17 January 2011 3 Comments

The Top 3 Reasons You Lose Sales

Has this ever happened to you?

You have an initial meeting with a potential client. They asked to speak with you, or you were recommended to them – so you get off to a good start.

You ask them about their business. You talk about some of the problems they face and identify that there are things you can help them with.

You discuss what you can do and they seem pleased. They ask you to do them a proposal and you leave the meeting feeling rather pleased. It feels like this one is “in the bag”.

Then nothing happens.

Despite writing a very compelling proposal, they don’t call you back. Eventually you get through to them and they explain that priorities have changed.

Budgets are tight and although they’re still interested in working with you, it won’t be for a while – they’ll get back to you when things change.

Or perhaps they’ve chosen to go with a competitor. One you know won’t do as good a job as you.

Sound familiar?

If it does, you’re not alone. This scenario is played out time and time again for consultants, coaches and other professionals worldwide.

It happened to me again and again, until I learned three key lessons about why you lose sales. Not that it never happens now. But it happens an awful lot less.

The Top 3 Reasons You Lose Sales

Reason 1: Not Bringing Any New Insights.

These days many clients come to the table already having a clear picture in their minds of what they need and what kind of solution they want.

They may not be an expert like you – but they do their research on the web and come to you with some pretty clear needs laid out.

So you tell them about how you can meet their needs, and how you can deliver the solution they’re looking for.

The trouble is, if all you’re doing is telling the client that you can meet the needs they’ve explained to you and can provide the solution they already think they want – then you’re a commodity.

Every service provider can tell the clients they’ll meet their needs and provide the solution they’re looking for. That means all the client has to go on to differentiate between you is price.

Of course, you’ll tell them about your great service and people. Your brilliant testimonials and feedback. But everyone can say that.

You can list your USPs and differentiatiors. But the client’s not interested in that. They just want to know whether you can meet their needs.

So how can you escape being painted into this corner?

You’ve got to bring new insights to the table. You’ve got to get them to change their minds about their needs or the solutions they want.

You’ve got to dig deeper than just asking the client what their needs are.

You’ve got to identify and highlight problems or opportunities they didn’t know they had.

You’ve got to suggest different, better solutions than the ones they came up with.

If you can do this, then you’re actually adding value. And you’re differentiating yourself from your competitors in a real and meaningful way.

You’re proposing different solutions to issues the client didn’t initially specify. So your solution looks very different (and better) to your competitors.

Now doing this is not easy. You have to really know your stuff. You have to be able to challenge the client without insulting them. You have to be able to think on the spot.

But you must do it. Otherwise you’re just competing on price.

(Reason #2 is here and reason #3 is here)

Speak soon,

Ian

Filed Under: Selling Professional Services Tagged With:
14 January 2011 3 Comments

Expertise Driven Selling

I’ve been reading Mike Schulz’s excellent free report on the “New Rules of Selling Consulting Services in 2011″ (to get a free copy, click here).

One of Mike’s points is that to succeed in selling consulting (or other advisory services like coaching, training, accounting or law) you need to set the agenda. It’s no longer enough to show up, ask the client “what keeps you up at night?”, then drop in a proposal to address the issues they raise.

Today’s clients are looking for immediate advice and help.

In particular, the more complex and difficult their problem and the higher your fees the more risk they’re taking in hiring you. If it’s vital they get a real expert with experience to work with them then they simply can’t take it on trust that you have those capabilities. Testimonials and references help, but nothing works better than them seeing your expertise in action with their own eyes.

If, as part of your sales meeting with them, you open their eyes to new insights on their problem and new solutions they’d never thought of before, then you’re immediately elevated to pole position for working with them.

But this brings up a dilemma. Isn’t there a risk you’ll “give away the store” by sharing your expertise with them before you’re hired?

Well, there’s definitely a risk – but it’s not that you’ll “give away the store”.

Let’s put that myth to bed.

If you think that in the course of a short sales meeting with a client it’s possible for you to give away enough of your expertise that the client will then be able to go away and solve their problem themselves – well, you ought to have a serious think about how much expertise you actually have.

The sorts of high impact issues that high paid consultants and coaches work on are not the sort that can be solved simply by “knowing the secret” as if it had been revealed by the Masked Magician on Magic’s Greatest Secrets Revealed.

And the sort of clients high paid consultants and coaches target aren’t the sort of people who think that knowing the secret to a trick is the same as being able to do it.

If you want to make it to the top of the advisory professions, you have to be working on client issues that are tough and complex and require significant expertise, experience and judgement to solve. Those are the projects that earn the “big bucks”. If the client can solve the issue by himself simply by “knowing the secret” then you’re working on the wrong issues.

By giving your advice and recommendations in a sales meeting you’re helping your potential client to evaluate one of the key criteria they’re going to use when deciding whether to go ahead with you: does this person know their stuff? Have they got the capabilities to do the job?

So what is the real risk that sharing your expertise creates?

The risk is inappropriate advice.

If you immediately jump into advising the client in a sales meeting on what they should be doing before you’ve thoroughly listened to and explored their issues – then your advice will most likely be inappropriate. And the client will feel you haven’t really understood them.

If your advice giving consists of telling the client what they need to do – rather than sharing what has worked for others in similar situations or what you would do in their place (but not knowing all the facts yet) – then you’re giving inappropriate advice. And the client will feel you’re being pushy and taking over.

If you’re not softening your advice with phrases like “well, obviously I don’t know all the details of the situation – but from what I can see, your best course of action is probably…” then the client will feel you think you know it all and don’t respect them.

You see the other key criteria clients will use in evaluating whether they want to work with you is interpersonal. Can I get on with this person? Would I enjoy working with them? Often this criteria is applied unconsciously – it’s just a feeling. But often it’s more powerful that the more rational criteria about your expertise.

After all, how would you feel about working with someone who didn’t listen to you, who thought they knew everything, and told you what to do without getting your perspective?

You might put up with that for a little while.

But for a significant project where you’re going to be working closely with your advisor, you absolutely have to get on with them.

That means that for consultants, coaches and other advisors you must learn how to give advice in ways that engage and enthuse potential clients. Not in ways that, to be blunt, piss them off.

——–

If you’re a consultant or coach and you want to learn how to sell successfully in 2011 and beyond, then there’s no better program that the Raintoday Selling Consulting Services online course. It’s the only course other than my own that I recommend, and I’ve been through the course myself when it was first launched.

The program consists of 4 months of the very best online training, live Q&A calls and webinars and an active forum. You’ll also get a free copy of Raintoday’s “How Clients Buy Professional Services” benchmarking report (which I bought for $345 when it was released – bah!).

If you do end up signing up for the course by clicking through from my site, I’ll get paid a commission. I hope you know me well enough by now though to know that I’m recommending this course because I think it’s great. I was a student on it myself, and I’m proud to have my recommendation up on their sales page along with leaders in our profession like Charlie Green and Michael McLauchlin.

You can get more details of the course by clicking here. Make sure you check it out fully before you sign up. And most importantly, make sure you’re ready to put in the work to make it a big success for you.

Filed Under: Selling Professional Services
9 December 2010 2 Comments

How To Differentiate Yourself When You’re Selling

We talk a lot about differentiation in marketing. Differentiation is something that sets us apart. Unique attributes of our services that are valued by our clients but that can’t be easily reproduced by our competitors.

At it’s simplest level, it could be a service we can deliver that no one else can. Or perhaps we specialise in working with a particular sector so we have more experience and knowledge in that field.

Differentiation in marketing can make us the obvious “go to” person for a client who recognises they need our unique skills and capabilities.

We talk much less about differentiation in selling however. But it’s just as important.

If we’re face to face with a client trying to persuade them to choose us over a competitor then unless we’re different in some way, the client will end up choosing on price.

Differentiation at this level is hard. By the time a client is talking to us face to face they’ve already discarded the firms and individuals who aren’t specialised in their sector (if that’s important to them) or who don’t deliver the services they’re looking for.

At this stage, the short list almost always comprises firms who can perfectly well help them address their problems or opportunities (or at least claim they can). They might do it in a different way to us. But at the end of the day, it’s highly likely that they’ll claim they can achieve the same end results.

If a client says they want to reduce their indirect procurement costs by 20% – all the consultants pitching to them will say that’s what they’ll deliver.

If a client says they want a smooth divorce that doesn’t impact the kids, all the lawyers will say that’s what they’ll deliver.

If a client says they want their accounts done quickly and efficiently with minimum hassle – then pretty much every accountant they speak to will say that’s exactly what they’ll do.

And if everyone is saying they’ll do the same thing – then the only thing that sets them apart in the client’s mind is their price, right?

That’s not good. Certainly not if, like me, you price at a premium because you believe you deliver a premium service.

So when it comes down to the crunch. When you’re sitting 1-1 with a client and discussing what you’ll do for them, how on earth do you differentiate yourself?

Well, the first thing you need to accept is that simply identifying the client’s needs and then telling them you’ll address them isn’t enough. Everyone will do that.

Here are some ways you can differentiate yourself in these competitive selling situations:

The “Safe Pair of Hands” Strategy

You may all promise you’ll deliver what the client wants. But from the client’s perspective, there can be major differences in how confident they are that you’ll make good on that promise. If you’re able to prove through testimonials, references, or just how much you seem to understand their situation, then they’ll feel more confident that you’ll be able to deliver what they want. And so they’ll pick you rather than selecting on price.

The “Relationship” Strategy

People choose to work with people they like and trust. They won’t pick you if they don’t think you can do the job. But once you’ve proven that, then they’ll almost always choose someone they like and feel they can partner with over someone they don’t.

The “Change the Game” Strategy

When you’re interacting with a potential client and talking about their needs – if you can identify problems or opportunities that they haven’t thought of themselves – then you can mark yourself out as being different. The quality of your diagnosis immediately marks you out as being an expert – and (rather fortuitously) can prompt the client to question the abilities of your competitors who didn’t highlight these new ideas.

It can be a risky strategy if the client has fixed ideas about what they need and doesn’t want to be challenged. But it can be a particularly powerful way of pulling the rug from under entrenched incumbents who have better relationships than you and are seen as safer pairs of hands.

What’s Your Strategy?

These aren’t the only strategies you can use in sales situations – but they’re good ones. Ones which I’ve seen work time and time again.

Whenever you’re in a competitive selling situation you absolutely must have a differentiation strategy in place. Just diagnosing the client’s needs and saying you’ll meet them is not enough. That’s the baseline – everyone will do that.

Unless you want to end up competing on price you must have a compelling reason why they should choose you. It might be different for every client – but you need one for every client. And that means in every competitive sales situation you’ve got to put the time and effort into developing it.

So for those upcomings bids, pitches and sales meetings you’ve got: what’s your strategy?

———-

Image by Foto43

Filed Under: Selling Professional Services Tagged With: ,
9 November 2010 10 Comments

Secrets of Selling Professional Services: Pencil Selling

One of the most powerful techniques I’ve come across for building relationships with clients while you’re selling to them is the concept of pencil selling.

It’s also one that I’ve almost never seen anything written about.

When most professionals meet with a potential client to discuss how they might be able to help they typically come armed with a brochure or a big pack of slides. We consultants are the worst with the latter – often seemingly trying to batter a client into submission with the sheer weight of our slides.

These presentation materials are a sort of comfort blanket. They provide certainty for us. We’ve had time in advance to think them through and perfect them. They look professional.

But they also stand in the way of building a relationship with your potential client. Of really engaging with them.

And sometimes we get even worse – we take a laptop in to the meeting and present slides from there – putting an actual physical barrier between ourselves and the client.

Now I’ve nothing against maybe leaving a brochure behind after you leave. And maybe the odd pertinent slide (if you’ve already discussed with the client something you’re then presenting ideas on).

But in an early sales meeting your key objective is to engage with the client. To get him or her to open up and share with you what their real challenges are. To delve into them and pull out the impact so they’re motivated to do something about it. To get them to commit to moving forward to the next step with you.

You won’t get there by presenting at them.

And that’s what having pre-prepared slides inevitably does – you present them. And presenting means you talk and they listen. The exact opposite of the dialogue you want.

Now you’ll know from my other blog posts on selling professional services that being able to ask smart questions is one of the absolute keys to engaging a potential client.

But at some point, as a professional, you need to start sharing your own ideas and tentative thoughts. You need to be opening up the client’s thinking.

This is where pencil selling comes in.

Simply put, pencil selling is where in the meeting you sketch out ideas and concepts which illuminate and enhance your discussion with the client.

And I mean that literally, not metaphorically. Getting out a pencil or pen and sketching out a concept on paper.

In practice, what it looks like is that you position a blank pad of paper between you and the client (you are sitting next to the client aren’t you – not opposite?).

Then depending on what you’re discussing, you sketch out a diagram which pulls together some of the concepts you’ve been talking about. And you use it to illustrate your thinking.

So if you’re talking about improving their product launch capabilities – maybe you sketch out a rocket and talk about how the product itself is the fuel in the rocket. But how you also need a guidance system – your segmentation and marketing so that the rocket hits its target. And then your performance measurement and management system is like the radar – spotting obstacles ahead and adjusting the flight.

Or the client is talking about building a stronger organisation – so you sketch out a greek temple with a series of pillars representing the major components (business functions, perhaps) supporting the roof (their goals). And of course, you sketch in the foundations and talk about what they need to be in an organisation (people, culture, technology, etc.).

Or maybe you sketch a simple 2 x 2 diagnostic and hand the pencil to the client – asking them to show where they are on the map.

The possibilities are endless. the key is that you use the diagram both to illustrate a point or concept – and as an engagement device to get the client interacting. You want them to make their additions to the diagram. To “get their fingerprints on it” and begin to take ownership.

How much more effective is that than showing some pre-prepared slides about who you are and what you do which they know anyway because they looked at your website?

Mind you – it sounds difficult.

How do you make up all these different diagrams and diagnostics on the fly?

Of course, the secret is that you don’t.

You have a repertoire of diagrams and diagnostics you can use repeatedly with minor tweaking.

Think back to recent client discussions. How many times have you been asked the same questions? How many times have you described the way you run projects, or what the three core components of a marketing plan are, or what makes organisations creative?

Most of us probably have half a dozen or so core concepts which we repeatedly use with clients in slightly modified form.

Rather than (or in addition to) turning those into bullets on powerpoint slides – spend some time figuring out how to draw them out as quick diagrams you can recreate with clients.

Then try it out next time you meet a client. You’ll see how much more effective it is at buildign a relationship and getting the client energised and interacting with you than presenting a bunch of slides is.

———-

Image by Marc Fonteijn

Filed Under: Selling Professional Services Tagged With: , , ,
1 November 2010 4 Comments

Why Are We So Afraid Of Selling?

Selling Professional Services is tricky.

Most professionals intensely dislike selling. In fact, I’d go as far to say that a great many fear it.

The thought of having to sell ourselves brings butterflies to our stomachs, makes our palms sweat, and triggers all sorts of negative thoughts:

“I didn’t do years of training to have to go out and sell”.

“I’m the expert here, people should be coming to me, I shouldn’t have to beg for work”.

“Selling is beneath me”.

In fact, some professionals can’t even bring themselves to call selling by it’s proper name. They call it business development or even marketing. When really they mean selling: engaging with potential clients and persuading them to hire you.

Why do we get such intense emotions when it comes to selling?

The most common response is that it’s “fear of rejection”.

But that’s far too simplistic a view. What on earth is “fear of rejection” really? We get rejected all the time. What are we really afraid of?

In my experience, there are multiple factors.

Sometimes we’re worried that we might damage client relationships by being “too pushy” and asking for sales.

Sometimes it’s because we have a very negative stereotypical image of salespeople. The sales people we’ve come across are the Ricky Roma, Willy Loman “used car salesman” types and we don’t want to be like them. (Apologies to all the professional used car salespeople out there who of course aren’t at all like the stereotype).

But the issue I see more often than not is that we’re worried what others might think of us. We’re worried that by “selling” we might come across as desperate. We have a self image of a highly successful professional we want everyone to buy in to.

Of course, we make all sorts of excuses and rationalisations. The time isn’t right to call. A direct mail sales letter is “unprofessional”. Clients’ don’t respond well to being asked for referrals.

We’re none of us immune to this. I did – and to some extent still do – this all the time. I have to catch myself when I start talking to myself like this and shake myself up.

Next time you find yourself thinking like this, take a step back and consider whether this is the reality – or whether the real issue is that you’re worried what the client or prospect might think of you.

And then think about how much preserving that image is worth to you. Is it worth limiting your career for? Is it worth risking the livelihood of your business – and your family for?

Sometimes we just have to get over ourselves and get on and do what’s needed.

Filed Under: Selling Professional Services Tagged With: , ,
8 April 2010 2 Comments

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

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 manipulative – the complete opposite of the relationship I was trying to build up – but clients didn’t seem to respond to them as well as all the books suggested.

Maybe it was just me, I thought.

After all, all these sales gurus can’t be wrong.

But as I grew in confidence and experience, I learned it wasn’t just me.

The truth is that despite all the books you can buy and courses you can go on to learn “killer closing techniques”, when it comes to selling high value consulting and other professional services, they’re actually counter productive. If people aren’t yet convinced that they really need a service, and they’re not sure that your particular one is right for them; then using closing techniques like asking if they’d like you to start on Tuesday or Thursday will push them further away.

So how do I recommend closing if it’s not with techniques?

In my experience, closing is a three stage process which begins early on in your discussions with the client.

Initially, you set the stage for a positive close through the whole sales process by:

  • Confirming agreements through the discussion.
  • Addressing client concerns as they arise rather than “steamrollering” through to the next point.
  • Ensuring you drill for impact – it’s understanding the full implications of the issue which will motivate the client to buy.

Next, close at the Concept level (i.e. first get agreement on what the client wants to achieve):

  • Summarise the client’s priority needs, the impact of the issue and the outline of what they are looking for.
  • Check for any outstanding concerns – and genuinely address them if there are any.
  • Propose the next step – usually to move on to agreeing the practical details.

Finally, close at the Practical level (i.e. get agreement on what you will actually do together). This may need a second meeting and some further work from you to prepare an outline plan. But it’s crucial that you and your potential client work together to finalise the scope and plan, for example:

  • Jointly discussing and designing the approach to the project/engagement (while remembering that you are the expert).
  • Checking for any final concerns – and addressing them.
  • Proposing moving forward together.

The idea of being able to use a magic technique to increase your sales is a very alluring one. But in the case of selling consulting or other professional services, it’s a misguided one. Clients will only buy when they feel comfortable they’re getting what they need from someone who’s capable and who they can work with. You establish this in the way you engage with them throughout the selling process – not by using some clever technique at the end.

So how did my approach fare vs Mike’s recommendations?

It turns out we’re in agreement (which shouldn’t have really been a surprise given I know Mike quite well). As Mike says in the report:

Selling consulting is about trust, not tricks

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

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You can download a free copy of the Selling Consulting Services report here.

The reason Mike’s giving away such a valuable report for free is simple: it’s a bribe!

He and the team at Raintoday.com have just launched a new online training program on selling consulting services which they’d like you to try out: hence the “bribe” of the free report.

I chatted to Mike on the phone last week about the program and the content looks excellent. There are 6 modules, teleseminars, expert forums, and over 25 individual training sessions covering everything from developing your value proposition to starting sales conversations with rapport to getting in front of the economic buyer to crafting winning solutions to closing the deal.

Next to having your own personal business development coach or mentor, it’s absolutely the best way to boost your selling skills.

They’re limiting enrolment to the first 200 members who sign up and they’re closing the doors on April 16.

This initial “Charter Membership” will be at only $97 per month. When they reopen the program the price will be at least double.

And as an added bonus, all Charter Members will get a free copy of the $345 “How Clients Buy Professional Services Benchmark Report” absolutely free. (As many of you know, I’ve been quoting the report and using it to guide a lot of my work over the last year).

You can find out more about the course here.

You should know, the Raintoday.com team have offered to pay me a small commission if any of my readers sign up for their course. I hope you know me well enough by now to know this has in no way influenced my recommendation. If you’ve been a reader of the blog for any time you’ll know I’ve been a long-term supporter of Mike and the team and really respect the quality of their training.

Filed Under: Selling Professional Services Tagged With:
25 March 2010 1 Comment

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

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 bouncing around like competitors on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’. But you’re well prepared. You know what questions you’re going to ask. You know your “best realistic objective” and how you’re going to close. You’ve rehearsed the objections you might face and gone over your case study anecdotes time and time again.

“Mr Jones will see you now”.

Great. Time for action. The adrenaline begins to pump as you head into the room.

You’re ready. This is going to be great.

But it isn’t.

Somehow, you get taken off track. He starts asking questions about your methodology. You spend too long talking about a potential issue that turns out not to be relevant.

And then your time is up. He has to leave 5 minutes early to get to his next meeting. You haven’t asked half the questions you needed to – let alone achieved your objective.

“Very interesting” he says, “we’ll give you a call if we need help in your area”.

And that’s it. It’s over. You’re never going to hear from him again. You blew it.

It’s not that you said anything stupid. It’s just that in the heat of the moment and under pressure, you lost where you were.

It happens to all of us. And the more important the meeting, the more likely it is that you’ll forget something. You won’t ask about the decision-making process, or whether he’s used consultants before, or how this impacts his overseas plants, or whatever critical questions you were going to ask.

And that’s where the simple piece of paper comes in.

This is trivially simple. But it works. You’ll probably read it and think “I don’t need that”. But you do. I’ve been selling for over a decade and I still do this. It’s got me out of a number of holes.

All you do is take out the notebook you’re going to use to make notes and turn to a clean double page.

On the right hand page. Write what you normally write when you’re about to have a meeting. Maybe the name of the person you’re meeting, the date and an outline agenda. As normal, leave plenty of space for notes.

But on the left hand side, list all the questions you’re going to ask and the things you need to remember. You can use the my sales meeting planning guide to figure out what these questions are.

And since it’s on the left hand page, it’s not going to get in the way of your note taking. In fact, the person you’re meeting with won’t even know you’ve got a crib sheet – it’ll look like the remains of a previous meeting.

See? I told you you’d think “I don’t need that”. You’re probably mumbling “I can remember a few simple questions” right now.

But you can’t. In the heat of battle, under pressure, you will forget something vital. The more vital the meeting, the more under pressure you’ll feel, and the more likely to forget you are.

It won’t feel like it at the time. You probably won’t go blank. But you will get distracted and sidetracked. You’ll lose the flow, and you’ll skip something vital. You’ll only notice it afterwards, and then you’ll kick yourself.

So try it out. It can’t hurt, and it may well do you a load of good.

Filed Under: Selling Professional Services Tagged With: ,
16 March 2010 2 Comments

Have You Forgotten How To Listen?

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 about the training I do…

But it’s too late.

Has that ever happened to you?

The chances are it’s because you weren’t really listening to your potential client. Or more accurately, you didn’t ask the right questions and you made too many assumptions about what they wanted.

Listening is Sales 101. It’s one of the basics. The stuff they teach in your first few days in a role with business development responsibilities.

Listening allows you to properly understand what the client really needs and how to position your services to show they meet those needs. And clients need to feel listened to. If they feel you’re not paying attention to them they’ll assume you’ll be like that to work with and they’ll decide it won’t be a pleasant or successful experience.

So why do so many of us do it so badly?

Well, there are two types of people who struggle with listening: The enthusiast and the expert.

Enthusiasts are often business owners or the ideas person behind a particular service. They’re passionate about their services, they truly believe in them and they’re convinced that their potential clients will benefit from them tremendously.

Passion’s great when you’re selling. In fact it’s essential. If you don’t believe in your services, how can you expect your clients to?

But sometimes passion can get in the way of selling. Passion can turn into evangelising, into a one way monologue rather than a dialogue where you do most of the listening.

Experts struggle because they assume they know what the client needs without asking. The minute a client mentions the first symptom of their problem they’ll jump straight to the solution. They’ve heard it all before and they think they don’t need to know anything more for their diagnosis.

The trouble is, they’re often wrong. And even if they’re right, the client doesn’t feel as if they’ve really understood the issue. And the clients themselves, because they haven’t been involved in a process of mutual discovery about the issue, don’t feel any ownership of the solution.

Unfortunately for us professionals – especially those of us who run our own businesses – we’re often both enthusiasts and experts. It can be a deadly combination.

After experiencing a number of “I’m sorry we’re going with someone else” incidents many years ago I learned to bite my tongue. I learned to pay full attention to what the client was saying, not to focus on the next clever thing I was going to say. I learned to probe their problems fully and to explore the impacts. I still make mistakes and I’m far from perfect – but it works.

In short, by learning to listen, I learned to sell.

Make sure you do too.

Filed Under: Selling Professional Services Tagged With: ,
9 March 2010 1 Comment

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

YouTube Preview Image

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 of the comments in my feedback survey have asked for more audio and video material rather than just text – and that’s something I’m working on.

Filed Under: Selling Professional Services Tagged With:
23 February 2010 5 Comments

Downselling

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.

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One strategy which internet marketers use a lot is the “downsell” – it’s something I’ve rarely seen professional service firms use.

Downselling in Internet Marketing

We’re all familiar with upselling and cross-selling. The downsell as used by internet marketers is where someone has declined your product or service offer (sometimes by simply clicking the close button on the web page) and you offer them an alternative product at a lower price.

The advantage of a downsell is that even if a customer doesn’t buy the product you’d ideally like them to buy, they are at least buying something. That means you get some return for your sales effort. And since they’re now a customer they will hopefully have a good experience with you and be much more likely to buy higher priced items in the future.

The problem with downsells is twofold.

  • First, they can be annoying. If you’ve pondered over a purchase and decided not to buy, it can be rather annoying to be held up and made another offer. And it might even seem desperate.
  • Secondly, they can encourage bad buying behaviour in future. If a customer comes to believe they will be made a “better offer” simply by saying no to the original offer, then they will always say no.

To counter the annoyance issue you need to make the downsell relatively pain free. Some marketers might argue that if you’re going to lose a customer anyway, who cares about whether you annoy them. But in reality they may still be potential customers for the future, and they may also create bad publicity if they find the process very annoying.

To avoid encouraging bad buying behaviour, the downsell must not simply be a cheaper version of the original offer. It must be significantly different in some way which justifies the lower price.

For example, a common offer in internet marketing is a free DVD with training material on it. A downsell could be for cheaper, downloadable versions with no physical DVD.

Or it could be for less advanced training material that may be a better fit for the potential customer.

A good way to decide what the downsell should be is to survey customers to find out why they didn’t by – what their main objections were. Was it price? Was the offer too simple? Or too complex? Are they actually more interested in a different area? Once you know the main objection you can offer a downsell which addresses it.

Downselling applied to Professional Services

In professional services we have the advantage that we’re selling face to face – so there shouldn’t really be a mismatch between what the client is looking for, and what we’re offering.

But no one is perfect. Sometimes we offer a service that’s more than the client was looking for. Sometimes it’s just not quite focused in the right area.  Sometimes they realise they just don’t have the money to afford the service we’re offering. And sometimes they’re just not quite convinced we’re right for them – they haven’t seen us in action yet.

In these cases a downsell can sometimes help.

For example, if you’ve been discussing a consulting project with a client, and they decided not to go ahead – perhaps a downsell to a training course in the same area for some of their team would get them to bite. After doing a brilliant job with the training course, the  consulting project may get put back on the agenda.

Perhaps you’ve proposed a major lead-time reduction programme across all the clients major factories – and it felt like too much to them. You might be able to downsell to a pilot in one factory.

When to Downsell

A downsell is most appropriate when you realise a client is not going to buy what you’re currently offering. Don’t introduce it too early – it may be you just need to work through some objections to confirm the original sale.

But if you know a client is not buying, then a downsell can work. It’s best to visibly rewind the discussions. “John, it sounds like what I’m proposing doesn’t fit well with what you’re looking for. Do you mind if we backtrack a little and go back to some of the things you were saying about the problems you were having with your lead times?”. Then rework the problem and solution and introduce the downsell.

A downsell can also be introduced later. For example: if you ran a campaign to sell a 10 day analysis project to a qualified list of companies, try contacting the ones who turned you down a week later with an offer of a couple of places at a half day workshop you’re running on the subject. It could be they were hoping to work with you – but just weren’t yet convinced enough to justify the 10 day project. A half day workshop is much easier to buy – and may give them the confidence to hire you for the big piece.

In this case you must be careful and have a logical reason why you’re proposing something new which you didn’t throw into the original proposal.

For example, “John, we’ve had a number of clients express an interest in a half-day workshop on lead time reduction. It wasn’t the right time to start up the analysis work together – but would you like to come along to the workshop?”

Creating downsells like this can reopen the dialogue with a client who may not have been ready to buy – but who may have been pretty close. Certainly closer to buying than a completely unqualified lead that you might be working on instead.

What’s your experience?

Professional service firms often downscope an engagement if it’s just too much for the client to buy. But wider downselling – particularly coming back later with a different offer – is a tactic I’ve not seen many firms use.

What’s your experience been? Have you had successes or failures in this area. Please share in the comments below.

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Filed Under: Selling Professional Services Tagged With:
4 February 2010 6 Comments

Are You Nurturing Your Seedlings?

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 gardening. And the two things I grow the most are chile plants (because I love chillies) and onions (which I hate).

I grow onions out of a sense of duty, and a bit of obsession. Back in the North East of England where I’m from (and particularly in Ashington), onion growing is a big thing. Growing big onions (really, really big onions) is a source of huge pride amongst men. The World Leek and Onion Growing Championships were held in Ashington for 28 years with the heaviest onion regularly weighing in at over 14 pounds.

As someone who grew up there, but moved away, I feel that i ought to keep up a little bit of tradition.

So every year, I buy seeds of either Kelsae or Robinson’s Giant onions. And I plant them very carefully in the best growing medium. And I keep them heated in a propagator in a greenhouse at just the right temperature. And I use artificial lights to augment the daylight to make sure they get all the sunlight they need. And I keep them perfectly watered with water kept at the same temperature as the seedlings so as not to shock them.

But this year, I just plain forgot them for a week.

It was freezing outside, and I had a ton of work on my plate and a load of things to think about.

So when I went to check up on them earlier today, most of the seedlings had withered and died.

All my perfect preparation, the ideal conditions, my fancy equipment: all counted for nothing. They had no water – so they died.

And so it is when you’re nurturing client relationships.

It doesn’t matter how well you start the relationship. It doesn’t matter if you give it the perfect conditions early on. It doesn’t matter if you took them out to the fanciest restaurant or sent them the most insightful article ever. If you leave the relationship too long without “watering it” – it’ll die.

And I’ll now have to beg for a bunch of seedlings from my uncle who still lives in Ashington, and who will no-doubt gloat at my idiocy.

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So how about you? Have you got a gardening-related client relationship or business development story? Post it in the comment box below. Thanks!

Filed Under: Selling Professional Services Tagged With:
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