27 April 2011 Leave a Comment

Do You Really Need a New Sales Process?

I read a thought-provoking blog post by Dan Waldschmidt today entitled The Lie of a “Better” Sales Process.

In it Dan argues that we spend far too much time looking for a shiny new way of selling that will improve our results – and far too little time getting better at using the perfectly adequate process we already have.

I’d agree with him up to a point.

If you’ve already got a decent sales process or methodology in place, then switching to a new one is going to have little impact on your success. Some methodologies are better suited for selling professional services than others (SPIN, Solution Selling and the ORDER process from Let’s Get Real immediately spring to mind). But given a decent methodology, you’re usually far better off getting better at using it than starting again from scratch.

However, there’s an exception to this rule.

And it’s one that, sadly, applies to many consultants, coaches, lawyers and other professionals.

If you don’t use a methodology at all – then you need to find a decent one.

If you “just wing it”, you think you’re a “natural salesperson” or you use what you’ve learned from your personal experience – the chances are your performance is way below what it could be.

Sales isn’t just an art. It’s been studied based on decades of experience and observation of thousands of sales meetings. And that includes large, complex professional services sales.

If you’re using just your own experience or what you’ve learned from colleagues and you’re up against a competitor using a process based on these decades of experience from thousands of people then you’re going to be outgunned time and time again.

And before you invest in sales training focused on “tips and techniques” – make sure you have a solid process in place too. Otherwise most of what you learn will be pointless. Rather like trying to learn how to “fade” a golf ball when you haven’t got your basic swing sorted.

——

How about you? Have you switched sales processes and had great success? Or has it just been a horrendous waste of time? Drop me a comment below, it would be great to share experiences.

Filed Under: Selling Professional Services Tagged With: , ,
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 3 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: , ,
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: ,
17 June 2009 Leave a Comment

The Referral Formula

ReferralsThis is the second in a series of posts on how Professional Firms can get more referrals. Read the first in the series – Referrals: You’ve Got to Have A System

To some degree, succeeding with referrals is something of a numbers game. More referrals equals more business. However, for busy professionals who need to balance business development with billable hours, it’s rarely wise to sacrifice quality for quantity. Better to go for a smaller number of high probability referrals and devote enough time to convert them to sales.

So what makes a high quality referral?

Referrals work because of transferred trust. Obviously I am going to put more credence in a recommendation from a colleague or business partner I know and trust and who I know has experience in the area than from a casual acquaintance or someone I bumped into at a networking event (although it’s surprising how much credence we do give to those more distant referrals). The higher the level of credibility of the referrer, the higher the quality of the referral.

In addition, the level of endorsement we get in a referral can be crucial. This is why referrals from clients can be so valuable. Referrals from clients are more credible because they have actually experienced our work. And if we have performed exceptionally well the referral will be much more complimentary than a referral from business partners who know us but have never worked with us ever could ever be.

Finally, a high quality referral is a targeted referral. We are far more likely to get a sale from a prospect who we know needs our services right now and has the budget to pay for them than from a random, unqualified “name and number”. This is one of the frequently overlooked strengths of referrals. In many professional service businesses, client needs are often difficult to detect from the professionals perspective. Businesses considering a takeover don’t like to make their intentions public by announcing they’re looking for M&A advisors. Couples with marital problems try to show a united face in front of strangers. Companies planning to make major layoffs and needing HR and employment law advice rarely want the news to leak out until after they’ve had that advice. As a result consultants, lawyers and other professionals rarely see these opportunities on their radar screens until it’s too late. However, an insider or current advisor in frequent contact is often alerted to these opportunities well in advance. That’s why accountants, who are in frequent contact with their client businesses, are such sought-after partners by lawyers and other professionals. They can give highly targeted referrals to clients with pressing needs.

Putting all that together gives us what I call the “Referral Formula” – a simple guide to the key areas professionals should work on to maximise the value they get from referrals:

Referral = Number of x Potential of x Credibility of x Strength of
 Value     Referrals     Prospect        Referrer      Endorsement

Future posts will go into more details on specific aspects of generating more referrals

Filed Under: Marketing Professional Services Tagged With: ,
16 June 2009 Leave a Comment

Keep out of the “Muddy Middle” when Selling Professional Services

The dangers of a "muddy middle"For many decades, perhaps the most successful client development strategy for both professional service firms and individual professionals has been one of focusing on a small number of high value clients.

As Andrew Sobel points out in “All For One”, a consultant or accountant only needs a handful of good clients to make a great career. And most successful professionals will maintain around 15 to 20 truly important client relationship over their business life.

Building a small number of deep, trusting relationships pays off much more than having shallower relationships with a broader group because there’s a very high probability of converting each prospect into a client.

However, more recently, an alternative strategy has emerged. Fuelled by the ability of technology to allow relationships to be developed with large numbers of people via email newsletters, contact management software, Linkedin and other networks.

This strategy focuses on developing a very large number of shallow relationships: people who know of you, who have read your material, who may have interacted briefly via email. But not people you know very well.

This strategy pays off because – thanks to the efficiencies of the technology – very large numbers of people can be interacted with to a much deeper level than was ever possible before – and at almost zero cost. Someone who receives your email newsletter and who occasionally asks you a question on a forum is not a deep relationship – but it’s much deeper than the non-existent relationship you would have had historically before the advent of technology. Even though the conversion of prospect to client is much, much lower than for deep relationship – it works because of the law of large numbers. A 5% conversion rate when you have only 20 potential customer will not lead to much business. A 5% conversion rate on an email list of 20,000 is pretty impressive. And it can open up your services to a global market (provided you can deliver globally)

Now obviously, different strategies work best in different situations. It’s of no real value for an HR consultant focusing on clients around Birmingham to have a huge global email list of 30,000 prospects if hardly any of them are in her core market.

Conversely, it’s highly risky to focus on a handful of prospects if you have a small one-off service to deliver which can’t be repeated for the same client.

But as long as you find a good fit between your target market and your strategy (and also your own preferences and skills), then either of the strategies can be highly effective. And it’s perfectly possible – even desirable – to run both in parallel. And the “broad net” approach can often identify high potential candidates to enter the “in-depth nurture” approach.

But where the problems occur is when you get stuck in the “muddy middle”. Where you build only shallow relationships – but with a small-ish number of people. This can happen in one of two ways:

  • A professional focusing on the in-depth nurturing approach can allow his target client list to expand too much and end up diluting his efforts with his real high potential clients.
  • A professional pursuing the broad big-numbers approach may fail to build his contact list enough – and as a result the low conversion rate combined with a small prospect list will mean he wins little business.

How can you avoid these mistakes? Make sure that in your marketing plan you have separate plans for each of these strategies. Make sure you are doing what’s needed to make each strategy succeed.

The nurture strategy requires you to identify clearly your very high potential prospects then work diligently to make yourself as attractive to them as possible and to interact with them as much as possible.

The broad big numbers strategy requires that you build a large, targeted list and that you tailor your marketing messages to the segments in the list.

Do either or both of these strategies well and you will be on your way to having a growing and profitable practice.

But whatever you do, don’t get stuck in the muddy middle.

Filed Under: Business Development Strategy Tagged With:
10 April 2009 2 Comments

Helping Professionals Sell Using Empathy Styles

One of the biggest barriers professionals have in developing their selling skills is that they simply don’t see themselves as salespeople. Many carry round negative stereotypes of salespeople – but even when they don’t, their image of a successful rainmaker is of a charismatic extrovert with highly developed social skills.

Not fitting this model themselves, they often fear that they don’t have what it takes to sell effectively. This mental block can prevent them from taking some simple steps to improve their sales capabilities.

Jim Wigg of Epicurean Associates presented a seminar on “Empathy Selling” at a recent pro-manchester meeting. The seminar looked at different Empathy Styles – and how each style had different sales related strengths.

The advantage of this model over other psychometric assesments is that it doesn’t focus eccessively on one particular type being the “natural salesperson”. By highlighting the sales strengths of each type, it allowed the professionals attending to see how they could grow their sales capabilities without having to have a “personality transplant” and adopt an extroverted style that simply wasn’t them.

By breaking down that initial barrier and helping them see that there are multiple ways to succeed in selling, and that you don’t have to fit a particular stereotype personality or style; they were freed up to think about how they could improve.

Jim’s an engaging and knowledgeable presenter. If you get the chance to attend one of his seminars I recommend you take it up.

You can take a simple “empathy styles” questionnaire here

Filed Under: Business Development Mindset Tagged With: ,
14 July 2008 13 Comments

Business Development for Accountants – is there Anybody Out There?

When I was compiling Rainmaker Resources I scoured the net for articles, blogs, podcasts and videos of value to business developers in professional services. Most of these resources are, of course, produced by consultants and advisors who aim to help professionals in these areas. I informally categorised the firms and individuals I found, with the intriguing result that they all fell into one of three camps:

  • There are many advisors who cover all types of professional services firms (lawyers, consultants, accountants, architects, engineers, etc.). I fit into this camp, as does David Maister, Ford Harding, Suzanne Lowe, Bruce Marcus, Mike Schulz and John Doerr, etc. (Bracketing myself with those giants of professional services is probably the most egotistical thing I’ve done for ages – as they say in Wayne’s World: I’m not worthy).
  • There are a number of advisors who focus on law firms: Larry Bodine, Gerry Riskin, Allan Colman, etc.
  • Rather fewer advisors who focus on consulting – Alan Weiss is probably the leading name here – others tend to mainly offer training and resources - e.g. SBR Consulting, the Guerilla Consulting team (perhaps consultants don’t like being consulted to).

And for accountants?

Er, nothing really. I drew a blank.

Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places – I’m a consultant by background rather than an accountant. But I’m one hell of a googler. And still I came up with nothing.

So maybe accountants don’t take advice. Or maybe advisors don’t like working for accountants. Maybe there’s a fantastic niche available for anyone willing to specialise.

Or maybe I’ve just got a blind spot when it comes to resources for accountants. So if you know of any – please drop me a line and I’ll add them to the site.

Ian

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , , ,
14 July 2008 8 Comments

Social Media and Professional Services Business Development

An excellent post by Matt Brazil caught my eye recently. It’s provocatively entitled Are Social Networks the Last Nail in the Coffin for Cold Calling?

Now, of course, the increased prevalance of social media (and Matt includes blogs, articles, podcasts, etc. in that group) aren’t going to completely kill off cold calling. But Matt’s point – based on a lead generation experiment he ran – is that for many businesses they may now present a better return on investment than cold calling.

In the case of professional services: article writing, seminars and speeches have always been a fantastic business development device for the larger “names” in the business. They provide advanced clues for potential buyers to the credibility and knowledge of the consultant, lawyer, accountant, engineer or architect who wrote the article or delivered the speech. Given the intangible nature of professional services; those clues are often an immensely powerful lever to at least get the professional engaged in a dialogue with the potential client.

Historically, speech-making and article writing has often been the preserve of the well-known individual or the major firm. Most people read a small number of quality journals so competition for placement was high and the chances of a small firm or unknown individual getting a high degree of visibility was slim.

But like many things in life, the internet has changed all that. Not only is it much easier for good quality content to get published on a plethora of sites and blogs; but potential clients have changed the way they find material. Nowadays they don’t subscribe to a small number of quality journals in the hope that something of relevance will appear every few months – they search for what they want, when they want it.

So equipped with some half-decent SEO and an interesting niche to write about; smaller firms and less well-known professionals can replicate the marketing tactics of the industry giants.

Of course, actually being able to produce quality material that really is going to raise your credibility is a whole different story. But at least today the barriers to publishing and being found have all but fallen.

Ian

Filed Under: Marketing Professional Services Tagged With: , , , ,
8 July 2008 5 Comments

Rainmaker Resources | Links & Resources for Professional Services Partners, Business Developers and Marketers

I spend quite a bit of time scouring the net for high quality resources and information on business development and marketing for professional services. While they have a lot in common with product sales – particularly large, complex sales; there are also a number of unique factors which need to be taken into consideration when marketing and selling professional services. Unfortunately, there are relatively few high quality resources available to give guidance in this area.

Well, the good news is, I’ve created the Rainmaker Resources (www.rainmaker-resources.com)  portal as a guide to some of the best resources on professional services rainmaking available on the net: blogs, articles, podcasts, videos and books.

The portal reflects my own personal opinion, of course; but please feel free to add your own favourite links and resources – either directly (it’s a Squidoo Lens) or drop me a message and I’ll add it for you.

Ian

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,
« Older Posts