Ian Altman discusses common mistakes in procurement, emphasizing the importance of not commoditizing oneself. He advises vendors to focus on what's in the customer's best interest rather than succumbing to unrealistic demands for line item pricing and cost disclosure. Altman suggests engaging with line-of-business people to understand client needs and past experiences, which can help tailor services to achieve better outcomes. He recommends shifting the focus from price to results by discussing long-term success metrics with clients. Vendors should articulate their value proposition and be prepared to negotiate based on overall solutions rather than individual items.
Welcome to the Same Side Selling Podcast. I'm your host Ian Altman. Hey, just checking in. See if you made a decision yet. What keeps you up at night? What's your biggest challenge? Who's the decision maker? These are some of the worst lines people in B2B sales have ever been taught. Yet people are still teaching people to say these awful things, thinking somehow it's going to end up in a better situation. Let's start with the first one. Just checking in. You've all received this on your voicemail. You've all gotten this in a text message. You've all gotten it in an email. You've picked up the phone, and someone goes, "Hey, I'm just checking in on this and that. It's pathetic. The only people who say that are people who are desperate and haven't connected with their clients about what's actually important, so instead you just call and say, "Yeah, I'm just checking in. So why do we do that? Well, we usually do it because our manager, our boss, said, "Hey, what's going on with this account? And you say, "Well, I'm not really sure. Well, why don't you check in with them and see what's going on, and left your own devices without a better way to follow up. You do exactly that, and you call in and you say, "Hey, I'm just calling to check in to see whether or not you've made a decision yet. What you are immediately telegraphing to your client is that you're more concerned with the sale, than you are with their outcome. It also means you probably haven't had a meaningful conversation about what they're trying to solve and why they need to solve it. So now your question is really self-serving. What you're really asking is, hey, can I process this order for this thing I was trying to sell you, I don't really know what your motivation would be, but I'd really like to get the sale, and it's kind of pathetic. It's it's almost like you're a tin cup and a cardboard sign away from begging. It's like, hey, just calling to check in, see if you made a decision yet. God bless. And if it's awkward for you, what is your client or prospect thinking? They're thinking, "Hey, if you have something of value for me, you wouldn't had to call to check in. I would have already called you. So we need a better way to follow up with people. The second one is, "Hey, what keeps you up at night, or what's your biggest challenge? It sounds like it's a good idea. It sounds like well, you're doing some discovery. You're finding out what their priorities are, and this is what people who train people in sales, who maybe aren't as experienced as they should be, if they're doing the training, will tell people. No, no, these are good discovery questions. They're open-ended questions. We get a lot of information. What I want you to recognize, though, is that more often than not, the biggest problem you can help your client solve is currently a blind spot for them. So they don't even know that you can help with these things because they're not in touch with those problems. So I don't want to lead with what's your biggest problem or what keeps you up at night. They might say, "Oh, what keeps me up? What keeps me up at night? Oh, I have a new puppy and he licks himself. Do you have a solution for that? No. Okay. Well, what else keeps you up at night? My neighbor throws loud parties. Hmm. What else? And and you're fishing for something you can actually help with, so that's a terrible one. And finally, the one of who's the decision maker. Once again, people who train salespeople, and they shouldn't be if they're teaching this question, but they're saying, "Well, you need to find out who the decision maker is. So naturally, the question you would ask is, "Who is the decision maker? Which is a terrible question, because in essence, what you're saying to somebody is, "Look, the organization couldn't possibly entrust you to make this decision. So who is the decision maker? It's immediately adversarial and gets you banging heads against the other person. So how do we fix these?
Ian Altman:Well, instead of saying, "Hey, just calling to check in, if you've done a good job early on, you're always ensuring you show up to solve and not sell. And if you know what you're solving for, then when you haven't heard from somebody, you can say, "Hey, when we spoke, you mentioned you were having this problem. It was having this impact in your organization. Here's why it was so important to you, and here are the results you're looking for. I haven't heard back. Did you guys find another way to solve that problem? And now you're immediately asking about their problem and the outcome they're looking for, not asking about your sale. So that's the first most obvious area, and it's something we teach in our Same Side Selling Academy called the Same Side Quadrants. It gives us the ability to structure our conversations around things that will matter to the client when we reach back out to them. The notion of what you know what keeps you up at night, or what's your biggest challenge? When we get into those questions, instead we want to do is we want to identify what are the major problems we're really good at solving, and then we say to people instead of what's your biggest challenge, we say well typically when I speak with people in your position, they usually come to us because they're trying to solve one of these two or three major problems, and for the right organizations, they tell us we deliver amazing results. But sadly, only about half the people we talk to are the right fit for how we solve that. So I don't yet know that we can solve it for you, like we have for others. But that some of you are facing, I'm happy to learn more to see if we might be able to help. See, many organizations know very well what you sell; you just aren't necessarily in touch with why people need it, and then finally the notion of who's the decision maker. Instead of focusing on who's the decision maker, what we want to do is ask questions like, who would be instrumental in ensuring the success of this project going forward? Who's a lynchpin that, if they're not included in this might make this deal go sideways. Who's likely to chime in in the 11th hour? Who would either kill this initiative or bless it? Those are things that will help you identify who's involved in the decision process. And here's the real spoiler alert in all of this: just because you're talking to the CEO, that doesn't mean that they're making these decisions. In fact, more often than not, what happens is they're trying to make sure their team is on board because they're not concerned about whether or not you can deliver. They're probably concerned about whether or not their team will adopt whatever they're investing in. So finding out who the key stakeholders are, who the key stakeholders are, to ensure success, those are better questions. So I realize that most of the bad questions that people ask, just other people have taught them to ask these questions. But there are better ways to do this. These are the kind of conversations we have every day in our Same Side Selling Academy. If there are topics you'd like me to cover? Just drop me a note to Ian at Ian altman.com. Of course, you can learn more about our academy at the samesidesellingacademy.com. So sameside selling academy.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Same Side Selling podcast. So long.
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