| Many consultants are looking to medium-sized enterprises for new business opportunities, but the selling process is different to the usual experience of working with a blue chip. Malcolm Sleath from coaching consultancy 12boxes suggests how you can motivate the client to explore your solution. |
| How to sell the sizzle |
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| | By Malcolm Sleath
Question: I
specialise in process
improvement. My
experience has been
mainly with blue chip
companies, but I want to
do more work with
medium-sized firms. The
professional managers in
blue-chips seem to have
no problem understanding
me when I talk about
Lean, Six Sigma and so
forth. But the managing
directors of the firms I
am talking to now look
uncomfortable if I use
such terms. How can I
get them past the jargon
to see the real benefits
– which I know will be
there.
Answer: You are
right to think in terms
of selling benefits.
Sell the sizzle not the
sausage, as they say.
But what does that mean
in practice for
consultants offering
complex solutions to
medium-sized
enterprises? By the time
you were invited to
pitch to the blue chip
managers you mentioned,
more often than not the
question in their mind
was whether you were the
right resource to
deliver a particular
solution. To secure an
order, you had to
channel their desire in
the direction of the
approach you were
offering. This required
you to show how you met
their criteria for
purchase, most of which
would have been fixed
well before they talked
to you.
In fact, it is more
than likely that they
are talking to you
because you seemed to
fit those criteria
already. In other words,
what you saw of their
buying process was just
the tip of the iceberg.
Much had gone on
beforehand. For example,
at some stage they would
have formally expressed
the desire to solve a
problem, which implies
that they knew what it | |
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| | was and had decided it
was serious enough to
address.
You might think that
realising a problem is
serious will
automatically cause
someone to want to bring
about change, but this
is not the case. We all
know people who are
perfectly well aware
that they have a serious
problem but do not do
anything about it.
Before they can move
forward two other
elements have to be in
place: they have to
believe a solution
exists and they have to
see that situations like
theirs can be different.
This is why your
conversations with
managing directors in
medium-sized
organisations need to be
so different to the ones
with blue chip managers.
It is not because of the
size of the
organisation; it is
because they are usually
at a much earlier stage
in the buying process.
Conventional wisdom
suggests that an
approach to a potential
client goes something
like this. After a
period of trust
building, where you
demonstrate that you are
on the same wavelength
and explore their
dissatisfactions with
the way things are, you
begin to discuss the
client’s problems,
encourage the client to
make them explicit, and
then draw out their true
consequences. While this
is true, it is not the
whole truth – which is
one of the reasons why
many experienced
consultants are
sceptical about formal
sales training.
The importance of
asking questions about
the consequences of
problems seems to be
supported by research.
But it is only one of
the preconditions for | |
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| | change. It is necessary,
but not sufficient. If
the consultant treats it
as the only tool in the
box, clients can find it
extremely irritating
because they feel they
are being manoeuvred
into admitting they need
help. When this happens,
it is usually because
the consultant is
convinced of the case
for intervention, but
has not motivated the
client to move forward.
Think of it in terms
of pushing forces and
restraining forces. The
managing director of a
business is going to be
interested in improving
its competitive
performance. That’s a
pushing force. Ranged
against this are a
number of concerns.
These include: doubts
about or ignorance of
the effectiveness of
your solutions or
consultants in general;
concerns about the level
of investment required
to achieve the desired
outcomes and how it
could be funded; the
potential distractions
of engaging in a
‘consultancy exercise’
when there are pressing
issues which need to be
addressed in the short
term – and so on. These
are all restraining
forces.
All too often,
consultants respond to
these concerns by
treating them as
objections to buying the
solution, and try to
overcome them by talking
about the effectiveness
of the solution, payback
times and so on. Many
will offer a
results-based fee
structure as a sweetener
or even as a feature of
the way they do
business. But most of
the time, this is too
early in the buying
process.
Continued
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