Same Side Selling : Agency Edition

Welcome to Inbound Sales Journey. If you want to hone your sales skills and learn from the leaders on inbound selling, you've come to the right place. This episode of Inbound Sales Journey is brought to you by the Agency Sales System, the online course designed specifically to teach you how to build a rock solid agency sales system inside your HubSpot CRM. Learn more at dotinbound.com salescourse. Now here are your hosts, Ryan and Greg.

Welcome back to Inbound Sales Journey. This week in episode number 94, Ryan and I are going to be talking about same side selling. So a couple weeks ago in episode number 91, Ryan and I talked about selling websites, how to sell more websites at your agency right now, and a couple takeaways from from a sales process that we were going through at that point. That thought would be helpful for you guys to learn from and benefit from some of the stuff that we've learned over six years of making a bunch of sales mistakes. So this week, same side selling, what we're gonna be talking about is just one of the things that came out of that conversation was we talked a lot about personality types and trying to match personality, understand and match personality types a little bit during the sales process, but we also talked how to build trust by making it clear early on that you're not trying to just sell your goods at all costs to the customer, but you're actually trying to do what's in the best interest of that prospect. Same side Selling is the exact same concept. It's a book that came out a couple years ago from Ian Altman and Jack Quarles. If you guys have not read it yet, it comes recommended and we're not going to get into what, we're not going to spoil the whole book for you guys, but essentially the title kind of gives away that the book is about how to specifically and tactically help both sides get alignment and just kind of share that mutual understanding that they're on the same side trying to achieve success for both organizations. It's not a zero sum game where one side wins and one side loses. Ryan, I wanted to just kind of briefly talk about some of the ways that we do this in the sales process or have learned to do this or should do this in the sales process. Is there anything in your day to day, what are some of the tactics or ways that you try to establish trust or establish alignment, I guess with prospects who you're talking to?

So I think a big part in the beginning is, is rapport building and just kind of getting that skill down so not just diving right into sales. Although in the case that we shared gray a few episodes ago, that was kind of taken off your hands when immediately the woman you were talking with went right for what her expectations are and what she's looking for. And so there wasn't a whole lot of opportunity to do that. So you have to be flexible, obviously to work with the prospect that you have. But just like, I don't know, I think that there's, hopefully the steps we have are genuinely caring individuals about people. And I think it's really just getting yourself in the mindset of it's okay to not make the sale. Because realistically, like, you know, we talk and we put this pressure on salespeople around what's your close rate? You know, and we tie a lot. It's easy to tie numbers to performance on salespeople, but that puts a pressure on salespeople also to try to make every opportunity work, even if maybe it's not the best fit for both sides. And I think that's potentially why salespeople have gotten a bit of a stigma. You know, there's stigma around being in sales, a lot of stigma around being in sales nowadays. And I think that that's probably fueled largely by just expectations and being having a job that is so measurable and such a clear line of success. So when, if you can, try to help train yourself, which is what I do, like going into every call, not just I really want to make a sale, but. But I really want to figure out, is this person the right fit to work with us? Are we the right fit to work with them? Takes a little bit of pressure off because if it's not, then it's not, and that's fine. And in sales, you're not sitting there trying to force a product on people that doesn't help them. Like, that's not how sales work. Right. We live in a free market society somewhat, mostly, again, not political, but mostly. And people get to choose, like, is this right for me? Is it not right for me? So if you. But if you take that approach and if you go into it not with I have to make the sale, but I'm genuinely going to go into this call and build a relationship with this person and see if we do have the best service for the best agency for them, I think that's going to be really helpful. And I think as agency owners, being understanding that it's not the close rate and things like that, those are important, like metrics to judge people on but if people, if it's not a right fit, like, that's okay. Like, not everyone's going to be a right fit, and that's fine. And I'm not going to put undue pressure and stress on just on things like close rate when there's a lot more to it that makes someone a good sales rep or not.

Right. Well, even the way this is one of the points that they make in the book, but even the way that we talk about sales ourselves. What's your win rate like? Was this closed won or closed lost? The deal itself, everything feels like it's like you either win or you lose. I mean, ideally every conversation turns into a win. Like, that wasn't the right customer for us. And we help them get connected with the right place to go or at least save them time by saying no. Now, obviously, we call it wins and losses because we need revenue to build a business, and you need to have some predictable revenue coming in and having deals coming through the door. But that's one of the things that they point out, is that there's all these metaphors in sales about everything's related to these things where there's a victor and a loser. But the reality of the situation should be that we're trying to help our customers succeed just as much as we're trying to succeed. So we're not just trying to win their money for doing nothing. Obviously, I think that one of the most powerful ways to do this, this really comes down to really basic principles. This is going to be oversimplified, but every successful relationship comes down to expectations, good expectations being set and met or exceeded. What you need to do is obviously you need to communicate to the customer. So say that you're trying to find the best solution for their specific needs, not just sell them a prepackaged solution or whatever it is. But don't just say it. Then you need to back that up. So when there are opportunities, like in the sales call that we talked about, one of the things that the customer asked for was, do you guys do logo designs? And I need letterhead and all this branding and print stuff just to clearly say, it's not that we've never done that before or don't have the technical ability to figure out how to do that. But that's not our sweet spot. So just saying that would make your life a whole lot easier, wouldn't it, if we did that? But that's not what we do, and we're not the best bang for the buck if you want those things done. So go somewhere else. And here's a couple other people who you could work with. And guess what? Those people also do web design. And so maybe you'll just want to work with them completely saying those types of things that may cause you to lose the sale. But if it doesn't cause you to lose the sale, first of all, it's the truth. If it does cause to lose a sale, that's a better solution, at least for those specific things for the client. And if it doesn't cause us to lose a sale, that builds an awful lot of trust and establishes your reputation as someone who's going to say and do the right things for customer. So those are the basic principles here. That's our book recommendation. Ryan and I have gone through and we've got a couple other episodes where we've mentioned quite a few sales books so we can link up to some of those in the show notes as well. If there's a sales book that you guys have read that's hit you, that's been helpful to you, shoot us a note, let us know what those books are, what stuck out to you, what's been helpful, and we'd love to hear about it and talk about that on a future episode as well. All right, well, stick with us. Next week we are going to be back talking about why your inbound salespeople really everyone at your organization, but your salespeople specifically need to have a personal brand. So we'll dive into that next week and until then, keep moving forward.

Thank you for listening to Inbound Sales Journey. You can find the show's notes for today's episode@doinbound.com salesjourney that's do inbound all one word.com salesjourney today's show is sponsored by do inbound, the world's first project and process management platform built specifically for inbound marketing agencies. Learn more@doinbound.com if you enjoyed this episode, why don't you head over to itunes and subscribe? Make sure you leave us a review of the show. Until next time. Remember, life is a journey. Keep moving forward.