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Selling Professional Services

Selling Consulting Services: The Myth of “Killer Closing Techniques”

8 April 2010
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Mike Schultz’s excellent free report “Selling Consulting Services: Forget Everything You Know About Sales and Begin to Sell Without Selling” has a great section in it on closing techniques. At first I approached this chapter with trepidation. In my professional career I’ve never found closing techniques worked for me. Not only did they feel uncomfortably [...]

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Do You Hate Cold Calling? Here’s a Way to Eliminate the Fear, Failure and Rejection

30 March 2010

If you’re anything like most professionals, me included, you’d rather lose your right arm than make a cold call. It’s uncomfortable, you feel like you’re a used car salesman, and it doesn’t feel at all like the client-focused approach you know you should be using. So most of us put it off, or we ask [...]

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How a Simple Piece of Paper can Transform Your Success at Selling

25 March 2010
High Pressure Sales Meeting

Tick tock, tick tock. You’re standing outside the boardroom waiting to meet the Senior VP of Operations for your #1 target client. Tick tock, tick tock. It’s a vital meeting, crucial to your firm’s success this year, and even more so for your own career. Tick tock, tick tock. The butterflies inside your stomach are [...]

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Have You Forgotten How To Listen?

16 March 2010
Listening Skills

We’re sorry, we’ve decided to go with someone else. Aargh. The worst words any professional wants to hear. You did a great job, it’s just we decided to go with a training solution rather than the coaching you proposed. But hang on, I do training. In fact I’m great at it. Let me tell you [...]

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How To Get More Referrals Part 2: A Get Clients Video Tip

9 March 2010

In the first Get Clients Video Tip I highlighted the importance of understanding what criteria potential referral partners will use before deciding to refer you. In this tip I explain how you can address those criteria to ensure you get a strong referral. Drop me a comment if you found the video useful. A number [...]

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Downselling

23 February 2010
Sales Meeting

In the latest version of the Outside In newsletter I discuss a number of things that professional services can learn from internet marketers. Each of the strategies is something I’ve adopted myself or seen results from with clients. To subscribe to the Outside In newsletter to read the article click here. One strategy which internet [...]

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Are You Nurturing Your Seedlings?

4 February 2010
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The analogy between gardening and growing client relationships is an obvious one. Here’s an example of how it can go wrong. The sad looking picture to the left is of my onion seedlings. You may just be able to pick out tiny flecks of green amongst the vermiculite. But there’s not much left. I like [...]

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How To Get More Referrals: A Get Clients Video Tip

19 January 2010

Whether you’re a lawyer, an accountant, a consultant or architect: you’ll know that referrals can be your very best source of high value new business. However, it’s rare that I meet a professional who’s satisfied with the quantity and quality of referrals they’re getting. While “just asking for more” can be an effective strategy for [...]

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What David Maister can teach us about Twitter

27 December 2009
David Maister - Twitter Expert?

Twitter is a bit of an enigma for most professionals. Can it be used successfully for business development? Is it an effective use of time, or a huge white elephant? And while many commentators are pointing to the tailing off of Twitter’s previously phenomenal growth rates and the low usage amongst client decision-makers; some professionals [...]

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Get More Clients Podcast: Interview with Tom Searcy of Hunt Big Sales

27 November 2009

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Dealing with a “Stonewall”

9 November 2009

One of the situations I’ve always found it difficult to handle in business development is when a potential client you meet “stonewalls” you. In other words, they don’t respond or react to what you’re saying. I rarely get this reaction nowadays – for reasons we’ll come on to later. But early on in my career [...]

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