Ian Altman: Ian, welcome to the same side selling podcast. I am
your host. Ian Altman, why is it that organizations often
struggle to change behavior of their salespeople? I have the
great fortune of working with many top performing
organizations on how to do just that, how to modify the behavior
of their sales people, not because they're not good. In
fact, I make it a point not to work with dysfunctional groups,
but rather, how do we take people from doing a good job and
getting great results? How do we help organizations go from,
let's say $100 million to 600 million, from 5 million to 100
million. How do we achieve that type of remarkable growth? And
the trap that many organizations fall into is this, they try to
do too much, too quickly. And what I mean by that is it's
almost the trap of trying to boil the ocean. So what they
think of is, okay, I need to change every behavior. Focus on
every nuance, every single element. We need to change our
entire process from beginning to end. And the reality is that the
best performing organizations, what they tend to do is focus
very narrowly on specific things that will move the needle the
most. It's why, when I work with organizations, what we do is we
say, okay, where are the three biggest areas where your team is
getting stuck today? Let's focus on fixing those three areas. So
it might be well, our biggest area is in opening up new
opportunities. And it usually prompts me to say, so which
specific types of opportunities will drive the most growth. And
oftentimes I get this pause because they haven't thought of
it that way. See, they look at all opportunities as being
equal. And what instead, I encourage them to look at is, if
you were successful with just a subset, which subset would move
the needle the most? And then they say, Oh well, the types of
accounts that would help us the most, that would generate the
highest margin, best business for us, they happen to fall into
this category. And I say, Okay, so now, how do we want to
approach opening opportunities and earning the attention for
those niche opportunities? It might be 5% of the total
opportunities, but if those the ones that are most impactful,
how can we address a different approach for those individual
circumstances? And so what happens is, then I say to them,
okay, so that's what you want to do overall, if you want to get
top results for your team, take a look at these same side
selling Academy. Just visit same sideselling.com to learn more.
Here's the way we're going to engage your team. Let's ask each
person to identify two opportunities they're going to
pursue each week that fit into that category with this
approach, and we're going to practice and role play those
scenarios for those scenarios before we ever contact those
clients. So now we know exactly how we want to approach it. It's
hyper specific, and it's geared towards those opportunities that
have the greatest potential for growth in our organization. See,
when we take a generalist approach, we target, we end up
casting this wide net, and we capture a lot of junk along the
way. We don't really get a sense of what's going to move the
needle. Instead, if you're hyper specific and you say, these are
the types of accounts that I want to go after, let's say, in
each territory, and now, within each territory, okay, let's talk
to each rep about which two opportunities you're going to
take this new approach with this week. And let's role play and
practice those and then you're going to go, after just those
two using this approach, what happens is we start to build and
refine a better approach. Now, if you ask those reps, look, is
this overwhelming? Their response is, well, it's not
overwhelming. This is actually pretty simple. I only have to do
this for a couple of opportunities. It's hyper
specific. But what happens is they learn through that
approach, how to apply this to other scenarios. So the next
time we do this, maybe a month later. So we've done two
opportunities each week for a month now, we say, okay, so what
other opportunities might this apply to? Oh, well, you know
what this client, we're up selling or cross selling
additional services. I think this would approach, this
approach would work well. And we say, Okay, how would you adapt
that for this scenario? And now we're doing is we're building
skills that are more broadly applicable across the
organization. See, we start by being very specific. And then
what happens is the team starts to realize, oh, I can use this
same formula for this scenario and that scenario, I can use the
same scenario for this vertical or that vertical. What often
happens is we realize that the best way to reach out is by
focusing on the problems that we solve for. Those people. So the
more specific we get, the more likely we are to capture their
attention. So you might say, Oh, we help organizations become
more efficient, which is very generic. And anyone could say,
or if you were reaching out to people who were in process
manufacturing, you could say, when I deal with people in
process manufacturing, who are trying to solve this specific
problem. Here's what they often tell us, we can help them the
most to address and now we're being very specific. So taking
that approach, it means that now when those reps are going after
a new market, a new opportunity, they now say, Oh, I have a
formula for how to deal with this. I now know based on the
experience of going after two accounts per week with this very
specific approach, I'm seeing what works and what doesn't
work. I'm seeing how I adapted my message, what worked and what
didn't work. Now I can apply it elsewhere. If instead, if I
said, Oh, I want you to apply this in every scenario, in every
situation, what would happen is it would be overwhelming for the
reps, and when we are overwhelmed, what do we do? We
tend to fall back on the way we used to do things. It's like, if
I take a golf lesson, I learn a new way to chip. That's fine. I
go out during the lesson, I'm like, Oh, that's pretty good.
But if I don't practice it at all, if I don't come up with
scenarios where I'm using on a regular basis in a pressure
situation. Let's go back to the way I used to do things, but if
I practice, I'm going to get better. So what happens is, when
I learn something new, like, here's a new way that I'm going
to I'm going to chip on the golf course. I say, okay, when I get
in this scenario, I'm going to use that new technique, because
I built enough muscle memory that I'm good at that now I
start hitting that shot, I get more comfortable with it. And
then what happens is, I say, you know, I could probably use it in
this other scenario too. And then I become just generally
more confident to play that shot. It's the same thing in
business. It's the same thing in sales. So rather than trying to
boil the ocean, get more specific. So next time you've
got an initiative and you're looking to grow, you're looking
to change people's behavior. Instead of thinking big, think
small. Think what are the two or three areas that, if I improve,
will move the needle the most, and then have each rep pick a
couple of opportunities that they're pursuing to apply this
new approach, and I think you'll drive better results for your
business. If there are topics you'd like me to cover on the
next episode of the same side selling podcast, just drop me a
note to Ian at Ian altman.com and I'll see you next time on
the same side selling podcast, so long you