Ian Altman emphasizes the importance of understanding why a client's interest in a solution may have waned, and encourages sales professionals to ask the right questions to determine if a problem is significant enough to warrant a solution. He highlights the need to build a business case for investment in a project or solution, providing evidence of attempts at alternative solutions and convincing the client or prospect of the urgency and importance of solving the problem.
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Welcome to the Same Side Selling podcast. I am your host, Ian Altman. Urgency is a recurring theme that we speak about each month in our Same Side Selling Academy Coach's Corner. That's where our members come together. And they share different scenarios, different challenges they're facing we roleplay different situations. And this notion of urgency always comes up. And the way it's usually presented is a little bit different for each person. But it usually sounds something like, well, this client seemed really interested, they seemed really excited. But now, they're not really pushing this forward anymore. I think it's fallen back in their priorities. And, you know, I just keep calling to check in to see whether or not they've made a decision yet and what it will take to get this deal done. Maybe they offer a discount or something like that. When it comes to urgency, the trap that many people in sales fall into is this, you're pushing the client, you're pushing your prospect, and at that moment, you are more interested in the sale than you are in their outcome. And so the notion of, well, they're not making a decision. Instead, what you should be thinking is, why is this no longer a priority for this client? Was it ever a priority? Are they having trouble selling it to other people internally? Are there other things that have replaced this as a higher priority? See, in a sales environment, what we have to remember is that the first task for anyone in sales is to have a conversation with your client, so that they convince us that their challenge is important enough to solve to make it worth our time to help them find a solution. And if they can't, why would we spend any of our time working on a solution to a problem that they don't think is worth solving? So very often, what happens is, you might start the conversation great. You might say, well, here are the kinds of problems that we help people solve. The are the two or three that we find most prevalent in our industry. Just one of those piques your interest, they say, yeah, the second one, you go, Oh, let me tell you how we solve that. And what happens is we fail to ask the right questions, we fail to listen really well, to find out is that a big enough issue to warrant a change? Is it something that if they don't solve it is going to be a really big problem for them? Is it something where they've convinced us that they have something that's important enough to solve, to make it worth our time and their time to find a resolution? So instead, we jump into pitching our solution? We go, Oh, if you're having this problem, let me tell you how we solved it for this person, that person, let me tell you all the features and benefits all the wonderful capabilities? Oh, I've got a spec sheet, I can show you this. Let me set up a demo. And the reality is, all we know is that that piques their interest, but it may not be important enough for us to focus on a solution. We need to have the discipline to sit back. And when someone says yes, I'm having this problem. Say, tell me more about that. How long has this been going on? What have you done to try and solve that problem? What happens if you don't solve this? Who else is most directly impacted? By that problem? Right now? If we were to solve it, what would success look like? Who else is most directly impacted by that? And who's going to be instrumental and making sure that you're successful? What are we going to measure together six months down the road to know this was worthwhile? Those are the types of questions we have to ask to discover if this is a real enough opportunity for them. And for us. See, when we ask great questions like that, what happens is not only does our client convince us that they have a problem worth solving, but they are also convincing themselves. If you want to get top results for your team, take a look at the Same Side Selling Academy just visit same side selling.com To learn more, when somebody pushes back at them and says, Well, why should I buy this thing that these other people are trying to sell you? They can say oh, because right now here's what it's costing us. Here's what we've done to try and address this. It hasn't worked for us. And if this continues, here's the outcome we're going to have. But if we buy this product or service from these people, then we're going to end up in a much better situation and end up with a better outcome that makes the investment worthwhile. See, if we ask the right questions, we're helping our client or prospect, build a business case to help sell that project internally. If we don't do it, even if the individual we're talking to is bought in and they think it's a great idea. They may not be able to sell it to someone else up the chain. But if I do a really good job of asking the right questions, they will convince themselves and in turn, they'll be able to convince other people why this is important if to do so when you have that situation of a client or prospect that loses a sense of urgency. Weasley perceive it as they've lost an urge didn't seem to buy our stuff. And the reality is, they probably just never had the urgency as to why the problem was worth solving to begin with. And if you focus there first on, convinced me that this problem is worth solving, convince me that you've tried other alternatives. And now you're kind of out of options and you need a better way to solve this, convince me that in your organization, multiple people will believe that this is worth solving, and then we can invest our time together to find the right outcome. These are the types of discussions that we have every month in the Coach's Corner within the Same Side Selling Academy, I encourage you to take a look at the Same Side Selling Academy, see if it will be a fit for your team. And in the meantime, if you have comments, if you have suggestions topics you'd like me to cover, just drop me a note to Ian at Ian altman.com and I'll see you next week on the Same Side Selling podcast solo
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