How to Change Behavior in Salespeople

Same Side Selling Academy > Captivate Podcasts > How to Change Behavior in Salespeople

Ian Altman emphasizes the importance of identifying and addressing the top obstacles to sales performance, prioritizing opportunities for growth. He advocates for a tailored approach, focusing on specific problems and scenarios, building muscle memory, and developing targeted skills that can be applied broadly across the organization.

Biggest Mistakes

  • Trying to do too much, too quickly, which is like trying to boil the ocean.
  • Attempting to change every behavior, focus on every nuance, and change the entire process from beginning to end.
  • Taking a generalist approach and casting a wide net, which captures a lot of junk along the way.
  • Overwhelming salespeople by asking them to apply new approaches in every scenario and situation.

Best Practices

  • Focus narrowly on specific areas that will move the needle the most, rather than trying to change everything at once.
  • Identify the three biggest areas where the team is getting stuck and focus on fixing those.
  • Determine which specific types of opportunities will drive the most growth.
  • Ask each salesperson to identify two opportunities per week that fit into the target category and practice the new approach before contacting clients.
  • Start with a hyper-specific approach and then gradually expand its application to other scenarios.
  • Focus on the problems that you solve for specific types of clients or industries.
  • Practice and refine the new approach regularly to build confidence and muscle memory.

Transcript
Ian Altman:

Ian, welcome to the same side selling podcast. I am

Ian Altman:

your host. Ian Altman, why is it that organizations often

Ian Altman:

struggle to change behavior of their salespeople? I have the

Ian Altman:

great fortune of working with many top performing

Ian Altman:

organizations on how to do just that, how to modify the behavior

Ian Altman:

of their sales people, not because they're not good. In

Ian Altman:

fact, I make it a point not to work with dysfunctional groups,

Ian Altman:

but rather, how do we take people from doing a good job and

Ian Altman:

getting great results? How do we help organizations go from,

Ian Altman:

let's say $100 million to 600 million, from 5 million to 100

Ian Altman:

million. How do we achieve that type of remarkable growth? And

Ian Altman:

the trap that many organizations fall into is this, they try to

Ian Altman:

do too much, too quickly. And what I mean by that is it's

Ian Altman:

almost the trap of trying to boil the ocean. So what they

Ian Altman:

think of is, okay, I need to change every behavior. Focus on

Ian Altman:

every nuance, every single element. We need to change our

Ian Altman:

entire process from beginning to end. And the reality is that the

Ian Altman:

best performing organizations, what they tend to do is focus

Ian Altman:

very narrowly on specific things that will move the needle the

Ian Altman:

most. It's why, when I work with organizations, what we do is we

Ian Altman:

say, okay, where are the three biggest areas where your team is

Ian Altman:

getting stuck today? Let's focus on fixing those three areas. So

Ian Altman:

it might be well, our biggest area is in opening up new

Ian Altman:

opportunities. And it usually prompts me to say, so which

Ian Altman:

specific types of opportunities will drive the most growth. And

Ian Altman:

oftentimes I get this pause because they haven't thought of

Ian Altman:

it that way. See, they look at all opportunities as being

Ian Altman:

equal. And what instead, I encourage them to look at is, if

Ian Altman:

you were successful with just a subset, which subset would move

Ian Altman:

the needle the most? And then they say, Oh well, the types of

Ian Altman:

accounts that would help us the most, that would generate the

Ian Altman:

highest margin, best business for us, they happen to fall into

Ian Altman:

this category. And I say, Okay, so now, how do we want to

Ian Altman:

approach opening opportunities and earning the attention for

Ian Altman:

those niche opportunities? It might be 5% of the total

Ian Altman:

opportunities, but if those the ones that are most impactful,

Ian Altman:

how can we address a different approach for those individual

Ian Altman:

circumstances? And so what happens is, then I say to them,

Ian Altman:

okay, so that's what you want to do overall, if you want to get

Ian Altman:

top results for your team, take a look at these same side

Ian Altman:

selling Academy. Just visit same sideselling.com to learn more.

Ian Altman:

Here's the way we're going to engage your team. Let's ask each

Ian Altman:

person to identify two opportunities they're going to

Ian Altman:

pursue each week that fit into that category with this

Ian Altman:

approach, and we're going to practice and role play those

Ian Altman:

scenarios for those scenarios before we ever contact those

Ian Altman:

clients. So now we know exactly how we want to approach it. It's

Ian Altman:

hyper specific, and it's geared towards those opportunities that

Ian Altman:

have the greatest potential for growth in our organization. See,

Ian Altman:

when we take a generalist approach, we target, we end up

Ian Altman:

casting this wide net, and we capture a lot of junk along the

Ian Altman:

way. We don't really get a sense of what's going to move the

Ian Altman:

needle. Instead, if you're hyper specific and you say, these are

Ian Altman:

the types of accounts that I want to go after, let's say, in

Ian Altman:

each territory, and now, within each territory, okay, let's talk

Ian Altman:

to each rep about which two opportunities you're going to

Ian Altman:

take this new approach with this week. And let's role play and

Ian Altman:

practice those and then you're going to go, after just those

Ian Altman:

two using this approach, what happens is we start to build and

Ian Altman:

refine a better approach. Now, if you ask those reps, look, is

Ian Altman:

this overwhelming? Their response is, well, it's not

Ian Altman:

overwhelming. This is actually pretty simple. I only have to do

Ian Altman:

this for a couple of opportunities. It's hyper

Ian Altman:

specific. But what happens is they learn through that

Ian Altman:

approach, how to apply this to other scenarios. So the next

Ian Altman:

time we do this, maybe a month later. So we've done two

Ian Altman:

opportunities each week for a month now, we say, okay, so what

Ian Altman:

other opportunities might this apply to? Oh, well, you know

Ian Altman:

what this client, we're up selling or cross selling

Ian Altman:

additional services. I think this would approach, this

Ian Altman:

approach would work well. And we say, Okay, how would you adapt

Ian Altman:

that for this scenario? And now we're doing is we're building

Ian Altman:

skills that are more broadly applicable across the

Ian Altman:

organization. See, we start by being very specific. And then

Ian Altman:

what happens is the team starts to realize, oh, I can use this

Ian Altman:

same formula for this scenario and that scenario, I can use the

Ian Altman:

same scenario for this vertical or that vertical. What often

Ian Altman:

happens is we realize that the best way to reach out is by

Ian Altman:

focusing on the problems that we solve for. Those people. So the

Ian Altman:

more specific we get, the more likely we are to capture their

Ian Altman:

attention. So you might say, Oh, we help organizations become

Ian Altman:

more efficient, which is very generic. And anyone could say,

Ian Altman:

or if you were reaching out to people who were in process

Ian Altman:

manufacturing, you could say, when I deal with people in

Ian Altman:

process manufacturing, who are trying to solve this specific

Ian Altman:

problem. Here's what they often tell us, we can help them the

Ian Altman:

most to address and now we're being very specific. So taking

Ian Altman:

that approach, it means that now when those reps are going after

Ian Altman:

a new market, a new opportunity, they now say, Oh, I have a

Ian Altman:

formula for how to deal with this. I now know based on the

Ian Altman:

experience of going after two accounts per week with this very

Ian Altman:

specific approach, I'm seeing what works and what doesn't

Ian Altman:

work. I'm seeing how I adapted my message, what worked and what

Ian Altman:

didn't work. Now I can apply it elsewhere. If instead, if I

Ian Altman:

said, Oh, I want you to apply this in every scenario, in every

Ian Altman:

situation, what would happen is it would be overwhelming for the

Ian Altman:

reps, and when we are overwhelmed, what do we do? We

Ian Altman:

tend to fall back on the way we used to do things. It's like, if

Ian Altman:

I take a golf lesson, I learn a new way to chip. That's fine. I

Ian Altman:

go out during the lesson, I'm like, Oh, that's pretty good.

Ian Altman:

But if I don't practice it at all, if I don't come up with

Ian Altman:

scenarios where I'm using on a regular basis in a pressure

Ian Altman:

situation. Let's go back to the way I used to do things, but if

Ian Altman:

I practice, I'm going to get better. So what happens is, when

Ian Altman:

I learn something new, like, here's a new way that I'm going

Ian Altman:

to I'm going to chip on the golf course. I say, okay, when I get

Ian Altman:

in this scenario, I'm going to use that new technique, because

Ian Altman:

I built enough muscle memory that I'm good at that now I

Ian Altman:

start hitting that shot, I get more comfortable with it. And

Ian Altman:

then what happens is, I say, you know, I could probably use it in

Ian Altman:

this other scenario too. And then I become just generally

Ian Altman:

more confident to play that shot. It's the same thing in

Ian Altman:

business. It's the same thing in sales. So rather than trying to

Ian Altman:

boil the ocean, get more specific. So next time you've

Ian Altman:

got an initiative and you're looking to grow, you're looking

Ian Altman:

to change people's behavior. Instead of thinking big, think

Ian Altman:

small. Think what are the two or three areas that, if I improve,

Ian Altman:

will move the needle the most, and then have each rep pick a

Ian Altman:

couple of opportunities that they're pursuing to apply this

Ian Altman:

new approach, and I think you'll drive better results for your

Ian Altman:

business. If there are topics you'd like me to cover on the

Ian Altman:

next episode of the same side selling podcast, just drop me a

Ian Altman:

note to Ian at Ian altman.com and I'll see you next time on

Ian Altman:

the same side selling podcast, so long you

B2B organizations call on Ian Altman when they want to accelerate revenue growth with integrity.
Visit our FacebookVisit our TwitterVisit our LinkedIn
+1 (240) 242-7460
Newsletter
Receive proven insights and expert advice to help you modernize your approach to marketing and sales.
Sign Up
Copyright © 2022 Ian Altman. All rights reserved.
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram