Earn Attention and Grow Based on Value not Price with Ian Altman – Ep 59

Join Ian Altman and me and discover “How to Earn Attention and Grow Based on Value not
Price!”
@IANALTMAN

📢 Ian started, sold, and grew his prior companies from zero to over one
billion dollars in value.  He has since
spent more than a decade helping others to achieve explosive growth based on
his research on how clients make and approve decisions.

If you have trouble
earning attention or standing out from the competition, pay attention.

He’s co-author
of the bestseller, Same Side Selling, now in its second edition (IdeaPress
Publishing). You can read hundreds of his articles on Forbes and Inc.

He is perennially
recognized as one of the world’s top 30 Experts on Sales, and his Same Side
Selling Academy is rated one of the top 5 Sales Development Programs globally.

 

 

👉 To get Access to Ian’s Free Gift, 7 Scripts to Double Your Revenue,
visit 
www.sameSideSelling.com/dailyconfidence

KEY POINTS:

  • Ian Altman started his first company in 1993 and grew it to be one of the 50 fastest growing companies in the Washington DC region.

  • He later started a software company that was acquired by a parent company and helped grow it from $100 million to $2 billion in just over three years.

  • He now serves clients in the B2B space and also helps financial service providers sell to high net worth individuals.

  • Most of Ian’s clients are businesses that struggle to earn attention, are constantly beaten up on price or have inconsistent sales performance.

  • He provides tips on how to align with the client’s needs and avoid the common trap of thinking that the world revolves around the seller.

  •  

SHOW NOTES:

We are pleased to provide these show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who prefer to read.

Please note that this is an automated transcription and may contain errors.

SHOW TRANSCRIPTS:

Mostafa Hosseini  0:02 

And we’re live Welcome to daily confidence for entrepreneurs. My name is Mostafa Hosseini. We’re here today with another amazing topic and an amazing guest, Ian Altman. Welcome in.

 

Ian Altman  0:14 

Mostafa, thanks for having me.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  0:16  

Great to have you. So at daily confidence, our intention is to share tips, actionable advice and strategies that you could use on a daily basis to boost your confidence in different areas of business, whether it’s sales and marketing, management, mindset, finances, technology, you know, there’s so many different areas of business that an entrepreneur needs to know about and be confident in those areas that, you know, this could be a never ending.

I think it’s a never ending topic for us at least. So, as usual, if you if you like, subscribe, comment, ask questions during the show, we will get back to you. If you tag your friend who could benefit from the conversation that we’re having, you would enter your name into the draw for gifts that we will give away after the show today.

And yeah, like and subscribe to the show, whichever channel you’re watching, and we’ll go from there. So today’s topic is how to earn attention and grow based on value and not price, which is a very important topic. A lot of what we’ll get into it. So welcome in. How’s your day going so far?

 

Ian Altman  1:33 

Mostafa, I’m talking to you. So my day couldn’t be going any better.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  1:37 

Amazing. I’m glad that you’re here too. We’re talking about some very important stuff today. So I look forward to this conversation.

 

Ian Altman  1:45 

Absolutely. You know, my good friend, Bob Berg. I know he’s been a guest on the show before and Bob had nothing but nice things to say about you. And anybody knows. Bob Berg adores Bob Berg. So Bob said good things about you. It must be true.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  1:59 

I appreciate that. Yeah, it was it was a great conversation with Bob and I, you know, I’m sure it will be amazing with your as well. So, let me do the proper introduction to Ian and then we’ll get right into it. So in started sold and grew his prior companies from zero to over $1 billion in value. He has since spent more than a decade helping others to achieve explosive growth based on his research on how clients make and improve decisions.

Excuse me, if you have trouble earning attention or standing out from the competition, you want to tune in and pay attention. He caught he’s co author of The Best Seller same site selling now in its second edition idea press publishing with IDEA press publishing. You can read hundreds of his articles on Forbes and in magazines. He is personally recognized as one of the world’s top 30 experts on sales and his same site selling Academy is rated as one of the top five sales development programs globally. Welcome in.

Thanks, Mustafa. We’re about we’re about are you I live in the Washington

 

Ian Altman  3:13 

DC area. I’ve got two children a dog and a wife I don’t deserve

 

Mostafa Hosseini  3:19 

love it what’s the weather like out there? Is it is it hot like it is in the West as well.

 

Ian Altman  3:23 

It’s really hot right now. Yeah, it’s hot and humid. We have a the dog loves to play outside today. The dog went outside and just laid down in the grass. And it was an indication that it’s maybe a little bit too hot. So it’s in the it’s in the 90s today and just hot and humid.

And suppose it will get a little rain tonight and tomorrow and it’ll be beautiful.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  3:43 

Man day recorded like a an all time record high temperature in Western Canada near Vancouver. About 50 degrees Celsius. It’s crazy. Yeah, I hear dogs are dying outside.

 

Ian Altman  3:57 

Yeah, I’m sure I mean, it’s dangerous. Yeah, we, we the dog went outside and getting right back inside like, yeah.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  4:05 

Those very, very animals that are like the heat. So and what is your story? How did you get into doing what you’re doing now?

 

Ian Altman  4:15 

Well, so as I said in the intro, I started my first company in 1993. We grew to be a fast 50 companies. So one of the 50 fastest growing companies in the Washington DC region within five years. So by 1998, we then started a software company grew both companies to a good enough size that someone acquired us, they asked me to serve as Managing Director of the parent company.

And then we grew that business from $100 million to about $2 billion in just over three years. And during that time, we expanded into 12 countries around the world. I was flying about 175,000 miles a year. I wasn’t spending time with my kids with my with my wife and I thought, why am I still doing this? I didn’t have a good answer.

So I just stopped I went to the board and I said I’m done. They said, What are you going to do? I said, I have no idea. And so I didn’t want to build another software and technology company or consulting company. And one of my buddies said, you know, every time any one of us any of our friends, is struggling in their business on growth, you stop everything. And you seem to have a field day just helping us. Why don’t you do that? I said, Do what like, it never occurred to me that there are people just help other people on how they grow their business.

And that’s how I that’s how I started this company. And it was 13, almost 14 years ago now. And then I met Jack corals Jack actually attended, I would do these full day immersive training, training programs, like when I called same side selling immersion over it wasn’t called same side selling, then Jack is a guy has been two decades in purchasing and procurement.

And Jack attended the session. And I said, Wow, this is great. Like, here’s this guy in procurement. He wants to he wants to learn this, so you can better sell and he said, No, actually, your clients were selling to us. And we were instantly willing to pay more than we were for anybody else. I wonder figure out what trickery you were teaching them.

And then, of course, the lender was all integrity based, we put our heads together, wrote same side selling, wrote the second edition about two years ago. And now I spend most of my time traveling around speaking but only travel when I actually feel like,

 

Mostafa Hosseini  6:25 

that’s amazing. So tell us about what you do now and who you serve.

 

Ian Altman  6:30 

So most of my clients are in the b2b space. So as people selling businesses to other businesses, the exception being also worked with people in financial services. So people who are selling to high net worth individuals, those people similarly, make decisions, the same type of way that we make business decisions.

And usually, it’s people who are struggling, either they have great stuff, but they struggle to earn attention. Or every deal comes down to price in the end, and they can’t figure out why it’s like they know that their head and shoulders above the competition, but they feel like every deal, they’re getting beat up on price, or they’ve got a team of people selling and some perform well, and some don’t, they’re not sure why deals drag on forever.

 I’m not sure why those types of businesses that I helped the most, and my clients range from, you know, small companies to multibillion dollar multinationals. And through the same sites on the academy platform that I have, that helps me serve that wider audience. Before I had that digital platform.

I really mostly focused on larger companies, because they were the ones that could afford what I charge to do things now, with the platform, it kind of levels the playing field. And it’s interesting, because when I help a big company earn an additional $10 million, they may not care. But if you take it, if you take a business, that’s $2 million, and turn them into a $5 million business, you just change their world.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  7:52 

Absolutely. Not much bigger impact there. Yes. Yeah. So you hope big companies get attention? Um, and I’m guessing that we’re going to talk talk about what type of attention and what that would look like.

 

Ian Altman  8:06 

Yeah, and most of it comes down to that. Most people when they’re selling our thinking about themselves, they suffer from what I like to call axis displacement disorder. That’s when somehow they believe the axis of the Earth has shifted, and the world revolves around them.

And it doesn’t work that way. So we have to always put ourselves in our clients shoes and think, what is it that motivates them? And how do we align whatever it is we’re trying to sell with those needs?

 

Mostafa Hosseini  8:35 

So what are what are some of the traps that business owners fall into when they’re trying to get attention for their business?

 

Ian Altman  8:41 

So the first thing is something that everyone’s been on the receiving end of, but when we’re doing it other people, we think it’s okay, which is, we lead with this notion that we’re perfect for you, you just don’t know it yet.

And so we lead with, Oh, I’ve got this great company that does accounting or financial services or technology. And so I want to, I want to introduce myself and my company to you, because you should be excited about my company. And the problem with that is, it’s just not true. No one cares what you do. What they care about is, what’s moving the needle and what struck, what struggles are they facing internally.

And so I’ve done this research with over 10,000 executives around the world, on how people make and approve decisions. And the questions they ask are not, hey, where can I find a vendor who sells this? That’s something that’s on no one’s top 10 list. But there are three questions that people consistently ask when they’re trying to make or approve a decision.

And so instead of talking about ourselves and talking about what we do, we have to lead with what I call the problems we solve. Because if we lead with the problems we solve, then we might pick someone’s attention that says, Wait, I have that problem. I might want to learn more about it.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  9:57 

Alright, so I guess that’s it So we think we are weird a solution to the problem that they have. And they just don’t know about it. What how should we approach them?

 Yeah. And I think you just touched on it about the problem. Sure. What

 

Ian Altman  10:12 

is the approach? So you approaches this and it comes down to that research that I did. So keep mine across over 10,000 people, I put them in this scenario. And I say, someone on your team comes to you and says, We had to buy this thing. It costs $20,000. It takes 45 days for the vendor to implement whatever it is, it requires no resources on our part, and they give us a 10 year guarantee. What are the questions you have to have answered to make an informed decision? So I had people come up with a list of five questions in groups, and then they narrowed down to their top three, the same three questions every time.

The first question is, what problem or problems does this solve? The second question is, why do I need it? And the third question is, what’s the likely outcome? Or result if I do this, namely, what’s the ROI? So if we know that those are the questions that people ask in that order, then when we’re trying to earn attention, what we should focus on is a couple things. One is we want to talk about the problems we solve. And then we want to be humble and approachable enough to acknowledge that not everyone’s the right fit for us.

So we follow a structure that in the same selling book, we refer to as the same side pitch of entice, disarm and discover. So first, we entice by sharing the problems that we solve with dramatic or extraordinary results, then we disarm the notion that we’re just there to sell something by acknowledging not everyone’s a fit for us. And then we trigger a discovery phase. So it might sound something like this.

In my business, it might be what people come to me when they’re struggling to earn attention, they get commoditized against other people in their industry, and their clients always focus on price. So that’s the problem I solve for the right organization, they know that if that continues, they’re going to lose margin, they’re gonna lose business, and they might not be around in a couple of years.

For the right organizations, they tell me that we deliver amazing results to overcome those challenges. But and here’s the disarm part, not everyone’s the right fit for how we do that, which happens to be true. So I don’t yet know if I can help you. But if you’re facing challenges like that, I’m happy to learn more about your situation and see if we might be able to help. Love it.

And so if you’re someone who’s facing one of those challenges, what’s going through your head, I hope they’re the kind of people that were in that profile that they can help. And now who’s selling whom they’re trying to convince you now, why you’re the right fit. And it’s all about getting to the truth as quickly as possible. It’s not about persuasion, coercion, or Jedi mind tricks. This is all integrity based.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  12:45 

Amazing. So you brought the three questions, what is the problem? Why? Now I kind of need, why do we need it? I can’t read my own handwriting. And then what’s gonna happen if I do this? Yeah, what’s the right outcome or result?

Yep. So now that I know these three questions for someone that is listening, what do I do with these next? Let’s say that I sit down and I answer these questions. What’s the next step?

 

Ian Altman  13:10 

Well, so the thing is that here’s the challenge. So you explain this to people. And they say, Okay, that’s great. So now, how do I want a meeting with somebody stick to this structure? Because I know if I, if I know, I need to understand what problem that’s what problem they’re trying to solve, why they need it?

How important is this compared to other things on their plate? What’s the likely outcome or result? Maybe I also want to know who else involved how do I structure that. So in same side selling in, on page 76, in the printed copy is something we call the same side quadrants. And this is stuff that, you know, I’m going to share with you the details.

And if people have to go get the book, I’m happy to share it, we’re just trying to make an impact on people’s lives,

 

Mostafa Hosseini  13:49 

I appreciate it.

 

Ian Altman  13:50 

So the idea of the same side quadrants is that this is how we take notes in a meeting. And we’re going to take notes around the things that we know move the needle for our customer. So when someone first contacts us, what we’re going to do is on a blank sheet of paper, draw a vertical line down the center, horizontal, horizontal line across, creating four equal quadrants.

On the upper left, we take notes about what I call the issue, namely, what inspired them to reach out to you what are they hoping to solve? Okay, upper right quadrant, we take notes about the impact or importance, namely, what happens if you don’t solve this?

Why do I need it? How important is this compared to other things on your plate? In the lower left quadrant, we take notes around the results. So that there’s some different questions for each quadrant, but it’d be something like I would say, some of the stuff what are we going to measure together six months from now. So you and I know this was a good investment.

So it was worthwhile, what are we going to measure for the outcomes? And then in the lower right quadrant, we’ve all had situations as business people where we thought the deal was done and someone’s name popped up we had never heard of, so that lower right quadrant is where we ask questions about who else is impacted, but we don’t ask this horrible question people have been trained to ask, which is, who’s the decision maker?

Because I asked that. It’s kind of like saying, well, Mustapha, they couldn’t possibly entrust this to you. So who is the decision maker, it becomes instantly adversarial. Instead, I might say, so who else would have an opinion about how we measure impact or results? Who else would have a different thought about how we approach what success looks like?

 And so the idea is that we need that structure in these quadrants. Because if I take notes in that format, then I can glance at the sheet of paper and see that I forgot to cover one of those quadrants. But notes freeform, I missed that.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  15:46 

By the way, I’m taking notes here, just so you know, I’m actually drew two quadrants. So I got issues in the top left, impact on the top right results at the bottom left. And the bottom sight word, what goes there,

 

Ian Altman  15:57 

others impacted or others involved? Okay,

 

Mostafa Hosseini  16:00 

others. All right, perfect. And then now once we have this, that’s basically

 

Ian Altman  16:05 

that’s, that’s our framework. Now, so I’ll, I’ll kind of show you, you. And I roleplay this, because I think it helps people understand it. So let’s say you, let’s say you’re trying to grow your business. So I would say to you, gee, Mustapha, what piqued your interest? What is it that what is it that you’re hoping to cover in our conversation today? And now you would say, you know, whatever it is, oh, well, you know, business has been off. We’ve been having trouble on price would have this and that. Great. So how long has that been going on? Well, it’s been going on for six months, whatever.

Okay, fine. So what happens if you don’t solve that? And now we’ve just moved to that upper right quadrant? What do you don’t solve it? Well, we could lose market share this and that. Okay. So, Mr. COVID, compared to other things on your plate, how important is this issue right now. And that’s something that we call importance, it goes in that same upper right quadrant, because they might have a big issue, but something else is a bigger issue, which means it’s not as urgent for them.

Yeah. Now, once I get all that in, now, you’re saying, Wow, he, you know, he really totally understands me, he gets the problem. I’m trying to solve why it’s so important to me. That’s not enough. So then I say, so what are we going to measure together six months down the road? 12 months down the road? So we know this is successful? You might say? Well, I mean, you know, I want to see that our margins are better than our sales cycles are shorter. Okay. Do you have benchmarks on that today? No, not real. Okay. So we should probably benchmark that before we start to make sure that we can measure it, right? Because I want to make sure we can both hold each other accountable. Because here’s the thing. Most businesses do not ask questions about results.

So if I asked most people in, in business leadership or sales roles, the buyer seller journey starts at the initial contact. Yeah, we then race to the finish line, the finish line, we break through the tape, everyone’s high fiving. What do we call the finish line? And what most people say is the finish line is the sale or the contract or getting paid? But it isn’t. Because to our client, the finish line is not the sale, that’s when they start getting nervous. The finish line is a results.

So I asked executives, I say if you had two vendors, one who’s asking you about what does success look like at the end? And and how we’re going to measure results. And the other one’s focused on the contract? Who would you rather deal with? And 100%? They say, Well, I want the person who’s focused on results. Okay.

How many of you would be willing to pay a little bit more? For the person who’s asking questions about results? Notice, I don’t say guaranteeing results. They say, How many of you would be willing to pay more for the person who’s asking questions about results? Everyone raises their hand? Great, how much more? The most common answer they give me is 10 to 20%.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  18:47 

If they could get a few results,

 

Ian Altman  18:49 

no, nothing can guarantee results. Just I’d be willing to pay 10 to 20% more for the person who’s having a meaningful dialogue with us about results versus the company who isn’t. And then I without any guarantees, without any guarantees.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  19:02 

Love it. I did not know

 

Ian Altman  19:04 

that. Here’s the here’s the interesting thing. Here’s another way to think about that. Let’s say you’re buying something that’s important for your business, how much less would you have to pay for it to be a good deal, but you do not get the results that you need? Doesn’t matter what you pay? If you don’t get the results? It’s not a good deal.

So when your clients are pressuring you on price, you might say something like, you know, the only way we can do this for less or the while I’m away, I can envision anyone doing it for less is if they cut some of these corners that would put those results we talked about in jeopardy.

And I don’t know about other companies, we’re not comfortable putting those at risk for our clients. Do you think we’re making a mistake there? The cloud said no, no, because the results are all that matter. Great. And now we’re having a meaningful discussion.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  19:56 

I love it. Love it. So let me ask you another technical question. So We go through these quadrants. Yep. How do we and you said, yeah, you rightly mentioned that sale is not the end result. Yep. But so what’s the next? How do we transition from? I? Well, we have the answers. And then now I want to seal the deal. And then I guess you ask the question of who else want me involved in the rest of it?

 

Ian Altman  20:25 

What? Yeah, who else is impacted? Who else would have an opinion about the results? So for starters, we’ve now collected all this great information and what’s in that information? We now know what problem they’re trying to solve, why they need to solve it? What happens if they don’t solve it? And what success looks like?

Yeah, well, we have two options at this point, we can keep that to ourselves, or we can share it with them, I would suggest that you want to share it with them. So we send what we call a concise business case to them that says, here’s a quick summary of our meeting. And the meeting isn’t it’s not a summary of what I want to sell you the summary is, here’s our understanding of your situation. Here’s what happens if you don’t solve it, here’s what success looks like. Here’s our approach to deliver those results, and what the investment is.

So what I’d asked you to do is just go through that document, and just make sure I didn’t get anything wrong, because I want to make sure that we’re that we’re targeting the right outcome. The client says, Yeah, that’s great. And then the big people often use the term closing at the end of the sales cycle. I don’t like that term. Friend of mine, Jim Cathcart fellow speaker is a legend in the world of sales says, Why do we call it closing?

We’re not closing anything, we’re opening a relationship or confirming a sale, we’re not closing a sale. So I prefer that term close, confirming the sale. But at the end, if we’ve done all this, we get to ask a question like, so Mostafa, would you like our help? It’s not I pressure, it’s just, I’ve just laid this out. So the reason why individuals and businesses select one vendor over another, usually has very little to do with checking boxes has very little to do with the price.

What it usually has to do with is how well do I feel these people understand my situation. Because if I feel like they really understand it, I probably have to do a little less vetting of them. Because they’ve done enough homework that I feel like they know our situation. If you’re not asking enough questions of them, they feel like man, I gotta pepper these people with questions, because I have to determine if they’re a good fit for us. They don’t have enough information.

So the mistake that most people make in business is they spend too much time talking about themselves, and not enough time being skeptical as the client questions. So it’s not, we’re not trying to convince them, they got a big problem. In fact, most businesses spend too much time chasing bad opportunities. So the idea is, hey, Mr. Office, you have this issue. I mean, he said it’s been going on for a couple years. I mean, if you haven’t solved it before, what’s the urgency in solving it today? And you got to convince me that it’s worth solving. Because why should I spend time trying to come up with a solution to a problem that you don’t think needs to be solved?

 

Mostafa Hosseini  23:04 

Yeah. If you don’t care about it, why would I even bother? Yeah. Ha. Wow, this is this is this is really Arrow, Arrow and Sal good selves. I hope I didn’t butcher her her last name, I guess I did. She is she’s really like in the quadrants. And she’s really liking the conversation so far. Right?

 

Ian Altman  23:25 

And any, any questions, just post them in the comments? And whatever it is, it can be? How do I deal with this situation or that situation?

You know, in, in my academy, we do something every month called the Coach’s Corner. So people submit questions all throughout the month. And we kind of go through them one by one, and they all get edited down. And to me, that’s the most fun part of my month is just that that answer together, just answering questions. And then we and then we follow up the next month and say, how did that go? And guess what? It’s not magic. So it’s like 100% of people say, Wow, so the deal was dead. And you You told them to ask this question.

And now you know, they’ve dropped off a briefcase of money. That doesn’t always happen. But the idea is that we get to the truth. If someone says, you know, you said it sounded like the deal was dead. And we asked this question, and we confirmed it’s actually dead. We’re not wasting our time, or, Hey, we use this information. And we asked this this question, and we just landed the account, it’s going to be an extra $2 million a year for us. That’s great. So it just all depends.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  24:22 

Absolutely. Love it. Love it. Love it. So far, we’ve talked about the quadrants, where we discovered issues, the impact that the issue is going to make or is or will make the results start looking for and who else might be involved. Once we have those questions. We have the information to make a decision and I guess that will help us qualify the person in front of us to see whether we do want to spend time with them or not.

And if I Are you as an entrepreneur, feel like that they are the right fit and you’re the right fit for them. Then you take it to the next phase saying would you like our help?

 

Ian Altman  24:56 

Exactly. I’m sorry, go ahead.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  24:59 

No, go So I was gonna say if they say yea or nay, then you would know. You’re just take it from there.

 

Ian Altman  25:06 

Yeah, and keep mine, you might say, look, I want to make sure we confirm the results, because depending on upon what results you’re looking for, that’s going to change the scope and the cost of what we’re doing. So I don’t know how anybody could possibly give you a price without knowing what the results are that you’re looking for.

Which means when the other vendor comes in and says, Hey, we can do it for 15 grand, and they asked you, how much is yours? And you say, I don’t know yet. Because I don’t know what the finish line looks like. If I don’t know what success looks like, then that’s, you know, how can I possibly give you a number then they’re thinking to themselves, well have that other knucklehead give us a number, if they don’t know what success looks like, either.

 So it becomes something that that really unpacks our differentiation around results compared to other people. And then there’s, there’s a whole myriad of things that we can do to help stand out compared to the competition out in the marketplace.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  25:57 

Absolutely. So speaking of competition, and money. What’s your take? Or what’s your view on people that are doing most of the competition on price? And they’re like price selling? Well? How would What’s your take on that?

 

Ian Altman  26:12 

Well, it’s unfortunate, because if you sell to somebody who only goes with you today, because you are less expensive than somebody else, then why is that client likely to leave you six months from now, because somebody else is a little bit less, and eventually, nobody makes any money. And if you’re not making money, you probably can’t deliver exceptional service to your clients.

So we need to make sure that we’re not competing on price, because if you’re competing on price, you’re not really selling, you’re just order taking. And people are treating you like a commodity. So the key is, how do we have intelligent conversations so that people can see, oh, what you have is different. I’m going to be in a better place with you than with somebody else.

And of course, I expect to pay more for that, because I’m getting a better outcome. And it’s like, you know, what, if I’m if I’m buying a custom jacket, I know it’s gonna be more expensive than the one that’s mass produced. If someone told me Oh, it’s the same price, I’m immediately thinking, well, then what’s wrong with it? Because this came right.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  27:19 

Here. Here’s a here. Here’s a lot of Mostafa question, what’s your best approach to make price irrelevant in a transaction?

 

Ian Altman  27:29 

Well, so what might it sound like when someone’s focused on price, and then I’ll show you how we might respond to that. So what might it sound like if someone was focused on price, so give me a scenario, what type of product or service and what the client might say with respect to price. And I’ll give you an example how we’ll respond to it.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  27:49 

Let’s say that I’m a web designer, and I’ve got my smallest package starts at 10. Grand, okay, and it goes up. And the average Joe out there is selling websites for two or three grand. Yeah, but ours is this premium, you know, product, we start at 10.

But I’m concerned about how some people may not be able to afford it. And I’m looking for ways to make price irrelevant, have people line up and have a waiting list.

 

Ian Altman  28:18 

So what I might say is, look, when people are looking for web design, usually looking at one to three levels. So our industry is kind of shaped like a pyramid at the base level is what we call the effective level. This is people often one or two person shops, they do stuff as long as you know exactly what you need, you can direct them, they can build a site that will look beautiful, using those tools.

In fact, some people in some cases, people use, you know, DIY stuff, and they build it themselves. And the next level, these are companies, they’re kind of built like a factory, they have a cookie cutter approach at the end. And that’s we call the Enhance of the Engage level, which is the top of the pyramid, there’s a small number of firms.

And what we tend to do is we try to understand exactly what you’re trying to accomplish. And we want to make sure we can measure the results. So we tailor the site to generate those results. So for starters, which level you’re looking for.

So by doing that, what I’ve just done is I’ve created three different levels in our industry. Now I’m asking the client, which one are they looking for? If the client says I’m just looking for the bottom feeder? That’s not you, you move on? I’ve just done this pique their interest that says, Well, I want the one that’s focused on results and driving additional revenue and all that.

 Okay, great. Then they say, Well, this, this other guy was two grand well, so which level do you think they’re at? They’re probably at that effective level. Okay. So for our clients, what they tell us is, it’s really important that they get the right that they attract the right audience, that they get the right conversions, and they turn those people into revenue.

And so we spend a lot of time building those out. If we didn’t do that. We could probably offer it for half what we charge right now. But all those additional steps take additional time to drive results. So your call is it? Is it worth it to do that and we understand In that for some businesses, you’re not going to generate enough revenue.

And your brand image isn’t important enough to make it worth investing that much in your site. You got it. And that’s totally fine. And if and if that’s the case, I’m happy to recommend somebody who might do a perfectly fine job creating a beautiful site. It’s not going to have all the conversion and bells and whistles, but it’ll look great.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  30:23 

Right? Absolutely. Now, this could be a net. good segue to our next question, which is, you’ve done quite a bit of research on how clients approve or disapprove decisions or how they make their decisions. What did you discover?

Which, which I would, I guess we could connect it to the my previous question how they would approve or disapprove a contract or a business opportunity?

 

Ian Altman  30:52 

Yeah, so those remember those three questions that people ask, which is, what problem does this solve? Why do we need it? What’s the likely outcome or result tied directly into the quadrants. And so one of the traps that people fall into is, the proposal they send to the client says says to them, here’s what we’re going to do for this much money.

In other words, worse, here’s what we’re selling you. And so imagine that proposal now lands on a CFOs desk, and the CFO has $50,000 worth of things to approve. But they only have $30,000 a budget. And so your proposal for $10,000 comes across their desk. Now, there’s two options. One of them says, we’re going to build a website, that’s 10 grand.

And the other version says, here’s why you’re seeking to build a website to begin with, here’s what happens if you get it wrong. Here’s what success looks like. Here’s who else we included in the process. And here’s where we’re going to achieve those results.

And to do that it cost $10,000. And here’s how long before it’ll be operational. Which one’s easier to approve. Second one, they say that the CFO who now is just got this on this desk says, Okay, I’m going to approve this one. I have more questions asked about the other ones, because they don’t have the information in front of them to make an informed decision.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  32:12 

Love it, love it, love it. And it’s like you’re just reflecting on the answers that they gave you about the issues, the impact, and about the results that they’re looking for be like, here’s the issue you might be experiencing, here’s the impact.

And here’s what would happen if you don’t do this. And here are the results. If this sounds interesting, if this sounds like something you are looking for, which is what they’re looking for, and they give it to you, here’s how we’re going to do it. I love it. Exactly. And,

 

Ian Altman  32:39 

and so the challenge for most people is they say, well, but what if I didn’t get that information? Then what are you pitching to them? If you don’t know the answers to those questions, there’s a pretty good chance they could be paying you and not getting the results, which means they’re now going to be a negative drain on your business and your brand. But if you focus on what they’re trying to achieve, and you deliver that, then you get all sorts of repeat and referral business.

I mean, it’s, it’s interesting in our in our Samsung Academy, we launched it before COVID. So in January of 2020, we launched it, and we’ve had 100% renewal in subscriptions from last year to this year. Well, you know, people say, are you surprised as well? I’m surprised, because any platform that is 100% renewable, and there’s no way we’re going to sustain that forever.

But right now we are, it’s because, you know, I’m 100% committed to people’s results. So if I see that someone’s not using it. Either I or someone on my team will reach out and say, Hey, you’re paying for this thing. Here are the ear things are available to you to help your business. We hope you’ll use it because I’m focused on the results, not just the sale and the same thing in any other business.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  33:50 

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, going back to the conversation, even here earlier, how do we determine if someone in front of us is is if opportunity is a real opportunity? Or if it’s a waste of time?

 

Ian Altman  34:10 

What so? So it’s interesting, you asked that because one of the ways that people used to qualify opportunities was through something they referred to as band. So they would do it what’s called band qualification, which is budget authority need and time sensitivity. mean, do they have budget? Does the person have authority? Do they have need?

And is this a time sensitive situation? That’s how they qualified. It doesn’t work that way anymore, because we’ve all had situations where the client had budget and decided to just stay with what they were doing anyhow, and didn’t spend the money. We’ve also had situations where someone who’s the CEO and says, Well, I’m not going to make this decision unless my team is on board.

So authority really doesn’t mean anything because they may have the authority, but they’re not willing to make the decision alone. So then we’ve got, you know, kind of both of those scenarios, then we then we have the situation where need, that’s fine because it ties into quadrants. And the time sensitivity.

I’ll give you that too. But we all know there are situations where people don’t have something budgeted. But if the issue and the impact importance and the results are critical enough, they’ll find the money. So the way we figured out something’s real, is by being vigilant about sticking to those quadrants, about qualifying and those opportunities, and then saying to them, okay, so So would you like our help? Yeah. Okay.

So where will you find the money for this? And they’re either gonna say, Oh, well, we have the budget, or Oh, yeah, we’re gonna get the budget from these other guys. Well, what about that? Well, they had it budgeted. But really, no one understands why they need to do it. What happens if they don’t do it? So we’re going to take their money, and use it for our project now that you helped us understand what the impact is and what the importance is, and what the results could be.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  36:01 

Man, I really like your no BS approach. This last question of where will you get the budget for this? Do you just ask that without knowing or asking the prior question about budget?

 

Ian Altman  36:14 

Well, so you can you can say, you can say to them, for example, you might say, look, so, you know, keep in mind, if I’ve asked the right questions, when I asked them, What happens if you don’t solve it, they’re gonna say, Well, we could lose some business. And I might say how much business they go, Well, we could probably lose one or two deals per month. Okay. What’s your average deal size?

However, deal size is like $10,000. Okay, so you think it’d be how much per year? And they’re gonna say, well, it’s like a quarter million dollars. Okay. So listen, to solve that the investments going to be about $20,000. Should we not continue?

 Well, no, I mean, it’s a little bit more than we wanted to spend. But I mean, we can find the money for that, because it’s costing us $250,000 To not do it. Okay. So what do you need from us to help get the fundings you can actually do this? And that’s the way we ask those sorts of questions. So it shouldn’t be uncomfortable. Yeah, it should always be in the context of I want them to convince us that this is worth doing.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  37:15 

Yeah, I liked it. I say it’s not like you’re like asking for the sale, you’re just qualifying saying, yeah, it’s gonna work for you. Yes.

Where will you get the budget? Or this is gonna be this is gonna cost you so much. Yeah. Should we keep talking? And if they say, oh, yeah, then and you know, you’re good. Sure. I’m loving.

 

Ian Altman  37:33 

Once again, we’re just trying to get to the truth. And so, too often people have been taught just bad habits. And it’s not their fault. It’s just somebody use some technique, and it kind of worked in the past. And then someone else comes along, and they say, well, here’s what I do. And then unfortunate, it’s like playing telephone where each person does it.

And they probably don’t do it, as well as the prior person. And now we’ve had, you know, 150 years of people, in essence, making worse a bad approach to begin with. And now that’s what people are stuck with. So it’s not like people, people are born thinking, I’m going to be slimy in sales, they just don’t know any better. And they think that’s the way you do it.

And we take this approach. And what I love is when we get people who have been in sales for a long time, and all of a sudden they change their approach. And they say, you know, this is a whole lot easier than it used to be, I feel like I’m not at, you know, banging heads with my client, I feel like we’re on the same side, which is, you know, the title of the book.

And we say that it’s, it shouldn’t be a game metaphor of battle metaphor. The metaphor is putting a puzzle together, we’re just 30 or 30 pieces on the table, throw ours on the table. Let’s see if this puts together if we can put the pieces together and come up with a great picture. And if we can great If not, let me try and find someone who’s got the right pieces for you.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  38:55 

Absolutely, gang, for those of you who are watching or listening, Ian is sharing some top of the line action steps that you could use and some of the scripts that he is sharing with you, you could like go back into recording and listen to it and literally use it in your sales conversations like today, like right now. You don’t have to think or Think it over for the weekend and see if you want to use it or not.

This is like and I’ve been I guess I’ve been doing this for a while. He’s sharing some gold material, some real valuable stuff with you right now. Now speaking of scripts, you’re sharing a gift with us called Seven scripts to double your revenue. Could you please tell us about that?

 

Ian Altman  39:35 

Yep. So it’s something that is people just double click on the link, and it’ll share the link with it. They just go to same side. selling.com/what do we do daily confidence daily confidence? Yes. So same. So it’s something that calm slash daily confidence. And what this is, is it’s seven steps, if you will, on specifically things that you can do that will that will drive more revenue for you Now I’ve got people who will say, Well, no more than double, whatever.

I’m not a big fan of the 10x anything because I think that’s kind of silly. So to me, it’s about, look, if we can double your revenue over the next 12 months, by following these seven pretty simple steps, it’s probably worthwhile. And it doesn’t cost anything.

 It’s just a free gift to people. I believe, and I could be wrong, but I believe it may ask for your email address, because I think it sends it to you. It doesn’t subject you to a lifetime of spam. So we’ll share that information. Something else. If the information isn’t valuable, you just click the unsubscribe, we’re not gonna we’re not gonna, as you might gather, everything we do is integrity based. I don’t want to share information with people who don’t want it. Exactly.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  40:46 

Yep. If you don’t want it, we’re not gonna force you to read it down our list. Love it. Love it, love it. Now, gang. I know a lot of people get stuck when it comes to scripts, like what do I actually say? How do I you know, frame it? Or how do I propose it? Or how do I put it forward and the rest of it.

So these seven scripts to double your revenue, go out there, grab it opt in, put your fair, you know, first name and email. And Ian’s team, we’ll send it over to you. And as I’m, as I’m sure by now, you would know the guy, he’s got some value to deliver.

So hopefully the question of value would be out of out of out of out of the list and checked off as we’re talking about driving and competing on value versus price. So the link is same site selling.com. Forward slash daily confidence. Again, it is same side, si d selling.com.

Forward slash daily confidence. And so now, some we’ve had we’ve had a few sales professionals over the past few months talking. Some people you may know that we talked about sales. And I just want to clarify this, as some people might be asking Mostafa, why are you talking about sales a lot. And it to me, at business without sales just simply doesn’t exist?

To me, as you know, Zig Ziglar says, money is not everything, but it ranks high up there right beside oxygen. And to me sales to a business is the same thing is ranks high up there right beside oxygen. So that’s why a lot of business owners have this lack of confidence with sales, right? So we simply cannot talk enough about sales, right? I’m sure business has different areas. And we do talk about different things. But sales is important. Without it, we’d be in trouble. And especially these days, where like during a pandemic, which we’ve been, you know, through for the past year and a half, we have to address this.

 

Ian Altman  43:05 

In people it, it’s absolutely critical. And I think what makes most people uncomfortable, is that most people start a business because they saw an opportunity in the marketplace to help people. And then somebody says to them, well, in order to help those people, you have to do these deceptive practices. And that’s not what professional selling is professional selling, is truly figuring out who you can help the most, and focusing on them, and not wasting your time on the people who aren’t a fit.

And so if you follow this construct, then you’ll have the tools to do that. And I like to say it’s allows you to just to discover an approach to selling that everybody can embrace, especially your customer.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  43:49 

Can you touch on? We’re does that the fear of sleazy sales techniques come from? And I mean, you just talked about, you know, if you talk to the right person, you qualify them and you’re serving them, they want you want them there is you don’t need to deceive them. Where does this fear comes from?

And so I guess that’s a good way to tie into our next question of how do you, you know, improve your sales skills, if you’re not?

 

Ian Altman  44:20 

Well, so it’s kind of like driving. So I remember when I was in college, we took a ski trip. And I was driving. And so we we get to we get to the ski resort. And the people in the car with me said, Oh, man, you know, it was great, because, you know, I always feared like in weather like this would be sliding all over the place. And I mean, obviously we didn’t slide at all and we didn’t skate at all, and we were just totally fine even though there were these huge cliffs on each side and I said, Oh, we were sliding all over the place.

Well, so why was nervous because when I was younger, we used to take ski trips with a buddy of mines family. My buddy’s dad would take us out to a parking lot after after a big snow, and just have us floor it and it hit them slam on the brakes. And so we understood how to deal with a car that was skidding in ice or snow. So then when I got in that situation, it wasn’t stressful, because I already knew exactly what to do.

But if you have never been exposed to that, you’d all of a sudden it would happen, you’d say, Oh, my God, I’m gonna die. What do I do, you wouldn’t know what to do. It’s the same thing in sales, which is, if you don’t have a consistent process to follow, if you don’t have guidance on how to deal with different scenarios when they come up, if you don’t have in essence, a playbook to follow. If you don’t have someone kind of coaching you and mentoring you through the process, then guess what you’re kind of winging it.

And when that happens, you should be uncomfortable, because you don’t know what to do when those situations come up. As opposed to if you get that structure, if you haven’t, so that you’ve got a regular way to practice with other people. If you’ve got this playbook of what to do in these scenarios, all of a sudden, you’re not stressed anymore. And then you say, Okay, now this came up. So the client said, Well, your stuff sounds great, but it’s too expensive.

Oh, I know what to do. When that happens. I shift the focus to results. Okay, you know, gee, I appreciate that, I realized that people would like to pay less. The only way we could do it for less is if we put these results at risk. We’re not comfortable doing that with our clients, you think we’re making a mistake? Now, neither the results are really matters. Great. And now you’ve just dealt with it. But if you didn’t know how to do that, then the client says, Why don’t you guys are too expensive? And they say, well, well, how much? How much?

Would we have to discount it to get the business and now you just given up margin? And then you say, well, they’re not making a decision. I know, I’ll use this great point. Well, so the end of the month. So if you make a purchase today, today, we’ll give it to you for less, and they just keep giving away margin, because they don’t know another way to handle it.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  46:57 

Absolutely. If someone is getting started today, and they want to hone their sales skills, they have all sorts of fears, objections, blockages about sales. Where do I even start? But if I have that,

 

Ian Altman  47:14 

yep, well, I’m a big fan of you need a process. I’m going to describe it in the context what we do in the same sites on the academy. But I don’t care which system you use, just you need, you need a system that has these components to it. If it happens to be mine, great. If you pick something else, just don’t wing it. Like, you know, people always say, Well, what do you think about this system?

I said, Any system is better than having no system. So there’s three components that people really need. The first is the never consistent process that says, here’s what I do from step one to step in to step by step. Here’s what I do each step along the way, then you need a playbook. We call the objection clinic.

So every month we have a new objection clinic that says, So what do you do when the client says this when they say, Oh, you’re Yeah, it sounds interesting. But we already have a vendor who does that? Oh, that sounds fine. But you got to talk to our procurement people.

Oh, yeah, that’s that, you know, gee, that’s interesting. But we’re not going to make a decision for another two years. But how do you deal on each one of those situations when those come up, and then you need an environment where you can practice, and you get coaching and mentoring, and there’s accountability.

So these are things that candidly, we learned over the last year and a half in the same side selling Academy, because there were things that we didn’t do. So we used to have it so that here in the court in the in the core section of the academy, here’s these 10 lessons, you would think if you have less than one, lesson 10, everyone would just go through those 10 lessons. They don’t need to make it. So once they sign up, it says, here’s a link to lesson one.

And then two days later, it says here’s lesson two and what you’re going to learn in lesson two, and here’s the quiz to make sure that within you understand it. And here’s a worksheet to guide you through it. And you would think the worksheet would be enough. It’s not enough because people say, what’s a worksheet, but what should the worksheet look like when it’s completed.

So now we haven’t. So each worksheet has a sample of here’s what a completed worksheet might look like, depending on your industry. So for each lesson, there are worksheets and other other pieces of related content and other articles and whatever it’s just people need more and more information. And what we found is that because we can track people’s activity, I can take a team of 40 salespeople that 40 professionals is a lot of the people in our program aren’t even people who would consider themselves in sales.

And some of the people will watch most of the lessons at 1.2 times a recorded speed one time take the quiz pass it, they’re good. Other people on that same team who could be even higher performers might watch a given lesson five times to get the same outcome. But the thing is that we need to tailor it to each person’s learning style.

And so whatever it is that you’re doing, you need to have a consistent process, you need some level of accountability, they need that playbook, that navigates them through the different steps. And then you need a way to practice and roleplay with other people, and get mentoring and feedback. So you can make adjustments going forward.

And if you do that, I found people to be incredibly successful. And it’s very liberating when you see somebody who says, Yeah, you know, gee, I was, I was curious. I was wondering whether or not I was gonna even have my job. And a year later, I’m one of the top performers. That’s, you know, that’s great.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  50:33 

Absolutely. So here’s what you gave me in and correct me if I get any part of it wrong. One, you need to have a system, like a step by step structure that like here is how you run through. Because once you follow a system, and it’s a proven model, then you know that it has provided results for other people, and it has a better chance of providing results for you.

Instead of trying to create and drum everything up from scratch, like, Oh, here’s how I’m gonna do it. Right? Well, I mean, you can modify an existing system that works, but trying to create things from scratch. And I’ve paid dearly for this myself being a smartass. So following a system works better. The other component you mentioned, was having a community where you practice with them, where you are all on the same boat.

They’re all going through the same thing, you show up and practice overcoming objections. That’s like the biggest thing, like it’s one case where you just get hit in the face with an objection where you don’t know how to handle it. And the other cases for 12 months or 24 months, every week, with a group of entrepreneurs, you were respond, responding and answering objections and practicing, that that practice component.

And the community, for me personally is like the biggest thing where it gives me massive, massive confidence. I mean, if I have practice overcoming objections, it’s like that. Is that like, the biggest thing with sales? Like

 

Ian Altman  52:13 

it’s not even, you know, we call the objection clinic because people identify with that, but it’s more, I look at it like it’s a playbook of when this happens, we do this when this happens, we do that. So it’s not like it’s a big objection.

It could be for example, someone says, oh, well, the firm we were going to hire, we thought it was important that they be in our hometown of Chicago, and you don’t have an office in Chicago. So how do you deal with that? Well, that’s not really an objection. It’s just much more of a, it’s a potential obstacle. So we’re just trying to get to the truth.

So it’s the fact that we don’t have a location in Chicago. Does that mean we could never work together? Well, not necessarily. Okay. What would you need to see to be comfortable that you’d be in good hands, even if we don’t have an office in Chicago. And then they’ll tell you the two or three things they need to see, and you show them those.

And it’s no longer an obstacle. But that’s a playbook. That’s a play in a playbook that says, When this happens, I follow these three steps. So you think about it. Like for example, we have the competitions here before, what do we do? Oh, competition. Here’s the client vision pyramid, effective, enhanced, engaged. Oh, I’m meeting somebody a networking event. What do I do the same side pitch, entice disarm, discover, oh, I’m having a meeting?

How do I stay focused in the meeting, we have the quadrants, these are all structures that people can easily repeat. So if I if I just had people winging it, maybe they get it right, maybe they don’t, when you put it into simple structures, they’ll actually use it.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  53:44 

Love it. Love it, love it, love it, that that foundation, the community, the process of it, that’s all always sickly we need for any part of business for I would say, whether it’s sales, whether it’s marketing, finances, you always need a community, you always need systems to fall into and backup system you could fall back into and say, Alright, this is you know, what I’m going to use? Love it out in what makes same site selling different from the rest of the pack out there?

 

Ian Altman  54:17 

Well, to my knowledge, seems that selling is the only book that I’m aware of. That’s written by someone on the sales side and procurement side. So in essence, the client side and the selling side to get us all on the same on the on the same side working together.

And so I think taking that approach makes it so that it’s all integrity based and it’s something that doesn’t make anybody feel slimy. And we’re all focused around. How is this going to work for the end client? And I’ve been very fortunate in that.

I’ve worked with businesses of all shapes and sizes. And, you know, if you’re selling strictly to the government, I don’t think this is for you. If you’re somebody who is selling You know, at a retail store, people will tell me Oh, it’s great. I’ve got a retail store and I use same side selling, I don’t really see where it’s that dramatically different. If you’re selling business to business, if you’re in a business where you get highly commoditized, where there’s pricing pressure, that’s where this helps people stand out head and shoulders above the rest.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  55:20 

So just to clarify, same site selling is the title of your book, correct? Yep. Correct. Are and people work? Where can they find it?

 

Ian Altman  55:28 

Everywhere books are sold,

 

Mostafa Hosseini  55:30 

Amazon,

 

Ian Altman  55:32 

or Amazon, Barnes and Noble, online, etc, you can also get the, they’re the same side quadrant journals that that quadrant template that people can buy as well, they can get them on same side selling calm, you know, basically any anywhere that works. I always think it’s funny when someone buys a used book on Amazon, and then they, they get it and it’s it’s inscribed to somebody else, you know, because all sign books and events and it’s like, I got this great book. And it’s like, they’re showing a picture of the book. And it’s like signed to rob and the person’s name is Sally like, whatever.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  56:06 

Love it. Again, if you’re into reading books, which you should be, and you want to improve your confidence when it comes to sales, grab Ian’s book on Amazon or other platforms. It’s called same site selling and author is obviously in Altman and improve your skills. Um, what else do I want to ask you? Where do how do people find out about you if they want to get in touch with you,

 

Ian Altman  56:35 

you know, they go to same side selling that calm, they’ll find me or Ian Altman calm. Either one will get to me, if you if you want to connect me on LinkedIn just mentioned that the daily confidence show. And so feel free to reach out to me I get a fair number of LinkedIn requests if I have no idea who it is. And it seems like someone who’s just trying to pitch me something, I probably don’t accept those.

But if someone said, Hey, I heard you on with with Mustafa on the daily confidence show, well, then, then I’m happy to connect with you there so amazing. For reach out there or anywhere else. I mean, if people get the book and have questions, reach out. It’s funny, because I’ll see a question come in, I’ll respond.

And someone will say, Well, I’m sure this isn’t GE and I’m like, no, no, it is like I actually yeah, actually answer those questions. Still. I mean, there’s, you know, we have some of the filters through so I’m not looking at spam. But once it gets once it gets to me, I’m actually answering the questions.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  57:30 

I love it. Now, I know we’re kind of running out of time, but I love to ask you some personal questions. Is that okay? Sure. Now, what are some of the top two or three books that have made a massive impact in your business or in your life?

 

Ian Altman  57:46 

It’s good question. So a buddy of mine, Phil Jones wrote a book called exactly what to say. And, and the thing that I love about it is that in Phil’s book, it’s it’s all structured around, just very simple phrases are questions that can move the needle.

And so I think, you know, Phil’s book is great in terms of, and I often recommend it to different people who, who I know that there’s so many other books. I mean, you know, Nene James wrote a book called attention pays. And it’s all about capturing and earning attention from people that I think that I think is a great one. Bob’s Bob Berg’s, the Go Giver is, you know, just kind of iconic, Adam grants book I recently read think, again, the like how to like, really change your thinking and not fall into patterns. I mean, I read a lot of different books. And there are a number of those that really stand out for me. And so I can’t pick just one or two.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  58:44 

Love it. Now, if you had if you had an ad on Facebook, or Google, or you would have a message for people of Earth, or everyone on Earth on the internet could see your message, what would your message be?

 

Ian Altman  59:00 

My message would probably be something like, Be kind, be kind and help others. Because whether you’re whether it’s human to human, which is what everything is, or whether you’re in business, if you’re kind and always trying to help other people, it just comes back around and you’ll be better for it. So it’s not a you know, I guess I don’t maybe we’ll run that campaign on to it does.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  59:25 

Love it, love it. Love it. What is one piece of advice that has made a massive difference in your life or business?

 

Ian Altman  59:37 

You know what, probably that probably the biggest piece of advice was what before I started any of my businesses I was working for a was working for a company. And I was really frustrated in the company I was working in because they weren’t focused on the customer.

 And the piece of advice I got was from a guy who to this day is a great friend of mine and he said, well, at the time, you have no kids You rent an apartment, you own everything else you don’t owe anything, there’s never going to be a better time for you to start something and give it a shot. And, and that’s something that I did. And I guess it started my first company in 1993.

And I’ve had, you know, the good fortune of having a pretty good run for a long time. And it’s still, ironically, more exciting for me when I help an entrepreneur grow their business than growing my businesses. And it’s kind of weird, but I like my wife always laugh, she’s like, Yeah, when one of your clients has access, it’s like, you feel like it’s your, like, they did this, this, this look, all these great things are gonna happen. So, you know, just being kind and helping others.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  1:00:43 

Love it. The line that I got was start something and give it a shot. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Now, my next question is, what advice would you give your 20 year old self

 

Ian Altman  1:00:57 

take better, take better care of yourself physically. So it’s, as I as I tell my as my tell, my 20 year old son is in pretty good shape. I’m like, Look, this is this is an example of what not to do. So, you know, it’s much harder at my age to get myself into shape than at his age. So I’m like, you already in shape stay in shape.

So you know, I grew up when I was in college, I used to play volleyball on the beach for like, 20 hours a week, I couldn’t eat anything, it didn’t matter. I was in really great shape. I remember that, you know, 1520 years after college. I was I was speaking an event in San Diego, which is where I went to school, and called up a called a buddy of mine from college.

And we got together and he says, What the heck happened to you? So? So that would be my advice is, is it’s much easier to stay in shape than to try and get yourself back in shape

 

Mostafa Hosseini  1:01:51 

back in shape. Love it. Love it. Love it. Yep. Taking care of ourselves physically as entrepreneurs, is very, I think quite often we forget about our physical shape, and we get probably too busy. And stressing over business and other stuff that yeah, next thing we know, we’re we’re out of shape out of health out of good mental shape, and, and then we’re in trouble.

 And it’s a lot, like you said a lot harder to get back into it, then. Oh, yeah. Good. Yeah. This what this has been an absolutely truly amazing conversation, I feel like we could easily go on for another couple of hours. So I would love to have you back and expand on our conversation and maybe cover different areas of your expertise. And keep going. Is there anything that you would like to add? Before we wrap up?

 

Ian Altman  1:02:46 

You know, what, we’ve covered so many different things, I just think that the biggest thing is for your audience is just to start by start with step one, meaning very often people say, Oh, this is a good idea, I should totally do this. I’m going to do it next week, I’m going to do it next month, don’t put it off, just say, Okay, I’m going to incorporate these quadrants, I’m gonna incorporate this same side pitch, I’m going to incorporate that client vision, whatever it is, incorporate it, measure it, rinse and repeat.

And that’s the way we grow and have success. People often ask me, well, so Ge, you grew the business to a value of a couple billion dollars, how did you do that? I said, Well, we didn’t do it $1 billion at a time, we did it, you know, $50,000 at a time, and just over and over and over and over again. And that’s the way you get there.

So it’s just, you know, too often, and even I do it, I get stuck where Perfection is the enemy of done. And we think well, it’s not perfect, so I can’t launch it, launch it, you can always make adjustments.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  1:03:48 

Amazing, amazing, amazing. Amazing. And I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Gank if you have been listening or watching go to same site selling.com forward slash daily confidence. Grab the seven scripts to double your revenue as a free gift from Aaron and his team and do reach out. I I don’t say this very often, but I could say with confidence that Ian is one of the better guys that I’ve been talking to.

When it comes to sales, the guy knows his stuff. And, you know, go reach out. And it’s one of the things with confidence and people with confidence is people with confidence, do reach out for help. Ask for help when you would like if when you would try to figure it out on your own. That’s a lot. That’s a sign of lack of confidence or low self esteem.

Right? People confidence are open to say, hey guys, I have a problem. Who can help me and then they are open to receiving help. And sales is a big part in business. And I’m sure I don’t have to probably explain a lot about that. So thank you for joining us.

Thank you again for joining me, I hope to see you soon again. And hopefully we could pick up in the conversation where we left it in and provide more value to our audience and basically go from there.

 

Ian Altman  1:05:11 

Let’s talk about thanks for being such a great guide and asking amazing questions and serving your audience. So I really appreciate you for the work that you’re doing.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  1:05:19 

Thank you. Thanks for tuning in. My name is Mostafa Hosseini. You’re listening to daily confidence entrepreneurs. We will be back next week with another live show with another amazing guest and amazing topic. Have a great day and I look forward to seeing you later. Bye now.

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