Sales expert, author, and motivational speaker and trainer Ian Altman doesn't do elevator pitches — instead, he imagines elevator rants. It's all part of his same-side selling philosophy, and here are some examples of how it works.

NASHVILLE — Be aware as a salesperson, that when you show up, “You're either somebody who's there to sell something or somebody who's there to solve something,” said Ian Altman, the penultimate speaker at the 2018 NAPA 401(k) Summit. “Which would you rather be?”

The author of Same Side Selling: A Radical Approach to Break Through Sales Barriers, Altman offered advice and inspiration to the roomful of over a thousand retirement industry professionals.

He mentioned a scenario that many in the room could identify with. “How many of you have heard somebody make the following phone call: 'Hey, just calling to check in, want to see if you made a decision yet.' How many of you have actually made that phone call?”

Many hands in the audience went up.

“If you do that,” Altman said “You are a tin cup and cardboard sign away from begging.”

You can choose your role

It doesn't have to be that way. You just need to change your focus, he said. And the role you choose will determine your focus – and whether you get the client. Will you be an order taker, a salesperson, or a subject matter expert?

• Order takers do just that—someone says 'here's the investment I need, how much will it cost me?' As you might guess, order takers are being replaced by Amazon.
• Salespeople are there to sell to the client, whether the client needs it or not.
• But the subject matter expert is someone the client will pay to meet, to get their expertise.

“Salesperson or SME, which one are you?” he asked. “If we don't come across as a subject matter expert, we're fighting an uphill battle.”

Your website is a problem

When we go to Google to search for an answer to a problem, what words do we use? Generally we describe the problem, not the solution. But, he said, “On your websites today, do you talk more about what solutions you offer or the problems that you solve?”

“We created a page called 'Problems we solve.' It's a boring title for a page. But it's the single most trafficked page on our site. For my clients who create a similar page, it becomes the most trafficked page on their site.”

It ties into how executives make decisions. He trains them to create five questions they need to have answered to make a decision. Then he asks them to narrow it to three. No matter what country he's training people in, the same three questions come up, he said.

Here are the three questions people ask when making a decision:

• What problem does this solve, why do I need it?
• What are the likely results or outcome?
• What are the alternatives?

If you answer the first two properly for a potential client, he said, the third question is answered. There are no alternatives – they want you.

The elevator rant

Remember the elevator pitch? It's that fictitious scenario where you're on the elevator with a prospective client and you have 15 seconds, from the first floor to the tenth floor, to tell them about your product.

Altman says to imagine instead an “elevator rant.” You get on the elevator. Two people representing your ideal client get on. Those two people spend the rest of the ride complaining about their problems.

What would it sound like in their words?

• Typically, they might express an emotion: I'm sick of…  We're worried about… .
• They might add in an issue: We're trying to get employees to enroll…. We need to recruit new employees… .
• And lastly, they might mention an impact: We're wasting money…. We're losing our competitive edge….

You can rate an elevator rant on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of pain. If it's a 7 or less, people won't spend money to fix it, Altman said. If it's an 8 or higher, people will spend money.

Figure out what your potential clients would consider an 8 or higher and you have a better idea of what problem they'd pay you to fix.

Problems and solutions

Altman brought up several scenarios where the proper communication techniques can turn a less-than successful sales situation around. Maybe you've experienced these scenarios and thought there was no solution. Altman says there is.

Problem: You're talking with a prospect, and they compare you to someone whom you know shouldn't even be mentioned in the same discussion.

Solution: Educate your prospect.

Altman says you tell the prospect about three levels of service offered in your field. The first and second levels are less involved and offer less, but the third level is the “best” and of course that's what you offer.

As an example, he had an attendee he'd met come up on the stage. He asked her about the three levels of competitors in her area. The first level, she said, were firms that operate 3(16) services but don't take on liability for the sponsor. The second level were firms that may take on some liability but aren't mentioned in plan documents. The third level, the level of her firm, takes on fiduciary liability, responsibility and actionability and is named in the retirement plan documents.

You ask the client what level they are looking for, Altman explained.  Is the prospect going to say they want just the first level, please? No, they're going to want what you're offering and now they know how to differentiate you from the competition.

Problem: As you interact with your prospect, you tell them some ideas you have. You're trying to show them that if they hired you, you'd be creative/proactive/useful/knowledgeable.  But rather than hire you, they take your ideas to their current guy or gal.

Solution: First of all, realize where they're coming from. “For your prospect to hire you, they have to do two uncomfortable things,” Altman said. “They have to acknowledge they may have made a mistake in hiring the current person, and they have to fire that person they liked and thought enough of to hire.”

So obviously, don't give prospects specific ideas about their plans. Instead, Altman advised, you can tell them “here's what other clients have run into in the past. We're happy to pick that apart in your plan when you become a client.”

Problem: You're selling into environments where there's an existing vendor. How can you find out more about the competition without making the prospect uncomfortable?

Solution: Never trash the competition. Altman role-played with an attendee the types of questions he'd ask a plan sponsor when they say they're already working with someone:

• “I'd like to get a sense of what other people are doing, can you tell me some things they're doing for you?”
• “What to you stands out?”
• “If you could change one or two things about them, what would you change?”
• “What else could you change about them?”
• “How does it impact your employees?”
• “If we could tell you some things we could do if you were our client, would that help?”

Problem: You have a prospect or client who you know will never spend what they should for your services.

Solution: Remember this quote from Altman: “Price matters most when the seller believes price matters most.”

Altman told a story about when he promised a client a service, then found out from his company that to do that service, they would have to charge a huge amount of money. As the team worriedly figured how to lower the price so as not to upset the client, he went back and talked to the client and found out the impact of the client's issue. The impact was that the issue was costing the client much more money than the cost of the service to fix it.

The lesson? “You may learn about the issue from the client. But it's our job to find out the impact of that issue on their organization and its importance.”

Ask about results

People in sales have a racing mindset when looking at the sales process, Altman said. You start the race with a contact, assess needs, create a proposal, and at the finish line you get the contract.

But the client wouldn't say the finish line is the contract. They'd say the results are the finish line. “If you don't get the results you're looking for, it doesn't matter the price you paid,” he said.

But how often do sales people ask about results?

“What if you asked, 'How do we measure the outcomes so you know this was the right choice to go with us?' Merely by asking those questions, it shifts the focus from price to value,” Altman said. Talk about results and how you will be held accountable.

These ideas all aim to put the sales person into the client's shoes, which, after all, is the oldest technique known to man for effectively helping people. So get walking.