With so much risk, when leading a business, no one can afford time for theoretical experimentation if the goal is to be at the top – you have to know what works for you from the get-go. So instead of leaving success up to luck, it’s best to learn the inside and outs of hiring, sustaining, and continuing to empower top-level leaders in sales and customer service – but how exactly is that achieved? With Lord & Lentini been in business since 1978, its CEO Steve Lentini has more than a couple of efficient and fool-proof tricks up his sleeve. Take the guesswork out of establishing the next big business and leave it up to Lord & Lentini to make a daunting and rigorous process look as easy as a kindergartener’s homework with their decade’s worth of industry expertise and highly optimized processes.
It’s hard to think that such a soaring company took off from a flat line. On November 18, 2002, at Waltham Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, Steve’s brief trip to the ‘other side propelled him to try harder in life. “What held me back was thinking that I wasn’t enough. Sentiments that echoed “woe is me’ or ‘why me?” But at his closest encounter with death, Steve began to ask: why not me? With that change in mindset, he has since held the Sandler Sales Institute license for Massachusetts, published and developed his work into Universal Sales Training, led as VP of Sales for various companies, worked with software and medical device companies, and so much more. Steve became an entrepreneur, sales trainer, business coach, and personal coach. And soon enough, the roadmap to Lord & Lentini was in the works.
“We started in sales and have had many companies,” Steve shared when asked about Lord & Lentini’s beginnings. “Throughout the years, we’ve sold services from B2B, restaurant chains, packaging, paper, cleaning, hospital supplies… you name it; we’ve probably done it.” Lord & Lentini didn’t shy away from opportunities to make bank; where possible, they showed versatility. What allowed them to stand apart – and, more impressively, stand firm in an ever-changing, dog-eat-dog industry – from the competition was this gritty adaptability and the mindset of being open to new things. “Corporate leadership requires you to keep an open mind, leaving behind an acorn-minded way of thinking. We discover new things every day; new planets and ongoing creation. We get a new chance to start all the time,” Steve explained. “Open-minded leaders must even be open to small-thinking people around them. We must embrace the moment because the complaint game is only a story we tell ourselves.”
This openness to opportunity and people has led Lord & Lentini to places vast and unimaginable. Apart from this, the processes they hold at the very core steady their fast-growing establishment. “The pillars of leadership are accountability, compromise, and responsibility.” Steve enumerated. “It’s the leader’s job to model these behaviors, which is the first step to a healthy culture.” However, the crux of their leadership training lies in their authorized partnership with Everything DiSC by Wiley. “To hire and engage a top-performing sales team, we implement Sales Force Development Training that helps companies increase customer engagement, develop creative solutions, and grow sales.” With the help of their training and learning assessment technology, Lord & Lentini can provide companies with valuable insights that inspire growth, development, and improvement within the workspace.
As per Steve, the key to business is providing value first. So Lord and Lentini prioritize leading with value, feedback, and accountability to help companies build a top-tier sales team. Steve’s primary goal, however, is to share his journey to inspire, serve, impact, and connect with others. Referring to his near-death experience, he realized how acorn-minded his thinking used to be, “Small-minded thinking does not go away. But it is a journey. With the right tools and experience, your thinking expands. We have to learn to embrace what shows up.”
