I am so thrilled to share this conversation with author and speaker Ian Altman about a conversation we all have to contend with one way or another - sales! Everyone sells something at some point, whether it’s in a job interview or a client presentation...and at some point, everyone is going to be sold to.
Ian’s book, Same Side Selling, asks “Are you tired of playing the sales game?”
The most widely used metaphors in sales are those related to sports, battle, or games. The challenge with this mindset is that it means one person wins, and the other loses. Instead of falling victim to a win-lose approach, what if you shared a common goal with your potential client? How might things change if the client felt that you were more committed to their success than making the sale?
As Ian says in the opening quote - it’s not about a series of tactics, it’s about selling something you care about that helps people solve real challenges that you also care about!
I wanted to share my own takeaways from Ian’s approach that have helped me facilitate deeper conversations with my clients and potential clients.
Stay in the problem space slightly longer than feels comfortable. My listeners with Design Thinking experience will not be too surprised to hear that jumping from problem to solution quickly is not any more effective in sales conversations than it is in innovation conversations. Staying in the problem space means listening longer and more deeply to people before you share your amazing solution to all their worries. Ian’s “same side quadrant” notebook has actually been a helpful reminder to do just that.
Ask “what’s the cost of not solving this challenge?” Make sure you understand not just the problem today, but the cost of not solving the problem in the near future. This conversation can help you both understand how to measure the impact of any effort you make to solve the problem.
The Cost of your solution is often irrelevant in the face of the cost of the problem. Once you really know the cost of the problem, talking about your fees can feel less challenging.
What is particularly interesting me to are the wider implications of Ian’s metaphor driven-approach. What metaphors are driving the key relationships in your life? Those metaphors are narrative threads that link (and color) each and every moment of the relationship. The simple shift from a game to be won to a puzzle to be solved is a profound one. If you think of your marriage as a battle or your job as a circus, the way you name the game will affect how you play it.
I’m really grateful to Ian for this new metaphor - and I think you’ll enjoy it too!
Show Links
Website www.IanAltman.com
LinkedIn: /in/IanAltman
Facebook @GrowMyRevenue
Ian’s Same Side Sales Podcat: https://www.ianaltman.com/same-side-selling-podcast/
Your Chocolate is in my peanut butter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJLDF6qZUX0
Same Side Sales Journal: https://www.ianaltman.com/store/Journal/
Full Transcription
Daniel: So I'll officially welcome you to The Conversation Factory, Ian Altman. I really, really appreciate you making the time to do this. I felt really lucky that Dan Levy just linked to you on a little LinkedIn conversation about the best sales books that people have read and you were nice enough to agree to come on. I've read your book. It's a blockbuster. So, I really appreciate your time.
Ian: Hey, thanks. Thanks for having me. It's cool.
Daniel: So the thing that is amazing about your book is that the idea behind it is so simple and I can explain it to somebody in literally 30 seconds and I feel like it changes their mental model.
Ian: I would love for you to do that because your conclusion may be totally different than what Jack and I intended.
Daniel: Yeah. Well, I mean, so here's the thing, the metaphor of an adversarial sales relationship, it means that we're fighting each other and it's a game of one-upsmanship, right? That sales develops a new tactic and buyers develop a new tactic and it's a war. And instead of trying to win the game or beat the other side, what does it look like if we get this on the same side in solving the problem as a puzzle rather than as a game to be won.
Ian: Yeah, that's it. Wow. Mission accomplished because you never know. You never know how people are going to get it when they read it. But thankfully that's that the gist!
Daniel: So here's the thing that I'm really curious about. The metaphor is really, really powerful. When did that metaphor start to cook in your brain? Because I know it didn't just pop into your head fully formed.
Ian: Well, I'm a lifelong integrity-based seller. So, I had started businesses from zero grew them to a pretty good size where the last company I ran before starting to write books and help people on growing their businesses, we grew to a value of over a billion dollars. And it was always based on thinking in my client's shoes saying what's important to them? What do they really need? What are they trying to accomplish? And if I can align with that, then it makes it easy for everybody. But if instead, if I'm just trying to push stuff on somebody, let's face it, none of us likes to feel that way. And then I was actually... I was giving a sales training class before it was called Same Side Selling in the Washington D.C. area and Jack Quarles, who's my co-author in Same Side Selling, he and I didn't really know each other that well.
Ian: And Jack, who had a consulting business on purchasing and procurement and cost savings signed up for the class. And I thought, wow, this is cool. Jack's actually signing up so that he can help his business. And the reality is that what Jack told me after the fact was, "Look, I had clients who were buying from people you had trained and they would defend why it was okay to pay more for them than other people, and I wanted to learn what would these devious tactics you were teaching people, is and I came there and that it was all integrity based." And then he realized, well wait, Ian's teaching people the same thing. I'm teaching my people just from a different angle and to us as far as we know this is the only book on sales that was ever written by somebody on the buying side and the selling side, which really should be the same side.
Daniel: Yeah. What I find so really delightful about this, so I'm curious about how that conversation, that was your first moment. That was your meet cute, right? In the story of this romance of the two of you writing this book together. That's the meet cute where it's like... and you mentioned the book, The Chocolate and The Peanut Butter, Peanut Butter and The Chocolate metaphor, which only people of a certain age will remember that advertisement, and it's a great advertisement. I'll link to it in the show notes because if you haven't watched it you should definitely, it's a classic. How did the conversation progress from, oh this is a conversation that should be happening, to, okay, let's actually tell the world this story together?
Ian: Well the interesting thing is, so Jack and I became first friends, and we would talk... and Jack would say, "So, why do you suggest this process?" And I said, "Well, because I think it helps give the truth and here's what's going on in the buyer's mind." And Jack said, "Well, you know what? It happens to work really well, but that's not what's going on in the buyer's mind, here's what's actually going in the buyer's mind because I work with buyers," and we looked at each other and said, "That perspective would be really valuable for people, because most people have no idea what's going on in the buyer's mind." In fact, in the keynotes I do in the workshops, I do with businesses, I spend a lot of time on, here's the research I've done with over 10,000 CEOs and executives on how they make an approved decision.
Ian: And what I find amazing is that people are shocked and they, really that's what's going on? Yeah. Oh, I had no idea. And it's funny because as I started doing this research, now the first hundred people, you'd get an answer and say, "Wow, look at that." The first a hundred people all pretty much were asking the same questions when they were making a buying decision, trying to approve something. That's interesting. And then a few hundred later you're like, "Wow, I'm really surprised that it's still the same answer over and over," and then into thousands, you're like, "Okay, wow. It's still the same thing." And then as I started speaking overseas and different parts of the world, it's like, "Well, I'm sure it's going to be different here," now it's the same thing. Wow, that's really fascinating. And so it's just taken this journey where now oftentimes it's just helping people become aware. It's even in regular communication with one another, we often don't think so much about why does the other person feel this way and why are they saying that? We just said, "Okay, are they done? So now I can give my bet."
Daniel: Yeah. It's interesting how the friendship with Jack just gave you that deeper level of empathy, which we say we're supposed to have, but it's hard to get.
Ian: Yeah. I don't know if it was so much empathy, it's just I was ignorant. And then, through that, I mean, I guess empathy came out of it, but I would love to give myself credit and say, "Well, I was trying to demonstrate more empathy." It was just all of a sudden I realized, wow, here's something that I thought I knew that I didn't. That's embarrassing.
Daniel: So, you two develop this friendship, you start to learn a lot about his side of the table as it were.
Ian: Yeah.
Daniel: And when does this idea of, let's be on the same side, start to evolve?
Ian: I think the concept of Same Side Selling-
Daniel: Because presumably, this is back in 20, you wrote the book in 2014 or published it in 2014. So, this is going back a-ways.
Ian: Yeah. The first version of the book, the first edition was 2014. We wrote it in 2012 or start writing... Anytime someone says, "Oh, I'm going to write a book," you're like, "Okay, well you're in for the long haul." I've never met an author who said, "Wow, that wasn't so much faster than I thought it would." It's always the inverse. And so for us, it was... All of our discussions were always about how do we get buyers to understand this, and how do we get sellers to understand this so they work together. And it's fascinating because Jack is equally passionate about getting salespeople to understand the buyer's perspective, as he is about getting the buyers to understand the sales person's perspective. And it's not like, well, just these sellers need to understand stuff, we both equally are passionate about when the buyer is doing things like reverse auctions.
Ian: Like, look, you might think you're getting the best deal, but you're really not, and here's why. It's not always... I mean because of movies and personas, it's always, "Oh, the hyper-aggressive salesperson is doing X, Y, and Z." But it happens on all sides of the issue. And so if you get people together and try and find common ground, then usually end up with a better outcome.
Daniel: Yeah. Why does sales have such a bad reputation do you think?
Ian: Mostly because it's been earned. With a bad reputation has been earned over time, you think about it, you have the hyper-aggressive, pushy salesperson, no one's born with this notion of, well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to impose what I want on other people and I'm going to try and manipulate them into doing what I want. That's not the way we're born. And so someone is taught that unfortunately, somewhere along the line things work. So years and years ago, if you delivered something that didn't work, if you delivered something that wasn't effective, your customer might tell the few people they were close to who they have face to face conversations with. And today when that happens, that extends to the free world. So you used to be able to sell snake oil and get away with it. You used to be able to, if you were selling automobiles, you used to be able to sell somebody a lemon and no one would know. And now of course, if someone doesn't get great service, they post on social media and the car dealerships like, "Well how about we just give you a new car," because it's not worth it for them to do it the wrong way. So similarly in... I spend most of my time with businesses who are selling to other businesses. So the B to B space.
Ian: And in that context, you can't afford to deliver something that doesn't work for somebody, because your reputation is toast. You're not going to get repeat and referral business. But if you deliver amazing value, people will tell everybody they know the good news. And so if you focus instead on how do I get to that good place, it works really well. And whatever "Idea" you're selling, think about it. If someone's selling you an idea for their reasons, you're much less likely to be interested than if they are helping show you how their idea can help you.
Daniel: Yeah. So I guess one of the questions I've been... While I was reading this book, I was looking at it through my lens where I'm a business selling to other businesses and I was also looking at it through... My fiance Janet works for a beer company, it's a sustainably produced beer. And I was thinking about it from her side where it's beer. And in thinking about integrity-based selling and are these techniques more appropriate for complex products and services or do they work for anything in your mind?
Ian: They for anything that has differentiation. And what I mean is if you were just selling ball-bearings, and if the way you delivered ball bearings was the same as anybody else, it wouldn't matter. So in..., it was Janet, right?
Daniel: Yes.
Ian: Okay. So in Janet's case, if she's selling beer but it's sustainably produced and it uses organic products instead of toxic products and things like that, her conversation with either a distributor or if she's dealing with the end purchaser, not the end customer, but her discussion is, look, if people didn't like the taste of our beer, anything I'm about to tell you it doesn't matter. So the first thing is you need to make sure that it's appealing to people. And my guess is you have patrons who come in, who would find sustainable and organic to be important to them. If you don't, none of this matters. But do you? And if they say, "Yeah, I do," how do you think they would respond if there was a beer that you could show was produced sustainably and responsibly. And what the ingredients were organic versus who knows what. Do you think that might attract additional guests to your establishment if you have that? Yeah. Okay. Then what's the best way for us to test this out to make sure that you're not buying this long term and that way we'll know whether or not this effective. Because if it is, this could be a game-changer. If it's not well then it's not worth changing. Right?
Ian: And now what they say is, but why wouldn't they like it? And now they're convincing you. But it's about realizing well, who would care about that sustainably produced organic ingredient beer? Now, I don't know if it's an organic ingredient. I added that in because that is my wife's [dent 00:12:37].
Daniel: It is, and I love that I'm getting free sales consulting for Janet out of this but one of the things that I'm noticing in the arc that you're painting, is that a, there's an arc that you're getting towards. I have a sticky note here from the Same Side quadrants section of the book where you say this on page 80. I want to be sure that we don't miss anything important. Can you share what sparked you to pursue this project? And then you have like, hey, we're just doing research. We're losing X money per quarter, or why do you care? Can you just give us a price? And what I'm hearing in your speech here and in these questions in the book is just a tremendous sensitivity to the way you express an idea in a way that's inviting to people and a lot of sensitivity to what you're getting back from the other person. Is it hot? Is it cold or is it a dead fish?
Ian: Yeah. And the thing is that, so one of the things I talk about often on stage is that effective selling is not about persuasion or coercion. It's about getting to the truth as quickly as possible. So, you're not trying to convince somebody else, you're just trying to find out what the reality is. So for example, if someone says, "You know what, our bar, here's our demographic," and I'll go stereotypical "Our bar is truck drivers who cuss and don't care at all about the environment, don't care about sustainability," so I'm painting a broad brush that probably isn't accurate, but that's it. So we don't care about if it's sustainable, we don't care if it's organic. In fact, they just want to brand that happens to be on their shirt or hat right now.
Daniel: Right. She gets to walk out immediately.
Ian: Yeah. That's not Janet's audience. And says, you know what, then we're probably not a fit. Now, some people love our beer and their primary reason isn't that it's sustainable or that it's ingredients are organic, and I'm happy to provide a keg for you to try out. If people love it, we'll do more of it. And if not, then you shouldn't buy it. And then that might tip the scale. But the idea is that she shouldn't want to sell somebody a beer that goes bad in the keg because people aren't drinking it. Because that's not good for their business. It's not good for her brand. Because what happens is people say, "Oh, well you had this last week you don't have it now, why not?" Well, because no one cared about it. Well, that's, that's bad for the brand overall.
Ian: And so the idea is that if we think instead about how can I understand what that person wants and what's important to them, and see if I can find common ground with them, then that works. And at the same thing happens in conversations. I mean you can pick the most hyperbolic political situation or social topic and I can say to you, "Hey Daniel, you pick either side of this issue, it doesn't have to be what you believe, it could be the opposite of what you believe and take the stereotypical approach for that." And I'll show you how we get on the same side. That's the key to this stuff, is making it so that it's not hyperbolic, it's not yelling at each other. It's just trying to find common ground.
Daniel: Yeah. And, I think one of the keys is, you have to believe that what you're selling matters.
Ian: Absolutely.
Daniel: And if you go back to the ball bearing thing, even the guy selling ball-bearings can believe that the way he delivers them is unique. And his understanding of your problem and what you're trying to achieve with those ball-bearings is unique.
Ian: You can never effectively sell something that you don't believe in. So I often, when I'm working with businesses, I say, "Look, here's why it's important for your employees to believe in whatever it is that your mission is and what you're selling," because if they don't, then as soon as the client pushes back and says, "Well, it doesn't seem like that's great." It's like, you're right, it's not that great. I don't believe it either. Our stuff sucks.
Daniel: Well, can I push back on that because I listened to Jordan Belfort's audiobook the Way of the Wolf, I don't know if you've checked it out. Maybe you saw the movie.
Ian: I've not it.
Daniel: Have you seen it? Though-
Ian: I've seen the movie. I've seen the movie, yeah.
Daniel: Yeah. So you know some of his techniques just by watching that movie, I mean, there's a guy who sold really inferior products to people who probably shouldn't have bought them and he was really good at it.
Ian: But notice that was snake oil and we know it was called out to be Snake oil and people went to jail over it.
Daniel: That's true. That's a good point and match.
Ian: So when I talk about effective, the idea is that I should say you can't effectively and with integrity sell something you don't believe in. And so for example, when I'm talking to an organization and they say, "Look, so we've got this event, we've got 1,000 people, we've got 500 people, whatever it happens to be, we've got 5,000 people, we want you to come speak." The first question I ask is, "What are you trying to accomplish?" And people will say to me, "Oh well, is this a tactic?" Is this... It's like, no, I want to find out what they're trying to accomplish because if I don't believe I can accomplish that for them, I'll recommend somebody else.
Daniel: Yeah. The tactic thing is fascinating because there's a... I want to talk about this a really absolutely amazing notebook because there... I think about this like dating, there's questions you want to ask but you can't ask them. But you still want to get to the answer of, what's your budget? And you say in the book, and I get this, is that the buyer mentality they freeze up and they're like, he's just going to use that information to charge us 98.2% of what our budget is. Right? Versus this question with the issue and the results of the premises, until we know what success looks like, we don't know what it would cost to deliver. And that's a very interesting way of phrasing. I can't tell you the price because I don't know what you want yet.
Ian: Well and here's the thing that I want listeners to understand, and tell me what you can about what you know about your audience. Because I want to make it as relevant to them as possible.
Daniel: Doing this on-air is hilarious.
Ian: I understand. But you know what, keep in mind, I know on the same side of telling podcasts, we, fortunately, had done some additional research that goes beyond the podcast. So I know at a point in time based on who responded to a survey what my audience is on my show. But I don't know other than that much about my audience other than when people send in questions and comments and things like that. And I say, huh, I hope that's representative, but it may not be. So I'm putting you on the spot with it, but I want to make sure it's relevant to people. So any insight you have can help me try and make it most relevant to them.
Daniel: The truth is the podcast is primarily for me. Anybody who's-
Ian: That's awesome.
Daniel: .... listening, I apologize. This is my podcast and it's for me. What I like to know and what I like to understand is how to communicate with people. And I like to understand how to create impactful change. And my background is in product design and product innovation. And so there are definitely people who listen to this podcast who are from product design and product innovation. And what product design and product innovation come up against, is organizational alignment challenges and organizational change. And facilitation of group dialogue is one way that we create spaces so that good decisions can get made. And so people who listen to this podcast are interested in I think all of those things, you let me know if that's true or untrue guys.
Ian: It's so let me put it in that context because that's really helpful. In that context, if someone's asking you what does this cost, and you don't know what success looks like, it's the same thing as asking somebody in product development, "Hey, how much is it going to cost and how much is it going to create... How much is it going to take to create this new product?" And the people on the product team say, "Well, what does the product need to do?" "And what does the successful product look like?" And the person says, "Well, I'm not going to tell you that, I just need to know what it's going to cost and how long it's going to take." And you're saying, "Well, but if I don't know what the end goal is, if I don't know who our target audience is, if I don't know what the form and function has to be, if I don't know what makes it successful or not, then I can't tell you."
Ian: It's like, "What's it going to take? How much does it cost? And how long is it going to take to build a home?" "Well, do you want a log cabin or you want something like the Taj Mahal?" "Doesn't matter, how long is it going to take and how much it's going to cost." "Well, those are two very different facilities." "Well, it doesn't matter, just tell me what it cost." So the reality is that when we guide people to how to ask these questions, it happens to be with sincerity. It's if I don't know what success looks like, I can't tell you what you need. For example, in my business, there's a difference between, so what do you want to be the impact your organization? If it's I want them to learn some new concepts and we're going to build this on our own firm and mentor people internally, that's great. That's a keynote. I come do an event, I'm done.
Ian: If it's well, I want to make sure it has a lasting impact and here's where we're going to measure it. Okay, in order to achieve that result you just specified, it's more like, here's a 90 day program I do where I do this workshop with people and then here's what we do for 60 days afterwards. And we're going to survey people in advance and here's what we do to make sure you have a lasting impact, and that's a bigger investment that's likely to generate a much higher return investment per invested dollar. Or if it's well, we want to change this whole culture that we have around business growth. Okay, well that's something that's probably going to be an engagement we do over the next year, but here's how we're going to measure that along the way to make sure the investment makes sense.
Ian: So if you think about an any context, it would be like if you went to the doctor and you said, "Well geez, so I have one condition," the doctor can either put a bandaid on it or they can treat the underlying condition so that it goes away. And two very different things. If you say, what does it cost? What if you just need the bandaid, we'll give you that. But if you actually want to go through this treatment, it takes more analysis, more time and more effort on everybody's part.
Daniel: That's really helpful. And I'm wondering, because I love the sort of the small, medium and large impact arc. I think there's a question around how do you, if you're looking in front of... if you've got a customer in front of you and they're thinking in terms of small impact. And you want them to be thinking in terms of larger impact. Now obviously you have your own reasons for wanting to do that. I'm sure doing a 90 day program's more satisfying for you and is more profitable for you, but it's also more valuable to them. Do you have a way that you... Is that a clear question?
Ian: It's a great question. And since this podcast is for you, what do I you to do is share with me, so when your clients engage you, my guess is there's stuff you do on a small level and on a larger level. What's the difference? What does those sound like?
Daniel: Oh, I mean it's very similar shape. Doing a one off training is, it scratches the itch for people. They say, "Oh, well we need to have better collaborative intelligence skills, we have facilitators, we want to level them up." But the sort of, well, how do we actually support them in implementing these skills day to day? That's much harder. It's a bigger left.
Ian: So it might sound like this. Someone comes to you and says, "Well, so yeah, all we want to just for you to come to do this one workshop." Now does that ever happen where you think to yourself, I don't think that's what they really need.
Daniel: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ian: Right? So I'm sure there's times where you think to yourself, well that isn't what they need with it. What it sounds like they really need is this other stuff.
Daniel: Right. And that comes from understanding the impact that they're trying to create.
Ian: Sure. So, if they came in and said, "Oh, when is this workshop?" Okay, that's great. "How did you come to the conclusion that you need this workshop?" Well, because here's [inaudible 00:24:54] and so-and-so said they did a workshop with you and it was fantastic. Okay, well, so sometimes when people come to me it's like, "Hey, can you just do this workshop? Our people are already familiar with these concepts and we're going to roll with it and we're going to implement it." For other organizations, what they tell me is, "Look, we know that people are going to retain so much in the workshop, and is there a way to coach people and mentor them along the way so that we get better results down the road, which level are you looking for?"
Ian: And so I'm not pushing them in one direction or another, I'm just helping them become aware that there are multiple ways to work with me and they can pick the one that's most helpful for them.
Daniel: Yeah. But-
Ian: And sometimes you're going to get people who say, "Yeah, you know what, all we can afford right now is the workshop, and all we can do right now is the training." Okay. Do you think there's a point in time where you might be in a position to do it the other way? Because my feeling is, my experience is people get a much greater result from the other. And if you tell me, hey, next quarter we could do it this other way to generate better results as opposed to right now I would be more comfortable if you waited so that we gave you a better result because it's going to be better for you and [inaudible 00:26:10] that you're going to tell your friends and it becomes better for me.
Ian: I'm okay waiting if those results are important to you. And now what comes to their mind is, wow, Daniel is actually more concerned about our results than maybe we were 30 seconds ago, and maybe we should be more interested in our results. Maybe we're better off waiting and then what goes to their mind is, but if we're going to get those results, why should we wait? We should just get those results now. And there's this whole process it just evolves through.
Daniel: Right? And then they sell themselves on, well, maybe we really should do the larger thing because it makes more sense.
Ian: Now keep in mind the larger thing isn't always the right answer. So there's times where someone will say, "Well, here's what we need." And I'll say, "I don't think you need that, I think all you need is this and then let's see where the results are." There's a business I'm working with right now where they've got a sales force that's around the world of about a thousand different people. And they said, "Well, so we want to do this whole program to get everyone up to speed." And I said, "Well, how would you feel about if we took a group of let's say 20 people and we implement this, and we measure it, and let's see what kind of results we get over the next 120 days?" "And if we get great results there, then we rinse and repeat, we replicate it everywhere.But my guess is we're going to make some adjustments along the way and it's going to be easier to make adjustments with 20 people than a thousand people. And once it's working well then we can expand it."
Ian: Now the funny thing is the response was, "Well that sounds great man, we feel like we're in really good hands. Can't we just skip that and go to the thousand people?" I was like, "Well no, because I actually think this is going to be better for you." But the idea is that as soon as you make it clear to your client that you are as committed to the results as they are, then all of a sudden they think to themselves, wow, so this person isn't just trying to sell me something for the sake of selling something. There is a reason it's in my best interest for each step along the way. So now I can put my trust in them to guide me to get me there.
Daniel: And this is the essence of, I don't know if you're a fan of the Trusted Advisor book, but this dea of honestly seeming like this is integrity based selling. I care about your results as much as my own because of the longterm truth that there is no other real way to do it.
Ian: Yeah. And it's... You know what I'm not familiar with the book per se, but the whole concept, I always say anybody who teaches integrity based selling, I'm a fan, because there's been so many people who have taught the antithesis of integrity based selling that anytime somebody is doing something that is good and positive, it's great. The trick is that when people will often say is, so I have to do this so that it appears that I'm more interested in their outcome. And it's like, no, no, no. You actually have to genuinely be interested in their outcome. I ran into a guy who was playing in a charity golf tournament yesterday, ran into a guy I know who had wanted me to come in and work with his team, and they just weren't in a position of business, they were struggling and I was, "No people, look, once you're in trouble, it's tough for me to help because you tend to make short term bad decisions or longterm bad decisions because of you're short term cashflow needs."
Ian: So you'll take the client who isn't necessarily a good client for you, because you feel you need the revenue. Because you can't see that six months from now, that client is going to become the bane of your existence. And so you start making decisions like that. And so I saw him at this event and I said, "I've got this event coming up on October 15th, which is this... " I do these group immersion programs very rarely like once or twice a year. I said, "And it's the kind of thing you can send your team and it would cost a third of what it normally costs, So I just want to make you aware of it." He said, "Oh, thanks so much." And the person next to us said, "Oh, so he was trying to sell you on his program?" And he says to them, "No, he's actually trying... we really wanted to do this, but we couldn't afford it, and this might be a way we can."
Ian: So it's like, there's a hundred people playing this tournament. There's one guy who I mentioned this to because I know for his company it's like, "Oh, here's a way I can actually afford to get what I wanted."
Daniel: Yeah. I feel like the flip side of integrity based selling is obviously having your own integrity, but also a certain confidence in not just what you're selling but in yourself. And I don't know if you have any perspectives on how you sort of selling can be a... there can be internal panic. There can be, oh God, they need to know this. I don't have the answer. How do you manage your own internal responses that maybe you don't want to say everything that's coming up in your mind?
Ian: Well, I think in some cases the insecurity people have is all expectation management. Meaning people have expectation that anyone I meet with who has an interest in what I do, I should be able to close that deal. And this person should become a client. Instead of, if you start with the premise of anytime I run into somebody, there's a greater than 50% chance that they're not a good fit for what I do. And so my job, getting back to kind the one of the core themes of the book, is to determine whether or not there's a good fit. Do they have an issue that has enough impact on their business? That's important enough to solve to make it worth my time to help them find a solution. And once I figured out what's important to them to solve, can I really help them get there?
Ian: So do you think that doctors, like a good physician, do you think they have this problem where they're like, "Wow, this person has this terrible disease that I can totally cure, but man, I don't want to come off like I'm selling it." No, they're thinking, look, if I don't help this person, they're going to be way worse off. They're lucky to be here.
Daniel: And the answer with a doctor of like, "Oh actually you're fine and just leave," is a great answer. It's not like, "Oh, I didn't get to give them any medicine."
Ian: Exactly. Or you come to the doctor and they say, "Wow, you have a condition that I'm pretty sure this is your condition, and I don't treat that, but I can refer you to an expert who does," is not seen like, "Oh, you lost the sale." It's, "Wow, that doctor I can totally trust because they pointed me to the right treatment." In fact, what I often say to people is that the biggest challenge for many individuals is that you're selling your features and benefits instead of what you should be doing is seeking out the symptoms. So if we stayed with this medical metaphor, the idea is, what are the symptoms that your client is experiencing that are an indicator of a condition that you're good at treating. So for example, in your business, the idea of, well, so I'm going to facilitate these types of meetings to help people collaborate better.
Ian: Well that's one way you could pitch it or you could say, "So if you have organizations where their creativity gets stifled, if in your team you have people with different viewpoints and it results in products not getting formalized because people have disagreement and they can't draw consensus. If they feel like their creativity well has dried up, that's where I help." And if people say, "Oh, I have one of those problems," then they're interested in talking to you.
Daniel: Sure.
Ian: So if I say to people, "Oh gee, I can help improve your sales organization," a lot of people might know what that means or may not. But if I say, "Look, if you have people who are constantly focused on price instead of value, if you have clients who, you know you can help but you can't earn their attention, if you have trouble standing out compared to the competition, those are areas people come to me to solve. Then if you're having more of those issues, there's probably a discussion worth having. And if you're not having more of those issues, then I'm probably not the right person to help you right now."
Daniel: Yeah. And that's really focusing on the why, instead of the what, which is so much more impactful.
Ian: Yeah. We hope so.
Daniel: We hope so. So I'm going to change gears. I have a sticky note here that I want to talk about, which is, I checked out your podcast night, I was really blown away at how much value you provide in your podcast literally every single episode, whether you're interviewing somebody-
Ian: Oh wait, that's accidental.
Daniel: Yeah. You're just trying to educate yourself. I know this is like... I'm curious if you have some favorite episodes that you can, I really liked the one where I'm blinking out on his name. It was about deep listening and it was so beautiful and really, really amazing conversation.
Ian: Yeah. Oscar Trimboli.
Daniel: Yeah. Are there some other like key lessons you've learned in some of your podcasts recently.
Ian: You know what I mean? I learn constantly. So the Same Side Selling podcast, it's become something that I love doing. And about once a month, I do a solo episode but I have guests on, and it's generally other bestselling authors and people talking about concepts that are fascinating to me. I've had Seth Godin on a couple of times, and every time Seth is on, there's at least one part of the interview where Seth says something and I'm thinking, wow. And then I remember, oh yeah, I'm the podcast host so I can't just, wow. I can't just take the note and take it in. I actually have to interact and go on. And we've become friends over the years. It's funny, Seth was at an event, he was on the podcast and we had talked, I'd figured it was on the podcast or after the podcast about a trip he had made this family to Peru. And last year I take my family to Peru.
Ian: We were talking about Machu Picchu and Lima and Cusco and the going to Peru, if you've never been, definitely put it on your list. It's absolutely amazing. And one of the things we talked about was we both discovered this great Peruvian chocolate. And the chocolate in Peru is just incredible. And of course, much like every other topic, Seth Godin knew everything about the origin and why their chocolate was so great. And so a couple of days later I stumbled across this chocolate at Trader Joe's and I said, "Wow, I don't know if you've tried this, but Trader Joe's has this amazing chocolate, not quite as good as Peru, but man, it was really amazing just at Trader Joe's, this inexpensive chocolate bar is phenomenal." And Seth says, "Oh dude, I've been on the Trader Joe's chocolate bar train for forever."
Ian: And so he's speaking in an event where I'm involved with the organizers, and I'm sitting in the front row and Seth's doing the keynote and he comes up on stage and before he says anything, he walks over the front, reaches into his pocket and hands me a Trader Joe's chocolate bar. And he goes back without saying a word to anybody. And I mean for two minutes, I'm just crying laughing because when I left my house that morning, I said to my wife, I said to Deborah, I said, "Wouldn't it be funny if I brought one of these chocolate bars and handed it to him?" And Deborah says, "When you get them up here and handed to him, when he's on stage?" I said, "Even if I saw him beforehand," I was like, "What's he going to do with it." I'm not going to do it.
Ian: So the funny part was not only that he did this, but that I had thought about doing the same thing. I'm like, no, I can't pull it off. So his is great. Another favorite of mine is Alison Whitmire is an executive coach. I think that she was on season one, and then I think I had her back in season three or something like that. And she talks about coaching and giving and receiving feedback. And it still is one of the most popular episodes. And it was just this whole notion of how do you ask for and how do you receive feedback. And it was really fast. And I mean, I've done hundreds of episodes, so I've got many favorites and just depends on the given topic. There's a friend of mine, Marcus Sheridan, who speaks about content marketing and my team, I don't really look at the analytics, and my team says you and Marcus could just chat about random names you found the phone book and somehow people find it fascinating.
Ian: And so that's always a fun conversation. But there's a lot of them. I mean it's very rare. In fact, there are times where I'll interview somebody and if I don't think that the interview resonates like you might not with this one, then we won't publish it. And so it's just a matter of, if I don't think it's going to serve my audience or the guests, then we won't publish it. And it's nothing against them. It's just, look, maybe I didn't guide you properly in the interview, but if it's not going to resonate, I don't want to take up people's time.
Daniel: Yeah. I actually remember you mentioning Marcus in your book and you talked about assignment selling, which I'd never I'd never really heard that term before. It seems like a really interesting way of determining that getting a signal back of measuring the motivation of a person that you're working with.
Ian: Yeah. And for the benefit of your audience, I'll briefly describe it. And Marcus talks about assignment selling In his They Ask You Answer, which just has a second edition that just came out as well. And it's really fascinating stuff. But in the idea of assignment selling is that, you create content that is designed to educate your customer. And what he found in his research is that, look, he found that the customers who took the time to read at least 30 pieces of content on his website where the people who 85%, excuse me, 85% of the time, those people said we're going to make a decision to work with you. And the people who didn't, didn't. And so he started a model that said, look, here's this e-book we have, happens to be about 30 pages long, and here's all the key questions and it because I'm sure you want to make sure that you're fully informed when you make a decision.
Ian: So I'm going to send this to you in advance, and if you do not have time to review this before our meeting, let me know and we'll just reschedule. And what he found is that the people who didn't take the time to read it, weren't serious anyhow. And people who were or would and Marcus's keynotes, he's also a great speaker, I know Marcus is his material inside and out, backwards and forwards, and I like being the audience to hear his talk. I mean that to the extent that I know his material, he and I were speaking to event together. He was flying in from someplace overseas. The organizer said, "What if you miss your flight?" And Marcus said, without joking, "If need be, Ian can give my talk." And the organizer said, "Well, I mean it's putting a lot on him." I said, "No, it's true. I could give his talk, it won't be the same, but it'll be pretty similar-
Daniel: You'll hit the marks.
Ian: ... and he could probably do the same for me." The idea is that with assignment selling, you're saying, "Here's the homework that makes sure that you're properly prepared and so that you're well-informed, and if you can do this in advance, great, and if you can't, we're going to reschedule." And people say, "Oh, you must've lost a lot of business." No, he did fewer appointments and doubled his business.
Daniel: Sure. So I'm curious about Alison's, I'm going to listen to that episode with Alison as well because coaching is so important. Asking good questions to get people to give you good information. Seems like that's a really important component of what you do. Where do you see the relationship between coaching and sales? What were some of the lines that you connected between those two area?
Ian: You know what? I mean, and I can't remember and I couldn't do justice to Alison's brilliant insight. And Alison, just to give you context, Alison used to be the producer of the TEDxPugetSound conference. And she was the one who first brought Simon Sinek to the stage. And so she's absolutely brilliant. She's been executive coach, leadership coach and she's got a whole business that talks now about identifying how people by default communicate under crisis. So they have this whole system where they put people through a video series and then say, "Okay, so now you're this person, here's this video of this interaction. How would you answer these questions?" And it gets to the root of how people would actually react. Because most systems that do any sort of assessment, anybody smart can gain the system. And this is a system you can't gain. So it's brilliant.
Ian: But the idea behind coaching is that I believe that in the world of sales for example, and really sales is really a matter of just getting people to... helping people do a decision. And so to a certain degree, that's what coaching is. Coaching is just asking the right questions and listening intently enough so you can ask the next intelligent question, to help people reach a conclusion. And so there's great synergy if done properly. Now, in some cases the differences that I often say that I'm not as effective as a coach, because I eventually run out of patience. So someone's like, "Well you keep asking questions," so they reach a conclusion themselves. And I'm like, "Look, I give people two bites of the Apple by the third one, it's like, 'Look, here's what you may want to do.'" And so that's where I fail as a coach.
Daniel: Because you have insight that you want to share.
Ian: Yeah. But a great coach is insight too. They just have more patience than I have.
Daniel: Well, let's attach this then to the everyday conversations. Because we talked before we started this recording about your keynote around the Same Side Conversations and talking about really difficult issues.
Ian: Yeah.
Daniel: I'm wondering where some of these skills of asking and probing come into your daily life and then also like how we can use them for some of these more high intensity conversations around divisions.
Ian: Well, and so the thing is you can take any polarizing topic, right? And if you want to pick one, we can run with that. But literally it can be gun control, it can be abortion, it can be politics, like any of these things that aren't typically hyperbolic. And I can show you a model and like, here are six steps in how you end up getting on the Same Side. And so if there's a specific... If there's a topic that you say, "Oh, this is one that's always controversial," we can go there. The idea for me is, look, "I always want to find the ones that everyone says, 'Oh, you couldn't possibly do that one,'" and show that it's actually pretty easy. So if I picked something as hyperbolic as, I don't know, pick one. You tell me which... What happens-
Daniel: Oh, you want to break down a difficult, a very-
Ian: Topic, yeah. And I'll show you how this would work.
Daniel: Let's talk about global warming.
Ian: Okay. So we talk about global warming. You can pick either side, you can pick a side that you believe or you can pick the opposite side and just take a position from the stereotypical position of that. And the reason why I always tell people, "Look, you can pick either side." Is because it's not about what side they picked, it's just about understanding and appreciating all sides of it.
Daniel: Yeah. So, is this about gaining empathy with people who think that nothing's wrong?
Ian: Well, so the idea is, pick a side of the issue. Give me the wrote position of one side of it. So, what's the position of one side of that issue?
Daniel: Right. Yeah I mean, if we were going to ask... get Greta Thunberg on here, she would say that, we've already spent most of her carbon budget and time is running out.
Ian: Yeah. So, the argument would be that people who say there's nothing more important than global warming, would say, there's nothing more important to global warming because the planet is about to implode and if we don't do anything, we're not going to have a planet. And gee, most people haven't understood that if we don't have a planet, that we're not going to be able to live on a planet that doesn't exist and can't sustain life. Okay. So, that's one position. What is the viewpoint or position from people who oppose that viewpoint? What do people say who don't agree with that viewpoint? What's their position?
Daniel: Yeah, I mean, I think some people just say that the science is inconclusive, right. They'll say that we don't really know and why should we spend so much money changing everything about our lifestyle.
Ian: Yeah. If you're somebody who believes in global warming, and if you're somebody who now is evaluating people who don't, then what we do is we say, "Well, those people are climate deniers." Because now we do is we're projecting we're labeling other people. But instead, what we need to say is, "Okay, so what do other people believe?" So, you started making the case for, here's why global warming makes sense. And then what we can say is, so the first step is, let me understand the other person's perspective. First let me assert what I have to say and the other person should listen to it without judging it and say, "Okay, I understand that. So, that's a valid concern. If you believe that that's the issue then first I shouldn't judge you or label you, it's just, okay, this is what they believe and here's why they believe it. Great.
Ian: So, then, it's for us to understand the other side. The other side's position, and I'm just arbitrarily, when you pick one side, I'm going to take the other side just for the purpose of this. So, other people say, "Well gee, we've already made great progress in terms of this. We don't know what the impact would be in an environment without us doing these things. We're doing the right things or other places in the world that are... There are other places in the world where they're doing this horribly and they don't care about this at all. But what we really need to do is step back..."
Ian: And they would say that the... they would characterize people who believe in global warming as they would label them as, tree huggers and it's not science-based, whatever. But that's not helpful for either of us. So instead, what we have to look at is, okay, where's the common ground? Is there a group of people who if they believed that the earth was in peril, wouldn't care about that? Unlikely. Okay. It's unlikely there are people that say, "Oh yeah, we're in trouble, but I don't care about it." All right, let's start with that. So, there is some common ground. Both sides of this issue, believe that the environment is important and that we need to preserve the earth. It's just one group feels like, oh my God, this is about to collapse and the other group doesn't.
Ian: But if both groups feel that these things were important, so the people who are opposed to some of these concepts might say, "Well, gee, if we're opposed to it, it's because we feel it's going to hurt commerce or hurt business or this and that." Okay. But it's not the sort of, they're putting profits ahead of something else. Where do we find the common ground? Well, both sides want to make sure that we have clean drinking water, that the air is safe to breathe and that we're not doing more harm than good. Now the idea is, okay, so if someone's on the opposing side, being sensitive to things that you want to protect also, what are some of the things we could do together to get there?
Ian: And now all of a sudden we found some common ground that says, well, both parties agree with this and the idea is that, I think that in many cases we've gotten to a point in society where everyone takes an all or nothing approach. We'd have do everything or nothing and it's like, look, most things that have done well over time, have been incrementally improved. And I look at the United States says, we have a system of government that's predicated on people drawing compromise. I mean there's two party systems they're different...
Daniel: That was part of the original plan. Yes.
Ian: The idea is for people to disagree and sacrifice a portion of their idealistic view to find something that has common ground that everyone can agree with. If you think about this, and we translate this now to a business context and in the business context, you might have a product development team, where one side says we have to do it this way, the other side says we have to do it this other way. They're diametrically opposed. And if you say to them, "Well, so you feel this way, why do you feel that way? What are some of the core principles of that? Well, these are the three core principles. Great. Types of people who have the opposing view of it. What are your core principles? These are core principles."
Ian: Okay, well, we both have this one in common. So what is it we can do that achieve that one thing first and foremost. And now we found common ground around it instead of, well you don't agree with all three of my points. I don't agree with all three of your points. So, the assumption is we don't agree with anything. And then, we go to the 2019 go-to approach, which is, what I'm going to do now is I'm going to call you names and scream at the top of my lungs and somehow I believe that that's going to get you to come around to my point. And it just doesn't happen. The idea is that, we first have to be open to people's ideas without judging them and then if we actually seek common ground, we're better off.
Ian: I'll give you an interesting example, which is, let's say if in my house I'm making dinner and it's actually a bad example because my wife is a world-class cook, so she's in most cases doing it. When we first met, we did an equal amount of cooking. In fact, she might have argued at the time I was better, now she teaches cooking classes. So, let's say she made something and once about every four years, she makes something that doesn't turn out the way she hoped it would. As her husband, I could say, "Well, this thing's sucks. What were you doing?" Or I could laugh about it and say, "Wow, look at that. You're human." One out of a thousand meals didn't turn out the way you wanted it to. What should we do now? So we always have a choice in how we react and respond.
Ian: We can either do it in an empathetic, supportive way or we can criticize and attack the other person. I just think that unfortunately, we've gotten to a point where people think it's okay to just attack and vilify someone they disagree with instead of, okay, you have a different viewpoint help me understand it.
Daniel: Yeah, that's assuming positive intent. Right. Which is really, really key.
Ian: Yeah, well, it's assuming positive intent and it's also not assuming the worst case. There's a good friend of mine who we often, from a political standpoint, have very differing views and we get along amazingly well because we'll say to each other. "So, I know this is your viewpoint on this and I don't understand that, let's have a discussion and help me understand your perspective." And neither one of us is trying to convince the other one of something. We're just trying to actually learn more and understand it because we know we're both good people. And I think that, I mean, I don't want to go down the rat hole of politics, but I think the problem right now in politics is that no one wants to listen to each other. No one's willing to compromise anything because their fear is it might give their opponents a quote win.
Ian: And they're sacrificing citizens in the fray instead of, okay, so what's the common ground where we can solve this? Pick a position. So, it's, gee gun legislation, we should ban all guns. Everyone should have one because we have a second amendment. The answer is somewhere in between there.
Daniel: Probably the truth. I think it's really interesting and I feel like this is the Iron Man versus the Straw Man approach to dialogue, which is instead of setting up the worst case of your opponents position and then knocking it down, you try to understand their position and make it as clear and as solid as possible so that you can say, "Oh, actually, there's evidence that disputes yours," or "Oh, I can understand what you really want and your real goal underneath that."
Ian: And keep in mind, you don't even have to say there's evidence that disputes your position or that shows that your position is wrong because that would imply that your goal is to convince them of something else. The idea is just to understand each other's position. And you can take... Literally, it doesn't matter how polarizing the topic is. I often say to people, "Look, if you take the abortion debate, is there common ground?" People will say, "No, it's impossible." Because it's either a woman's right to choose, or it's people who say we shouldn't have any abortions. And it's like, okay, do you think there's a segment of the population that is advocating for, I think we should have more abortions? No, I don't think so. Okay. So, if we accept that everybody says, well, gee, it'd be nice if we had fewer, then you could probably get people together that says, what are some of the things that would help them?
Ian: And now it's like, it's not an idealistic outcome. It's just... what's, what's the common footing that you can find and then you start having a dialogue about, so how would you solve that? Well, I would just ban everything. Okay. But that might be offensive to someone like me. What, would be a good middle ground? And it's funny because I believe that, sadly, most of these highly polarizing issues that our politicians really don't want to solve them because it motivates their base to come out to the polls and they could get together pretty quickly and solve some of these issues if they weren't motivated by other things. But that's, I get it at that...
Ian: And I'm somebody who over my life has voted for an equal number of people in either party. It's funny because to conservatives, I'm a liberal, to the liberals, I'm a conservative. It's like, whatever.
Daniel: What do you think the best way to get somebody to step back from a scorched earth approach to decision making is?
Ian: You know what? I think the biggest thing is that normally when somebody is being hyperbolic about an issue, we tend to escalate with it or we try to show them where they're wrong. Instead of saying, "You know what? I can see that you're passionate about this, help me understand a little bit more." And not say, "And here's the evidence of why you're wrong." Just go, "Huh I got it. Let me share with you what I think about this. And hopefully you can not judge me the same way I have not judged you. And then maybe we can find a common area together." And then all of a sudden someone says... Oh, now keep in mind. There are people who are just looking for a fight and you just need to recognize that and let them fight with themselves.
Daniel: Yeah. It's the opportunity to de-escalate, to step back and say, "It sounds like you're really passionate."
Ian: Yeah, exactly. It's just recognizing the obvious. There's a guy I know Jim Goldstein has a PhD in psychology. He wrote a book called, Powerful Partnerships and he's done a ton of counseling of couples and partners and the like. And one of the things Jim says is, "Look, the reason why most things escalate is because people attribute an emotion or motivation to something rather than speaking truth." And what he says is truth is, for example, if you said something I found offensive, and I said, "Well, you offended me." Guess what? That's something that you could argue, well, I didn't mean to offend you and now you're labeling me. His whole thing is, look, when you said this, it made me feel this way. And I don't like feeling that way. I'm hopeful that you didn't intend for me to feel that way and I just want to share that with you because this is the way I felt. Well, no one can argue with how you felt about something.
Daniel: Right. So this is all really, really amazing stuff, but I just want to be respectful of your time. I just realized we're way over. I really appreciate your time and I'm wondering if you just have any one last parting thought on how we can be designing all of our conversations better today.
Ian: I just think that if we're always thinking about what's in the other person's interest, what's their motivation behind things, what are they trying to achieve, then we can seek out the common ground. If we start with an adversarial position, which says, "If you don't agree with me you're wrong and I need to convince you that I am right." You're going to lead a miserable existence and you're going to get sucked into the vortex of evil. This is one way to just make it so that, you're spending more time trying to figure out where the common ground is and how you can work together and how you're going to get on the same side.
Ian: For my clients who do this in the world of business growth, it has tremendous success for them, for the audiences that I speak to, it often helps them break through some stuff that was getting them stuck before. When you do these things right, you actually achieve your goal and you feel better about it.
Daniel: That's beautiful. And not getting sucked into the vortex of evil is really, really clear, actionable advice I can follow that. So, we're going to leave it there, we'll say, "End scene."
