Welcome to the Same Side Selling podcast. I am your
Ian Altman:host, Ian Altman. What's the biggest thing that drains
Ian Altman:resources from your business? Well, if I ask that question to
Ian Altman:a group of executives, I might get a variety of different
Ian Altman:answers. And ironically, the least common answer is the one
Ian Altman:that I think might be the biggest drain for businesses.
Ian Altman:And that is when you're selling into an opportunity, and your
Ian Altman:client just stays with the status quo. So what do I mean by
Ian Altman:that? I mean, that you're trying to sell something to that client
Ian Altman:or prospect. And at the end of the process, it's not that you
Ian Altman:lose out to a competitor, you lose out to a non decision. In
Ian Altman:essence, what they do is they say, You know what, we're just
Ian Altman:gonna stick with whatever we did in the past, if we did this
Ian Altman:manually in the past, we're still gonna do it manually. If
Ian Altman:we're using this other vendor in the past, we're gonna keep using
Ian Altman:that same vendor, we're just gonna stick with the status quo.
Ian Altman:If you want to get top results for your team, take a look at
Ian Altman:the Same Side Selling Academy, just visit same side selling.com
Ian Altman:to learn more. So for starters, why does that happen? Well, one
Ian Altman:of the biggest reasons why organizations stick with the
Ian Altman:status quo is because there's not enough pain for them,
Ian Altman:there's not enough impact to them of not changing. So what
Ian Altman:happens is, ultimately, they're saying, you know, your stuff
Ian Altman:might be pretty good. But I don't yet think that it's worth
Ian Altman:it for us to take the risk of stopping what we're currently
Ian Altman:doing to switch to your stuff. And when that happens, what it
Ian Altman:means is that as the seller, we were more passionate about
Ian Altman:solving this problem than they were. Because if they truly felt
Ian Altman:that what they were doing right then wasn't effective, if they
Ian Altman:truly felt like there was a consequence of their business of
Ian Altman:not changing, then they would have changed. But what's
Ian Altman:happened is, they've all of a sudden decided that it's okay to
Ian Altman:just stick with whatever they were doing in the past. Now, as
Ian Altman:an organization, if you're looking to change, you have to
Ian Altman:do two things that are very difficult for our customers to
Ian Altman:do. The first thing is you have to acknowledge that maybe you
Ian Altman:made a mistake, hiring that other vendor, or using that
Ian Altman:other method to solve whatever it is you're trying to solve.
Ian Altman:And that's something we as humans, we don't like to do. The
Ian Altman:second thing that you have to do is you have to potentially fire
Ian Altman:the person you liked enough to hire to begin with. That's why
Ian Altman:in many cases, what will happen is, somebody has an existing
Ian Altman:vendor, they're doing a horrible job, you come in and identify
Ian Altman:some areas, that would be great improvement for their business.
Ian Altman:And in fact, you identify deficiencies with their current
Ian Altman:vendor. And instead of switching to you, what they do is they
Ian Altman:say, oh, you know what, that's a really good point. And they
Ian Altman:reach out to their existing vendor, and they say, here's
Ian Altman:this idea. Can you guys fix this? Here's this deficiency,
Ian Altman:can you remedy this for us? As if that organization will never
Ian Altman:make another glaring mistake again? But of course, they
Ian Altman:probably will. So how do we avoid those status quo
Ian Altman:decisions? Because I will tell you that it's extremely
Ian Altman:frustrating for sellers. Because if you lose to a competitor,
Ian Altman:you're like, well, the competitor had a better
Ian Altman:proposal, they had a better solution, they better understood
Ian Altman:the client's needs, we decided to go with them. No, No. The
Ian Altman:status quo is, look, we decided doing nothing was better than
Ian Altman:doing business with you. And that's kind of a deflating
Ian Altman:mindset to walk into. How do we get past that? Well, it's
Ian Altman:probably no surprise that we're going to get past it using the
Ian Altman:Same Side Quadrants. The Same Side Quadrants are a part of
Ian Altman:chapter four of Same Side Selling in the hardcopy of the
Ian Altman:book, it's on page 76. I don't know where it is, and the
Ian Altman:electronic version. But if you search for Same Side Quadrants,
Ian Altman:you'll find it. And the idea of the Same Side Quadrants is it's
Ian Altman:a method for taking notes during our meetings. The idea is that
Ian Altman:in the upper left quadrant, we take notes about the issue that
Ian Altman:the client is trying to solve the upper right quadrant, we
Ian Altman:take notes about the impact or relative importance, namely,
Ian Altman:what happens if they don't solve this, how important is this
Ian Altman:compared to other things on their plate? In the lower left
Ian Altman:quadrant, we take notes about the results, namely, what does
Ian Altman:success look like? What are we going to measure together and
Ian Altman:the lower right quadrant, we make sure that we identify who
Ian Altman:else needs to be included or involved in this process, who's
Ian Altman:most directly impacted? The big mistake that people make is
Ian Altman:sellers find themselves trying to convince the client they
Ian Altman:should do something? And here's a pivotal change that I want you
Ian Altman:to consider. I want you to be a little bit skeptical. I want you
Ian Altman:to when you reach out to clients, always in the back of
Ian Altman:your mind. Ask yourself, have they convinced me that they have
Ian Altman:a problem that's worth solving? Had they convinced me that if
Ian Altman:they don't make this change, something bad is going to happen
Ian Altman:with them, that makes it worth going through the effort of
Ian Altman:making a change. See if I went to a good doctor, and I said,
Ian Altman:Yeah my shoulders bother me a little bit, I want to have
Ian Altman:surgery. A good doctor wouldn't say, Okay, let me scheduled for
Ian Altman:surgery. A good doctor would say, How long has this been
Ian Altman:going on? What have you done to try and solve this? Have you
Ian Altman:taken ibuprofen? What about Tylenol? Does it keep you up at
Ian Altman:night? Does it wake you up at night? Does it impact your
Ian Altman:ability to do things every day that you'd like to be able to
Ian Altman:do, because what they're trying to gauge is the severity because
Ian Altman:a good physician is always weighing the risk, and your
Ian Altman:current discomfort with the potential outcome they can
Ian Altman:deliver for you. And if they don't feel that it's worth that
Ian Altman:delta, that change between where you're at and where you're
Ian Altman:trying to get to, they're not going to try and push you into a
Ian Altman:procedure or surgery. Now, a bad doctor might, but a good doctor
Ian Altman:won't. And in sales, it's the same thing. So we have to do is
Ian Altman:you have to go into those opportunities with a little bit
Ian Altman:of skepticism. I don't mean, throw a damp towel on on
Ian Altman:whatever their ideas are. So what happens if you don't solve
Ian Altman:this? And how important is this compared to other things on your
Ian Altman:plate? What would happen if three months from now we hadn't
Ian Altman:done anything? And if they say, Well, you know, then we'll wait
Ian Altman:another three months. That's not someone who's likely to make a
Ian Altman:decision. Now, this almost sounds counterintuitive, because
Ian Altman:typically, in sales, people say, Oh, this is an opportunity, I
Ian Altman:can't let this go because I'm supposed to bring every deal
Ian Altman:across the finish line. It doesn't work that way. That's
Ian Altman:not the way business operates. We have to have the humility to
Ian Altman:say not everyone's a good fit for us. And as soon as we do
Ian Altman:that, then we start realizing that we need to be more
Ian Altman:selective in the pursuits that we go after. So we don't waste
Ian Altman:our time and energy on the people who aren't going to do
Ian Altman:anything. If your client or prospect can't convince you
Ian Altman:their problems worth solving. How much time should you spend
Ian Altman:trying to develop a solution to something that they don't think
Ian Altman:is worth solving? And the answer is zero. So next time you're
Ian Altman:looking at opportunities, ask yourself, have they convinced us
Ian Altman:for each opportunity that this problem that's worth solving,
Ian Altman:have they convinced us that if they don't solve this bad things
Ian Altman:are going to happen? What that'll do is that will
Ian Altman:eliminate many of the vampires that are sucking the resources
Ian Altman:out of your business, and you'll be able to better focus on the
Ian Altman:right opportunities that will lead to growth. Instead of
Ian Altman:wasting your time with people who are never going to make a
Ian Altman:decision. There are topics you'd like to hear just drop me a note
Ian Altman:to Ian@Ianaltman.com and I will see you on the next Same Side