Ian started, sold, and grew his prior companies from zero to over one billion dollars in value. He has since spent years helping companies grow based on research he's done on how clients make decisions.
His modern approach has been instrumental in helping many businesses thrive when their competitors struggle to merely survive.
He’s a co-author of the bestseller, Same Side Selling, now in its second edition. You can read hundreds of his articles on Forbes and Inc. Ian is a member of the Outside Sales Hall of Fame and recognized as one of the world's Top 30 Global Gurus on Sales. His Same Side Selling Academy is rated one of the top 5 Sales Development Programs globally.
[Podcast Transcript Using Artificial Intelligence]
Umar Hameed 0:06
Are you ready to become awesomer? Hello everyone, this is Umar Hameed, your host and welcome to the No Limits Selling Podcast, where industry leaders share their tips, strategies and advice on how to make you better, stronger, faster. Get ready for another episode.
Umar Hameed 0:35
Hello, everyone. Today I have the privilege of having an old friend Ian altman joining me today he is an author. He's the co author of safe side selling, and he is the Founder of the Same Side Selling Academy. Ian, welcome to the program.
Ian Altman 0:49
Umar, I'm so glad that the 17 other people weren't available and that you called me next
Umar Hameed 0:55
You know, the 18th was my mother-in-law. And you know, I didn't want to go there. So thank you for it.
Ian Altman 1:02
Great to be here.
Umar Hameed 1:03
What's really interesting is sometimes I kind of envision, you know, it's 300 BC, there's merchants selling whatever they're selling, and there's a guy selling camels, and he sells a camel, you know, like once a week, and there's a show off just down the path of it. He's selling like three camels a day. And if you were going to go into this selling the olive oil business, you'd kind of go Who will I learn from camel guy A who's struggling or the B guy, of course, they would have seen that this guy's got something happening. So they must have been sales training a long time ago, maybe it was informal, but the human condition hasn't changed? Is somebody offering something understanding the buyer, kind of your thoughts on that ridiculous premise that I just put up?
Ian Altman 1:41
Well, it's interesting, because people will often say when they read Same Side Selling, or they or they attend one of my talks, oh, that's such a new concept. And, and I'm forced to say, Look, I don't think anything new has been developed in the last 6000 years in the world of sales. And I'm certainly not going to change that. I think that fundamentally the people who are the most successful never come across as someone who's selling something now over the last x thousands of years, what's happened is that instead of someone originally saying, Oh, this is a problem, you have a gap that you have, let me help solve that. Instead, people started being taught these disingenuous approaches to selling people stuff they didn't need. And so if anything, we have to fix the stuff that we've introduced as humans to break things, instead of genuinely being in service of others.
Umar Hameed 2:34
Brilliant. So one of the areas I want to dig down deep in our call today, which is like, you know, the most boring thing in the world, but the most frightening thing in the world is how to land appointments. Umar, you know, once people actually talk to me, I can sell but it's getting them to, they just don't understand it, or it's hard to get a hold of them. So let's say, Ian Altman, loses everything. He loses his memory about everything except selling and he ends up in some city, and he's can rent a hotel room for a day. So he's got a phone, this is Ian Altman, and he's got his smartphone to do what he needs to do. Let's talk about prospecting. And let's break it down into the steps. And let's discuss each step. And I think that seems fundamental. But it's the thing that people shy away from the most.
Ian Altman 3:21
Absolutely they do. And and there are a few things one has to do with the fear of rejection, which you are a master of helping people overcome those sorts of mindset challenges and self limiting beliefs. The the biggest, the biggest concept that I think people need to understand is something I refer to as disarming. And the idea behind this and the idea behind disarming is this is that if you walked into a store, and the hyper ambitious salesperson walked up to you and said, may help you, what's your knee jerk reaction? I'm just looking, no things just looking. And why do we do that? We do that because we believe that person is looking out for their own interest ahead of ours. And so when I ask people, well, why do you say No thanks, just looking well, I don't want to be pushed into something. I don't want somebody trying to convince me of something. So one of the things that we have to think about is when we prospect early on in the process, disarming the notion that you're just there to sell something. In fact, what I often say is that effective sales is not about persuasion, or coercion. It's about getting the truth as quickly as possible. Namely, does this person have a challenge that we're better at solving than somebody else? And if so, we have something to talk about. And here's another important fact that most people overlook is that challenge that they're facing something that they feel is important enough to solve?
Umar Hameed 4:42
Absolutely. So I'm going to take a step back just for a moment. I know you have been a very successful Vistage speaker and every single person in that freaking room is a CEO that has a company that has a sales department and they were probably frickin doing it for a long time. And it's like, don't sell to us You were selling and it's like, just that. The reason I mentioned it is this, I'll never be invited back to Vistage, by the way after this, that it's the same thing, right? It's like they sell for a living. And it's like we don't want to be sold to.
Ian Altman 5:12
So when you show up, you can show up in one of two ways. You can either be seen as somebody who's there to sell something, or you can be seen as someone who's there to solve something.
Umar Hameed 5:24
Yeah.
Ian Altman 5:24
And so my good friend Mark Bowden, who is one of the foremost authorities on body language and non-verbal communication, guys written like four or five, number one best selling books on the topic, says that the human condition is such that when you first encounter somebody, you're looking for cues that tell you is this person a threat to me? Or are they a potential asset to me. And if we come across as a stereotypical salesperson, our brain tells us, ah, stereotypical salesperson, they're looking out for their own interest, they're a threat to me. If on the other hand, if you approach it with what we refer to in same side selling is the same side pitch. So the same side pitch, the idea is we entice, we disarm, and then we discover. So first, we entice, by sharing the types of problems we solve with extraordinary or dramatic results, then we disarm the notion that we're just there to sell something by acknowledging that not everyone's a good fit for us. And then we trigger discovery phase to learn more about their situation to see if we can help. So if, for example, let's say let's say you've got somebody and they're they're a technology company, and they're selling into law firms. If you ask them, what do you what do you sell this? Oh, we sell technology law firms. Now, what you sell is, the, the inflexibility, the cumbersome pneus, the unreliability that law firms are frustrated with that they want to overcome. So what they might say is, instead of saying, Oh, I'm an IT service provider to law firms, instead, following the same side pitch, they would say, well, when law firms come to us, it's usually because they're either having trouble attracting new associates, because their technology seems outdated. They look stupid with their customers, because they can't find the latest documents, or they're losing billable hours because their systems don't work. For the right firms. They tell us we deliver amazing results. But not every firm is the right fit for how we approach that. I don't yet know that we can help you. But if those are things that are important to you, I'm happy to learn more to see if we might be able to help. And then if one of those issues is something that's important to them, their interest will be piqued, they'll want to learn more. And if not, they're probably not a good fit right now.
Umar Hameed 7:35
Makes perfect sense. Let me backtrack there just a little bit. Because what you said is, you know, hey, if we're not a good fit, we're not gonna do business together, your best guess that phrase? Probably, let's say got used a million times a day in the US by salespeople, how many of them do you think really mean it?
Ian Altman 7:52
I think a very small percentage of them. So the idea is that most of the times things are said Where, where the the salesperson believes Their job is to convince other people, right, that they need to buy your stuff. And the reality is that one of the one of the impairments, I try to give people who are sales professionals is Look, your job is just to see who you can help the most. And the other people you can't, your job is to direct them to people who can because we've all had a situation where we sold somebody something they weren't the right fit. And that client becomes the bane of our existence, and sucked into client purgatory.
Umar Hameed 8:29
And the flip side of that is sometimes uh, you know, I consider myself a salesperson, but sometimes I'm an order taker, where I'm just chatting with someone, I tell them what I do, and they're like, sold, I need that because they've got a real issue a real need, I'd have to sell anything. They were like, just demanded the product right away. And if we do what you're suggesting Same Side Selling is we're figuring out Hey, is this an issue for you? If it is, we should talk? And it's like, perfectly natural conversation.
Ian Altman 8:54
Yeah, I've got clients today, who I talked with for the first time, six, seven years ago, and six or seven years ago, they said, Oh, this this issue we have great and my litmus test is you always have to be asking yourself, have they convinced me that their problem is worth solving? It isn't a problem that I'm good at solving? If the answer to either of those is no, you have nothing to pursue, but what happens is, in a scarcity mindset, the person doing the selling says why need the business and, you know, they didn't really convince me they need this and I don't necessary know it's a good fit, but I'd really like the sale. So I'm going to keep pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing. And then they say, Well, I don't understand why this person isn't calling me back and understand why they're not returning my emails. It's because you're chasing them. They feel like prey. And they're thinking Well, okay, I don't want to be stopped. I want to move on as opposed to if you have a good conversation doesn't go anywhere in the person who's gonna get back to you. Then you want to be able to remind your notes and say when we spoke you mentioned this was important. It sounds like we may be able to help you I want to make I hadn't dropped the ball. And then let them either say, Oh, you know what, this change that change whatever, but it's not trying to make the sale. It's Look, I was just trying to serve your needs if you don't have this need anymore, that's totally okay. And but you need to have enough confidence and enough abundance to be able to do that. Because otherwise your brain tells you. No, no, it is a good deal. It is a good deal. It is even if it's not, it's starting your brain start to convince yourself that No, no, I'm gonna get this sale instead..
Umar Hameed 10:27
Oh, yeah.
Ian Altman 10:28
Can I really help them?
Umar Hameed 10:29
I was in this sales thing. I worked with this team every Thursday morning. And the owner of the company said, Oh, that's like that smells like commission breath. It's where you desperately need it. And the customers can smell it on you and they're not going anywhere near you. So I'm going to do something really, we're going to do a higher wire act, and I get the part you get the hard part.
Ian Altman 10:49
Cool.
Umar Hameed 10:49
So I am Ian Norman, penniless, just got a phone, you need to make things happen. I run a digital services company. We do websites, LinkedIn, that kind of stuff. We've got three salespeople. You just found me on some list, and you call up and I'm the guy in charge head of sales. I run the agency, but pretty much that's my thing. Yeah, I probably got a problem. And you're just calling and just ringing the phone, I'll pick up and then what we're going to do is break it down. When you actually say something, then you can say, Okay, this is why I said this, or did you hear Umar said that and let's kind of break it down. And we'll just make it up as we go. And I think it could be really, really useful.
Ian Altman 11:30
But you know what, this will be fun. It's so so ring ring.
Umar Hameed 11:34
Hello?
Ian Altman 11:36
Umar. Hi, it's Ian Altman, we don't, we don't know each other. Should we hang up?
Umar Hameed 11:40
No, ofcourse not. What a great line. I mean, Who says that? No one. That's brilliant.
Ian Altman 11:45
So and the reason why is because most people when they hear that will laugh.
Umar Hameed 11:50
Yeah.
Ian Altman 11:51
Okay. So it's just, it's about disarming the notion that you know what's going on? It's like, I help digital agencies like yours, they usually come to me with two or three problems. If you're facing one of those, I might be able to help. And if not, I probably can't, can you give me 15 seconds to share with you what those are? And then you can tell me whether or not it's worth continuing the conversation.
Umar Hameed 12:12
All right, so let's stop right there.
Ian Altman 12:13
Yep.
Umar Hameed 12:13
A brilliant, again, super non-threatening, it's saying, hey, a couple of problems we can solve. If you don't have any of those. I'm gonna be out of your life.
Ian Altman 12:22
But But notice what I did. I didn't. For starters, I said, I said, well, when digital agencies contact us, it's usually because they're facing one of these two or three challenges.
Umar Hameed 12:33
Right.
Ian Altman 12:33
Right, but I didn't see what they are.
Umar Hameed 12:35
No, I want to know, I want to know those things.
Ian Altman 12:39
Yeah. And they and they, and they tell us we can really help them. But not everyone's a good fit, can you? Can you give me 15 seconds, I can tell you what they are. And then you and I can determine whether or not there's anything worth talking about?
Umar Hameed 12:48
So a couple of things me from this side of the phone a no, you're lying, it's gonna take more than 15 seconds. But I don't care. Because at this point,
Ian Altman 12:56
Not necessarily.
Umar Hameed 12:57
It's a short amount of time. So I know that...
Ian Altman 13:00
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 13:00
And I don't take it literally. And I'm super intrigued. So totally brilliant, your thoughts?
Ian Altman 13:05
And keep in mind, I'm purposely saying, Okay, what I have to say is gonna take less than 15 seconds because I want to make sure that I stay within what a print whatever parameter it is. If I think it's two minutes, then I would say to you look, within two minutes, you want to know whether or not there's something worth taking a closer look at. Is that okay? As long as I stick to that time, because now what I'm doing is I'm telling you, I'm respectful, that timeframe, whatever it happens to be, you just need to make sure that you stay within that time frame. Because if you start off lying, then in the back of the client's mind, like, well, you lied to begin with, why would you? Why would you not continue? In my prior business, I grew my prior businesses devalues beyond a billion dollars, I used to get cold calls all the time from people who had break through our gauntlet to get to me. And invariably, it'd be someone people would would occasionally do things like, Oh, my buddy is from college and this and that he'll know who it is. And they come through and I'd say, Well, you know, Tina said you were a buddy of mine from college. Oh, yeah. I just want to get through to you. And I would always say the same thing. I'd say, well, so if you lied, to get through to me, what makes you think I would ever trust you enough to do business with you? Well, because I have something really great to share with you. I said, I don't care. I don't care. If you're giving away money. I don't want to talk to you anymore. Just don't call us again. Because to me, it's like once you violate that integrity, I'm done. Now, not everyone operates that way. For me, that was a deal killer.
Umar Hameed 14:29
Brilliant. And so I say, Ian, tell me what those problems are. What do you fix?
Ian Altman 14:34
So the top three things are one is people say we've got amazing services, but our message falls on deaf ears. The second is even though we operate at a higher level, people compare us to commodities and expenses and match their price. And the third one is that our people pursue deals ad nauseum that end up going nowhere and we don't know why. Does one of those stick out for you?
Umar Hameed 14:56
Actually, to those sticks out for me.
Ian Altman 14:58
Which ones?
Umar Hameed 14:59
Basically, were seen as a commodity we don't know how to stand out, is just also endless phone calls and we'd never have a deal and it's driving us crazy.
Ian Altman 15:09
Which which one of those you think is a bigger issue?
Umar Hameed 15:11
Deals that never close, just tell us to go away. And we just keep on going at it. And it just stops us from doing more. Getting you leads in this is killing us.
Ian Altman 15:21
Got it. Got it. So Umar, my question is this, that's certainly an area we help other people. You weren't expecting my call. I'm guessing you weren't sitting around eating bonbons is now a good time for us to continue this conversation. Or should you and I rescheduled a time where we can spend 20 to 30 minutes to see whether or not I can even help. And right so keep in mind the reason I do that is because if I just keep going right now, all of a sudden the person goes well, yeah, I was interested. But now I get this other deal. And now I'm because of them meeting their deadline.
Umar Hameed 15:53
Yep.
Ian Altman 15:54
All right? So the thing is that the person is genuinely interested because no, I blow off the other thing. It's okay. I don't care. This is totally cool, because now I can I can focus on this. But we want to get permission along the way.
Umar Hameed 16:07
The other thing you did was, in a very genuine way, empathize with me. I feel your pain, like this is a real thing. And which I think is also important in building trust. We're talking about keeping your word. And when you do that, it's like, okay, even gets me and I want to spend some time with him. Because he does. I got that problem. He gets me. And then I say no, no, Ian, I've got 20 minutes now.
Ian Altman 16:29
Okay, so now. So now, if you do that, I would say So you mentioned it's these deals going on. You also mentioned the idea of being a commodity. How often do you find those things are linked together? where it ends up being your commoditized? And the deals dragged on?
Umar Hameed 16:43
Well, now that I think about it, probably at least half the time.
Ian Altman 16:46
Okay, cool. And can you can you think of one or two opportunities recently where that happened?
Umar Hameed 16:50
I could so also just stop right there for a moment. Yeah, by asking that question. You gave me an insight in stuff that is right in front of me. I'm not seeing, so being a good salesperson. And the answer could have been No, they're not linked, which is still okay. Yeah. But you gave me an insight, which kind of goes adds value to me. So which is also huge.
Ian Altman 17:09
Yeah, so so the idea is that, then I go there. And now what I want to do is, so there's something and same side selling we talked about, which is the same side quadrants. And it's a method for taking notes in a meeting. And the idea is this that if you imagine a blank sheet of paper, you draw a vertical line down the center horizontal line across the center, creating four quadrants.
Umar Hameed 17:28
Yes.
Ian Altman 17:28
In the, in the upper left quadrant, you take notes about the issue that the client raised, meaning what piqued their interest. So in your case, it would be commoditization deals going on for a long time. In the upper right quadrant, we take notes about what I refer to as impact and importance. So impact is what happens if you don't solve that. And importance is how important is this compared to other things on your plate. And in fact, what I'm going to do is, I'm going to so now I'm now I'm taking these questions from issue to impact, and then I'll describe the other two quadrants as we go through the conversation.
Umar Hameed 18:03
Right.
Ian Altman 18:04
Fair enough?
Umar Hameed 18:04
Brilliant.
Ian Altman 18:06
Okay, so So you mentioned you have these so can you think of one or two opportunities recently, where this happened?
Umar Hameed 18:11
Yeah, it was a deal with McCormick spice.
Ian Altman 18:14
Okay.
Umar Hameed 18:15
They're really huge in our market, if we get them as can be good money for us, but Well, good reputation...
Ian Altman 18:20
Listen, I don't want to bring up a sore subject. But if you lost the deal, um, how big of a deal? Was it?
Umar Hameed 18:28
So we haven't lost it yet. But we haven't gotten it could be $100,000 deal.
Ian Altman 18:32
Okay $100,000 deal...
Umar Hameed 18:33
And can forever.
Ian Altman 18:35
...compared to the rest of your business? How big of a deal? Is that?
Umar Hameed 18:38
Three times bigger than our normal deal?
Ian Altman 18:40
Ah, Ah, okay.
Umar Hameed 18:42
...and that's just one small division. And if we do a good job there, it opens up massive opportunities.
Ian Altman 18:47
Got it. Got it. And let me ask you compared to the other things on your plate, because I'm sure you get a lot going on. How important is it to address this type of issue with these deals today?
Umar Hameed 18:56
Is huge on a scale of 1 to 10, a 10.
Ian Altman 18:59
Okay, 10. Now, a lot of times people will rate everything at 10. But one of the things are higher priority than this is. So keep in mind what I'm what I'm trying to break in there.
Umar Hameed 19:09
That's frickin genius, right?
Ian Altman 19:11
Yeah. Yeah. So if I asked people, so zero to 10, how important is this? They might say, Oh, it's a 10. And I might say, Okay, well, um, yeah, the dog needs to get walked today. How important is that? Oh, that's a 10. And you need to you need to file some stuff in the file, Kevin? Oh, that's a 10. Everything's a 10. Right. Now, nothing's a 10. But if instead if I say to you, so compared to other things on your plate, how important is this? And what's a higher priority than this? Then I get a sense of relative importance compared to other things.
Umar Hameed 19:44
And the nice thing about it a that's genius, when it lets you know, but I suspect probably 80% of the time, it lets me know. Yeah, everything's a thing. And you once again, give me insight into my world. And it's like, do I hire the person that's giving me insights? Do I hire a person selling me?
Ian Altman 20:01
Yep. Exactly. So there's that. So now now we've talked about Okay, so you have this McCormick deal, is earning thousand dollars. You mentioned you had a couple other deals. Um, how are those compared to size with that McCormick deal?
Umar Hameed 20:15
They're smaller, probably like $50 $60,000 deals.
Ian Altman 20:18
And how many? How many of those opportunities? Do you think you have a year? Where you look back and say, Man, I know there's something we weren't doing, right. That was costing us those deals?
Umar Hameed 20:27
10.
Ian Altman 20:28
Probably 10?
Umar Hameed 20:30
Yeah.
Ian Altman 20:31
So if there's 10 of them, on average, I mean, how much how much revenue? You think that impacts each year?
Umar Hameed 20:36
Half a million?
Ian Altman 20:37
Okay. The reason I asked that question is not because I'm incapable of multiplying 10 times 50,000. It's because I want you as the client to say it, so you hear it in your own voice, that you say, wow, this is costing me half a million dollars a year. So now, if I came up with a strategy that was going to cost them $50,000 $100,000, to solve this half million dollar problem, it doesn't seem like that much. Right. But if I don't get that context, in my own mind, I'm thinking, Oh, how much can I charge for this? I don't think I can charge more than X. Oh, yeah, they'll never pay more than Y. Right, because my own self talk plays into it, because I haven't heard it from the client, in terms of what the impact is. So now I've got the impact and the relative importance. So now what I would say is well, and this is this is exactly the types of solution, the types of challenges that other digital agencies come to us to address. And we've had really good success with them. But what I know is that each organization measure success a little bit differently. What would you and I measure together, let's say six months down the road, to know that whatever we did was successful?
Umar Hameed 21:43
Well, we would measure two things, probably one would be revenue, how much share revenue? And how much more quicker? How quick are we got those deals?
Ian Altman 21:52
Okay.
Umar Hameed 21:53
...from opening call to actually landing the deal? Because right now it's extending really, really large.
Ian Altman 21:57
Got it? And and right now of the deals that you pursue, what's the system you have for identifying what's qualified and what isn't? what's real? And what is it?
Umar Hameed 22:07
We don't have that?
Ian Altman 22:08
Okay. Because for a lot of organizations, what they tell me is, look, we pursue these opportunities. And we identify, oh, this is a well qualified lead, and then it dies. And they tell me that more than half the deals they pursued, end up going nowhere, and they've wasted a lot of time on those. How common do you think that is?
Umar Hameed 22:27
For us?
Ian Altman 22:28
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 22:29
Fairly common. Probably maybe a quarter of the deals just get stuck that way?
Ian Altman 22:33
Yep. Got it. Got it. Okay. Um, so you said you'd want to measure you want to measure revenue, and then how quickly deals happen? So obviously, what we need to do is baseline that because I want to make sure we're being fair. What would what would prevent us Let's, let's say I gave you an approach that worked for everybody in the world. But what would make it so it might not work inside your organization?
Umar Hameed 22:56
Not sure.
Ian Altman 22:58
Let me let me let me explain why I'm asking that question. So the reason I'm asking that question is, it's like, Look, so here's an approach that I've done, that I've applied successfully to other places, what would prevent it from working in your organization? Well, if four people didn't take it seriously, if they didn't follow through, they didn't get the right training, if they didn't get follow on. So usually, people will cite their own limitations. And now we're co building a plan that says, here's the way we overcome that for your team. Instead of Oh, our stuffs great, it works for everybody. Which candidly, isn't the case, because the people who don't do the work, rarely get the results?
Umar Hameed 23:33
Right.
Ian Altman 23:34
You know, it's not like we're giving him something in a bottle, and we got Oh, just open this up. it'll, it'll emanate throughout the building, and everyone will be an asteroid. That's no, no requires work. So so so now what I've done is I've gone through what's the lower left quadrant, which is results. So the lower left quadrant is where we where we identify the results of we're going to measure together.
Umar Hameed 23:58
Okay, so this is the impact is the results we're getting right now. And the impact of not getting them out. So so we want, and the one in the lower row is we want to achieve?
Ian Altman 24:09
Well, yeah, so the idea is the upper left is the issue, which is the superficial, you know, what, what piqued their interest, the upper right is the impact and importance meaning? What's the impact of not solving the problem? And what's the relative importance? the lower left is the results quadrant, which is what does success look like? What are we going to measure together to know successful? And then what and then what I would ask is, I would say, so who else is most directly impacted in the organization? by this by this inability to, to differentiate yourselves, and by the inability to accelerate these deals, so that become revenue? Who else cares about this the most?
Umar Hameed 24:50
It'd be our CEO.
Ian Altman 24:52
Okay. All right, which is often the case in a lot of organizations to be the CEO. Mmm hmm. Who else might have an opinion about what we measure for success?
Umar Hameed 25:02
The CEO.
Ian Altman 25:03
Okay. Okay, and what's the what would be the best way Umar for you and I, to include them in a conversation in a way it's comfortable for you, I want to make sure we're not missing anything, because last thing I want is for you to engage my help if I can't deliver exactly what you need, so I want to make sure we'll all be on the same page before we do anything.
Umar Hameed 25:21
Right? That makes perfect sense.
Ian Altman 25:23
Okay, so what what would be the best way for us to include them in a conversation in a way that's comfortable for you?
Umar Hameed 25:28
Let's grab a zoom meeting next week. I'll, before we get off the call, take a look at calendars and let's set something up.
Ian Altman 25:35
All right, perfect. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to send you a summary of my notes. And I usually will miss something because I was trying to take copious notes, but I might have missed something. Do me a favor, I'm going to send this to you, if you wouldn't mind. And I'll get it to you in the next couple hours. Just send me back a note with any corrections or if everything looks okay, let me know that too. Because I certainly don't want to go down the path with any with any wrong information. Is that okay?
Umar Hameed 25:59
That seems fair.
Ian Altman 26:01
All right. Perfect! And thats, that's how we would, that's how we wrap that up.
Umar Hameed 26:04
Okay, and so just dear listener, if you're paying attention to this, Ian Altman has not told me what the frick is going to do? Or how he's going to do it. It's all been about me. And I've been happy to kind of engage in that. And you're not revealing what you're going to do? How are you going to do till all the decision makers are on that call?
Ian Altman 26:22
Well, and more importantly, I don't know what you need yet.
Umar Hameed 26:25
Yep.
Ian Altman 26:26
So I don't know, the lower right quadrant is what we call others involved or others impacted.
Umar Hameed 26:33
Right.
Ian Altman 26:33
...and so oftentimes, what happens is, in a deal in the 11th hour, someone's name comes up we've never heard of before. And they derail the deal, or someone says, oh, who's the decision maker? And you'll never get an honest answer to that question. And as somebody who's an expert in NLP, you will certainly understand all the nuances, the question I asked, which is, what's the best way for us to include them in a way that's comfortable for you? So? Yeah, so I'm saying what's the best way meaning there's a way for us, you and I together to include them? And then the important part in a way that's comfortable for you? Because in order for you to say, No, I won't do that, you have to acknowledge that it makes you uncomfortable, which you're unlikely to do. So there's a whole bunch of psychology and language built into that phrase, I always tell people, you have to say things in your own words, except for that sentence that you just have to repeat enough. So it becomes your words.
Umar Hameed 27:28
Brilliant. Ian, we've got the 100th episode coming up, and I get to choose which one it is, it's going to be this one because I think this would add a ton of value to our listeners, because this is where they struggle a lot. And any last thoughts before we part company?
Ian Altman 27:47
You know what all this comes down to practice. So if you if you take the approach disarm, if you then work with other people to practice, and if you connect with people authentically, this isn't that difficult. It's just it's getting enough practice that you're not thinking about this. I mean, you and I didn't rehearse this, you didn't say this, what we're going to do...
Umar Hameed 28:09
I swear it on you, I wasn't even thinking about it till we were in the columns. Hey, let's do this. So...
Ian Altman 28:13
But but, but I've taught this thousands of times. And this is something that you know, the people that people in our in the same site selling Academy, they're practicing all the time, they're using the tools to practice and rehearse. And magically, those people put in a little bit of time and effort, get amazing results. And the people who don't wonder why the other people get results, it's just..
Umar Hameed 28:36
Coz they're lucky, that's why...story my friend, Jay Livingston, he plays a musical instruments plays a guitar and he's got this crappy guitar that he has, but his dad's not been using his guitar. It's like a fancy guitar, and he wants his dad's guitar. And so he goes to his dad, Hey, Dad, you know, can I have your guitar, you don't seem to be using it and his dad goes, not right now. But I noticed you've got a guitar. What I want you to do is go to the guitar store, buy the most expensive strings you can for it and just practice it for like three months. And notice how it improves the sound of the guitar when you practice everyday doing it. Good. And then I'll give you my guitar. So this is okay. And he's going through the motions. And shockingly, his guitar sounds really, really good after three months. And then the occurs to him is like, wait a minute, the guitar doesn't sound better. I sound better. I practice that sneakily got him to do it. So practice was critical to do because this and then I know that in I've got this down pat and it comes across wooden. And what you did was just elegant, effortless, and it seemed very conversational. And thank you for being a master at this. I really appreciate you being on the show today.
Ian Altman 29:50
Sure. Thanks so much Umar.
Umar Hameed 29:56
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating. And if you're looking for more tools, go to my website at nolimitsselling.com. I've got a free mind training course there, that's going to teach you some insights from the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and that is the fastest way to get better results.