you? What are you calling about? I'll never forget. I was doing a mentorship cold calling session with baby sellers, as you would say. And one of the people that I was calling with, and I was actually, I was on the phone calling to an industrial provider. So it was kind of like a flip.

And they said, you sound like you're my best friend, but I don't know who this is. That's what I want to hear every single time. That was my goal every single day was that when someone put up the phone, at least one person in the day would be like, who is it? Like we would just be chatting and they're like, wait, who are you again? Yes, that's what we want to have happen is that you can build and have connections with people without them even thinking about it. You just pick up the phone and all of a sudden there's a connection.

Wesleyne (: 19:40

Yes!

Wesleyne (: 20:01

They're just you build that instant rapport and you said something that's really important. It's like every day I would want to have at least one person that I could build rapport with so we're talking about an eight -hour day and we're talking about The fact that a lot of times our expectations are unrealistic. I'm gonna book ten meetings today I think that that is very a very high expectation if you have just started in this position How do you go about helping people set the?

proper expectations or KPIs or whatever you want to call them when they are in those roles.

Kaivona Parker (: 20:34

I love metrics. I love reports. I have a know your number training where I get people to understand how many calls to take for this, how many DMs, how many NDMs, how many this. So like I reverse engineer the math for everything. But I think the numbers tell a bigger story. If you use the numbers alone, it's not good. You have to tell the story about what is behind that. What does that mean for me? Because you and I could have the same numbers, but our conversations and our...

our conversation sound can be very different. So, I would say know your number, get your reports, figure out how productive you are with your calls. And then once you have those numbers, let's listen to the conversations and let's talk about what one thing you can tweak in each of those buckets that can help increase those buckets. And that should be your goal, not increasing the number, but increasing the...

part of the sales acumen or the sales fundamental on the conversation that can then increase the number. So for example, active listening, when I first started, terrible, absolutely terrible. I had in my mind what I wanted to say and I was going to say it, irregardless of whatever you just said, I'm holding onto it like an anchor. And my manager was like, Kevon, how does that align? Like, where did that come from? And I had no idea.

He made me sit down and listen to all my calls. I cried. I cried, single tear. I can't do nothing, I never forget it. And my goal then was to repeat back to the person what they said to me for 10 calls. See what the result was. And I would have a notebook. My notebook, I still have it. It was every day. Wednesday, June 12th, call one. Calls would now have these little bubbles and I would highlight it red, yellow, or green. And eventually,

I started to see more green. And when I started to train people, I would say, listen, this is how rough it was for me, but this is how long and consistently I did it before I started worrying about setting hat tricks every single day. I focused on the conversations. So know your number, figure out what the conversation, what needs to change in your conversation to increase that number, and then measure the conversations and the success there. And you'll find that one, you have more fun with your day because these small goals all lead towards a bigger number.

Wesleyne (: 23:01

I love that. It's like get very granular on yes, we need big picture. Yes, we need to see our data. But it's just the one thing you can focus on. And I love the way that you took just the one thing and focus on it for a week or two weeks or a couple weeks and see how you can change and then your results will follow. But if we just look at the sheer data, you're making 30 calls a day and you're not booking any meetings. Maybe you should make 50 calls a day and then you'll book two meetings, right? Like we just.

So often, and I would say that is a leadership failure. And so often the leaders just focus on the raw numbers and they don't drill down into, okay, so how does a person make 30 calls and only book one meeting? What are they doing or what are they saying or what are they not doing? Or like is it the time of day or do they not have the right energy? And I love what your manager made you do, listen to yourself. Because it's hard to listen to yourself, right? You're like, I said this? no, I can't believe I said that.

Kaivona Parker (: 23:43

Yes.

Kaivona Parker (: 24:01

Yes. Yes. Yes. It's so true. And to your point, as a coach, we get the, we get all the things, right? We get dumped on because, you know, managers and, and, we understand we've been in a leadership position. So we know that some top down managers are getting pressure to hit this and they don't, there's a lot of stuff that happened behind the scenes, but ultimately.

It doesn't, you reps are on the front line. Like they are making these calls every single day. We can't put on our reps, the burdens of our quotas in our, in our numbers. Like we have to lift that from them so that as they enjoy their day, they walk closer to that number. And it is a hard balance, but when you take the time to understand reps and listen to their process, like time management for each rep.

I found that you're able to get more production from reps. When one, they feel good. They feel like if I send my rep a call and be like, hey, I heard this, you did this yesterday, let's have one real quick. Like, wait a minute, she actually went to my vibe one and saw my call. Okay, now I'm gonna be more intentional because I wanna send her more calls. As a whole soon, man, I made 30 calls. They don't know what I'm doing, you know, whatever. They just care about the numbers. Let me inflate the numbers so that it looks better.

Wesleyne (: 25:15

Mm -hmm.

Wesleyne (: 25:21

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Kaivona Parker (: 25:28

because no one's really checking or no one's really looking or no one really cares. That's not a good feeling to have.

Wesleyne (: 25:28

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 25:33

And you know, as you were talking, it made me think about something that there's somebody on my team. And earlier this week, I was like, so what's going on? And she was like, what are you talking about? And so I said, it seems like your productivity has dropped a bit. And she was like, but I've been as busy as ever. I've been doing so many things. And I'm like, yep, you're doing a lot of stuff, but you're not completing projects, right? And she was like.

Kaivona Parker (: 25:56

Oof.

Wesleyne (: 25:58

Ooh, you hit the nail right on the head. Like, how did you know that? I was like, when this happens, that means you're scattered. There's something going on personally. Is there some way that I can support you as a leader better? And so again, it's not just about looking at the raw data. It's about looking holistically and understanding how each person responds to stress.

how each person responds to different things. Because again, we had a very open conversation. She shared with me there are some things happening with her personally and kind of has her mind all over the place. So I was like, okay, let's come up with a plan. And so when you do that, it helps your employees to really realize that I'm not just a number. I'm not just the person that's generating this disorder that's booking these calls. I am a whole human and my leader cares about me as a human.

Kaivona Parker (: 26:34

Yeah.

Kaivona Parker (: 26:44

Absolutely. Literally.

Not a, not a bragging moment, but just like the truth of the matter is like humaning for me is priority. And I saw a post about not, it's not about finding your voice, but it's about freeing your voice and giving yourself the permission to use your voice. So I don't say finding your voice anymore, but baby sellers, they are, they are giving themselves permission.

Wesleyne (: 27:04

Hmm.

Kaivona Parker (: 27:16

in real time, in real life, amidst rejection, pressure, quota, all these things to like try and free themselves to a goal. And the psychology behind it is really intense. I'm big on psychology of selling. And the psychology behind the impact that rejection has on us from a cold call, not to mention a quota miss, not to mention a manager not understanding or relating or trying to identify.

Wesleyne (: 27:17

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 27:25

Mm.

Kaivona Parker (: 27:45

There's so many things that come up on a rep who's switching industries or just new to selling. We gotta give some grace or we have to use our influence to free them to be like, what can we take off the plate right now? What we can take off the plate is your number is gonna be your number. That's not true, leave that alone, right?

Wesleyne (: 28:10

Yeah, yeah.

Kaivona Parker (: 28:11

How do you show up today? Did you wake up, like you said, did you wake up, did you work out, did you have breakfast, did you drink, are you a coffee, are you tea, are you water, did you have that with you, you got Beyonce playing, like what you got going on? Like let's control, we can control so that we're not variables coming into a world of variables that I was cold for. Something has to be constant. Something has to be constant in order to see the results.

Wesleyne (: 28:27

Mmm, I love that.

Wesleyne (: 28:34

You speak my language, you know I'm a chemist. So talking about variables and constants, I'm like, yes, yes, you can't just change five things and then say that didn't work. Now let's do, no, one thing at a time people, one thing at a time. And nobody wants to have the patience to just tweak one thing, wait a few weeks and then go to the next. But if you take that one thing and you like really, really laser focus on it, there was a previous client that I had and they wanted to increase the sales in a business unit.

Kaivona Parker (: 28:44

Thank you.

Yes!

Wesleyne (: 29:03

And so what they did for literally an entire year at every single team meeting, they train their team on just a little bit, on just a little bit. And they went from literally having like $50 ,000 in sales in this product line to 10 million in a year, just because they were so consistent in teaching little bits and role playing and doing this. But it was just on this one product line. And people don't have patience for that because they just want quick results.

Kaivona Parker (: 29:10

You see?

Kaivona Parker (: 29:16

Mmm. Mmm.

Kaivona Parker (: 29:25

I love that.

Kaivona Parker (: 29:29

Love that. And honestly, that's why I love I loved onboarding and why starting KPA like it was on that first 30, 60, 90 days because that to me that foundation of these incremental who am I, how do I show up? How do I all those those fundamental things I think are key because for me, I didn't see failure until like a year in I was

great off the bat, which I don't wish for people. Like I wish people struggled in the beginning because to find success really early and then struggle later on, child, that was rough. If I had just struggled for the first year and then got better, I would have been like, okay, I can do this. But to come off the gate really strong and then like a year in try to like, which has happened, I thought I was good realizing that.

inconsistent bad behaviors don't necessarily show themselves as bad fruit until later.

Wesleyne (: 30:31

Hmm, that's a whole word. That's a whole word. Inconsistent bad behaviors don't show as bad fruit until a while, because you're right. You're just planting a little seed and it takes time to see the little ugly head of that ugly fruit that you've been watering and fertilizing. You're like, I've been halfway doing this, or I've been getting by by doing this. And then when the economy tanks, something like COVID happens.

you have a stressful time in your life, that's when those inconsistent bad behaviors start showing their head.

Kaivona Parker (: 31:07

Absolutely. And that's why when managers say, trust the process, not the outcome, because we look at the outcome and we say, but I'm setting meetings, but this is great. But before we're talking about a process that's sustainable over time, we're talking about building a process. Well, at least hopefully that, that regardless of the factors,

proves to be true and we incorporate numbers and all the math behind it or whatever. But if you only focus on the outcome without the process, then when the outcomes don't show up anymore, what you gonna do?

Wesleyne (: 31:43

Leading and lagging indicators. Where are you focusing your attention? If you're only focusing on revenue and profitability and orders, you're missing so many things in the beginning. So many things. Like, you're like, we're hitting our numbers. And I would say that I feel like in the tech industry, that's what happened. We had this bubble that busted. They were just looking at revenue and they were looking at profitability. And what happened was when the economy slowed down.

Kaivona Parker (: 31:45

So.

Wesleyne (: 32:11

All of the, our salespeople actually don't know how to sell. They actually don't know what to do. They don't know how to hunt. They don't have a sales process. It started showing up. And that's why things tanked so quickly and the whole round of layouts, because people were looking at the wrong metrics.

Kaivona Parker (: 32:25

Yes, I was just having a conversation with a potential client and he's starting the business very, very young and was like, okay, give on. I wanted to consulting on how do I build out a sales process, sales team? And he's, what if I just, you know, got a couple of interns just to get some meetings and, and, and, you know, get some stuff on the books. And I said, sure. I'm not gonna tell you that's not an option. It absolutely is an option. What then?

Wesleyne (: 32:30

Ahem.

Kaivona Parker (: 32:54

what happens when they find another job or they don't want to work here or whatever. What do you hope to gain in the process? I know what you want is the outcome, but what do you want to gain in the process? And I said, alternative route, plug myself in here, right? But like alternative route is you have a coach that takes people, we coach them. Here's what you get out of that. You get to figure out what your process looks like. What is your time to close? A script.

Wesleyne (: 33:03

Mm -hmm.

Wesleyne (: 33:08

Yeah.

Kaivona Parker (: 33:23

Possibly what is your outline like how many calls that take you who's your ideal client? Like all these things that you can gain and if they leave What are you left with you're left with a repeatable process that you can plug anybody into at any given time Because you focus on the process which is eventually going to lead to the outcome as opposed to an outcome that you're gonna have to try to build the process over and over again every single time process wins always

Wesleyne (: 33:33

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 33:48

Hmm

Yes, I love to tell people your sales process is called process for a reason. It should be process dependent, not people dependent. Because if you have one that is dependent on a top salesperson or this rainmaker when that person leaves, so does the process. So does all the revenue, everything in their brain.

Kaivona Parker (: 34:07

Thanks.

Wesleyne (: 34:11

So when I'm working with organizations and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, they have Pareto's principles, the 80 -20 rule. They had these two or three people that are making it rain and then everybody else sucks. And I'm like, you are doing yourself a disservice by not extracting things from these top salespeople's brains and reverse engineering it and documenting the process, right? And so I think a lot of times that what happens is we just get into this motion and we like the wins, but we don't want to slow down to speed up.

Kaivona Parker (: 34:16

You

Kaivona Parker (: 34:21

Yep. Yep.

Kaivona Parker (: 34:31

I see them.

Wesleyne (: 34:40

And slowing down to speed up means that we have to put some things in place. If you're a small business, you have to have operational processes, you have to have sales processes, you have to have marketing processes, you have to have hiring processes. Not all at one time, but you do need to have a roadmap to say when we get to this level of revenue, we need to have this so we can hire this person and they can train themselves. And so I do think that...

Kaivona Parker (: 34:40

Yeah.

Kaivona Parker (: 34:55

Right, right.

Kaivona Parker (: 35:05

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 35:07

businesses and sales leaders do themselves a disservice by not documenting.

Kaivona Parker (: 35:13

Yeah, absolutely. Even, even for myself now, every time I have to write a new proposal or I have to do something that's, that's in a new industry, new field, I'm just like, okay, well save this, like drop this down because it's, it's, it's repeatable. And you learn so much from documenting. And I learned that the hard way because I'm more of a talker than I am a writer. Like give me, like, let me speak to text. I'll do that all day.

Wesleyne (: 35:27

Yeah.

Kaivona Parker (: 35:42

But then you forget or you just, how did I get there again? How did that happen again? And if you had just written it down, you can go back to it and refresh, revise and do new things with it. So I'm definitely a proponent of that for sure.

Wesleyne (: 35:59

Yeah, I set a goal for myself a couple of years ago that Wesleyan just wanted to show up and be excellent. And so for me, I literally had to figure out what is Wesleyan not being excellent. And so I listed out all the things that I did not enjoy doing in my business and I hired for those things and I had to extract all of them out of my brain. And I do think as small business owners, sometimes we delegate out too quickly and we're like,

Kaivona Parker (: 36:10

I mean.

Wesleyne (: 36:25

A lot of people, I hate selling. I hate selling. I want to hire a salesperson. I'm like, that is the last job you hire for. You cannot, because that is your revenue, right? But you do have to figure out what is a good use of your time and what is not.

Kaivona Parker (: 36:29

Yeah.

Wesleyne (: 36:37

I love numbers, I love financials. I do not want to keep my own books. Like I have had a bookkeeper ever since I was six months in my business, because I'm not going to reconcile my books, right? That is not a good use of my time. And as business owners, as sales leaders, like we have to understand what is a good use of our time and what is not so good use of our time.

Kaivona Parker (: 36:41

This shit.

Kaivona Parker (: 36:48

Yeah.

Kaivona Parker (: 36:57

Admitting that too is not easy too, so yeah.

Wesleyne (: 37:00

listen, listen, I've been up and down and through the whole valley with that. So I do want to, as we wrap up, you mentioned that you're a single mom, you have your own business. What was your inspiration to really take this risk as a single income household to start your own business?

Kaivona Parker (: 37:24

Jesus, that is the answer. Literally, I had been feeling the move in my push, like God has just been waking me up earlier and I'm just like, Lord, I just took out of bed, I don't wanna sleep in, but I just been feeling the urge to wake up earlier. And usually with an increase in the request for my prayer, I know it's an increase in the demand of what like God needs from me. And I was not...

Wesleyne (: 37:25

Jesus, okay?

Kaivona Parker (: 37:53

not trying to meet that requirement. So he got me fired. It was like, there was a restructure in the organization and I was reporting right to the VP. And I took a moment and I got allowed people from my past to reach back out to me and say, Hey, Kevanna, you know, we're still using your onboarding strategy, right? You know, we're still using four companies that I worked for in the past, employees from that company.

happened to touch me at the same time to say, KP, we didn't get rid of that. We're growing using that same strategy. We just hired someone else for it. And I was like, hmm, okay. So when the final layoff happened, I went home to Jamaica, I'm Jamaican. And I said, Laura, whatever you need, just let me know, because I already know if something closes, you open in something. And when I opened back up my LinkedIn box, I had three requests, like,

Hey, we wanted you to talk with our CEO and try to jive. What's your rates? What's your this, what's your that? And that was God telling me like, do the thing, do the thing. And I said, you know what? I'm going to bet on myself, but just like trust that God has called me to a different place and that I have something to offer that's not hidden behind another corporate banner. That's what I was doing. I was really hiding behind.

the names, because I've been fortunate to work with some really big names and I took pride in that. I work for Nestle. I work for Dejavu. I work for this company. And it's like, no, I work for God. That's it.

Wesleyne (: 39:28

Mmm.

That's good, that's good. Wow, this has been a very, very rich conversation and you have filled my cup with your stories, your transition from going, being in industrial sales to really having to get pushed out, not having the choice, but getting pushed out to start your own business. Thank you so much for sharing your time, your talent and your expertise. And if people want to reach out to you, what is the one best way?

Kaivona Parker (: 39:56

Thank you for watching me.

Kaivona Parker (: 40:01

LinkedIn my LinkedIn profile is the best way to reach out I offer a Calendly block on the right there under my headline So people can feel free to put some time to chat there

Wesleyne (: 40:12

Yes, yes, yes, and I encourage you all to reach out to Yvonne. She's posting great content on LinkedIn as well as Instagram. So if you're of the younger demographic and you prefer Instagram, you should definitely follow her. You should definitely follow her.

Kaivona Parker (: 40:23

Just my name, but thank you so much. This is I listen. I appreciate you for being exactly who you show up as like there's no back hidden and I just, I pray that God continues to bless you as you bless others because you really are blessing a lot of people and, and a single mom to single mom showing up is not.

Always easy, but you do it gracefully, you do it beautifully, and I'm very thankful for this connection opportunity to chat. So thank you for inviting.

Wesleyne (: 40:59

Thank you, thank you, thank you. It has been my great pleasure. Thank you. All right, until next time, we'll see you on Transform Sales.

Kaivona Parker (: 41:02

Thanks, guys.

Kaivona Parker (: 41:08

Bye.