Same Side Selling

“Same Side Selling: How Integrity and Collaboration Drive Extraordinary Results for Sellers and Buyers” 

Side-by-side, which do you consider to be a more effective selling pitch: A focus on who you are and what your company delivers or a focus on what problems you help customers solve?

In Same Side Selling, authors Ian Altman and Jack Quarles, emphasize sales approaches that treat the process more like a puzzle than a game to be won. Building upon the puzzle metaphor, same side selling is where people sit on the same side and determine if the pieces are a good fit (rather than a win-lose, point system)

“Your best prospects are not looking for products and services; they are looking for solutions to problems. They are looking for results,” writes Altman and Quarles.

Additional key points:

Replace a closing-the-sale-at-all-costs mentality with Finding Impact Together (FIT). Achieve better results with less effort through the collaborative process of discovering opportunities, sharing the impact of how a product/service solves a customer’s problem, and aligning together with a client-first perspective.

Focus on the puzzle metaphor as a helpful reminder of understanding your place in the market and how you can have the greatest impact on clients and qualified prospects. Narrow your market and educate, rather than convince, your prospect; replace traditional seller-focused pitches (who we are and what we do) with a customer’s challenge and customer’s success pitch.

Stay involved after the sale to ensure great results. The sale is not the finish line. Same side selling requires the seller to come from the buyer’s point of view; therefore, it is helpful to identify key factors that expedite your client’s success. A product or service’s features are never as important as your customer’s problem.

The same side selling elucidates a collaborative and cooperative approach to doing business. Its emphasis on mutually beneficial solutions for both the buyer and the seller paves the way for high integrity success for both sides in the short and long run.