| | By Lars Tewes
At SBR Consulting when
we meet a new client and
the senior managers, who
have recently been tasked
with becoming proactively
involved in business
development, it
fascinates me that often
one of their first
questions to us is, “Do
you believe the art of
selling has changed from
the past?” I could well
reply by saying, “What
relevance does that have
based on the fact that
most of you have not been
involved in winning new
clients up until this
point anyway?” If you
really want to know my
answer to this question
immediately, then you can
read the last two
paragraphs first. If you
can bear the suspense
then try to read the
whole article first so
you can truly appreciate
the message behind the
answer.
As a side thought, of
course, if we are talking
about selling services
versus product, then
there are, and always
have been, important
differences. Firstly, for
product sales there is a
tangible aspect to the
purchase, and evaluation
is much easier compared
with having to choose
services and observe the
person you are talking
to. It can be hard to see
the differences of
service offerings in the
same way that you can
trial and test a product.
Likewise, when buying
professional services
there is often
uncertainty about the
actual outcome. When
buying a product, it is
much easier to know what
you are actually getting
- as the well known
slogan from Ronseal
states, “Does exactly
what it says on the tin”.
There are a few more,
equally important
differences but those are
enough to address why a
different approach may be
required.
Since this article is
aimed at selling
professional services and
whether the techniques
have changed, let’s look
at the basic notions that
buyers and sellers need
to be cognisant of,
before contracts are
signed.
1. Purchasing the
individual/team’s
knowledge. Wonderful
communication skills,
personality and so called
sales ability akin “to
selling ice to Eskimos”
are worthless on their
own. The buyer is buying
the credibility of the
professional and their
knowledge to solve the
issue.
2. Reducing the
level of uncertainty. A
buyer is often uncertain
about the true ability of
the services firm to
solve their issue along
with being wary of the
often vast amounts of
money being spent with
the firm. Just as
importantly, behind both
these concerns, sits the
fact that often the
buyers themselves are not
exactly sure what their
problem is and so their
position is made even
more unnerving by having
to put faith and money
into an unproven person’s
hand.
3. Real
understanding of the
situation. The
professional services | |
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| | firm has to understand
the real issues that need
to be solved based on
their own expertise and
their understanding of
the client.
It therefore makes
logical sense, when
selling professional
services, to address each
of these three key
notions in order to
achieve greater success.
The first describes
purchasing an
individual’s/team
knowledge: this is a
natural one to contend
with and deals with the
key point as to whether
the services firm can
solve the real problem.
At SBR Consulting, our
experience shows us that
a sale is made in one of
two ways:
a) Adopting a
“self-focused approach”,
whereby the services firm
has minimal understanding
of the prospect’s true
problem and prefers to
use its own methods and
techniques to solve their
problems with a “we know
best” approach.
b) Adopting a
“client-focused approach”
where the main objective
of the firm/individual is
to attempt to develop an
initial understanding
around the client’s
problems and work in a
collaborative way to
generate confidence and
interest in running the
right programmes for the
culture and client
needs.
To put it simply, the
first is where the
proposition is a
sales-led approach and
the consultant sees
himself as a salesperson
first and a practitioner
second. The second sees
himself as a professional
who wants to solve the
issue at hand and
demonstrate the firm’s
capabilities ahead of
selling/telling the
prospect what he can do
for them. In professional
selling this is the
approach that will work
the majority of the time
and produce a much more
valuable partnership.
The second key notion
describes reducing a
level of uncertainty
which may not always be
obvious when speaking
with the prospect but is
there nonetheless. The
client is in reality
looking for peace of
mind, confidence that
they can secure future
growth, greater certainty
than before, etc. With so
many firms now offering
possible solutions and
claiming to be experts in
their field as well as
promoting expanded
offerings, it is natural
for a buyer to find it
hard to differentiate
between suitors and hence
be uncertain about who
will provide the right
solution. The fact is
that actual work and
evaluation starts once
the contract is signed
and anything before this
is more like a promise, a
verbal commitment.
The best way to help
mitigate some of this
prospect uncertainty is
by providing third person
validation, that is, real
examples that have some
strong comparisons to the
issue a buyer is facing.
These can come in the
form of case studies,
references, testimonials,
etc and in no small way | |
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| | help give a buyer a
certain amount of
confidence to choose your
firm.
Perhaps most
importantly, addressing
the third notion, which
is about understanding
the client’s situation
and not going straight
into a sales
presentation, helps
develop a collaborative
and consultative approach
and shows that you care
about the client. More
importantly, it allows
the client to understand
their situation in a way
they were not capable of
doing before your
intervention, thanks to
your questioning. Often
the prospective client
thinks they have a
different problem to the
one that is causing the
real pain. Only once you
have helped the prospect
identify and define the
real need, do we believe
you have earned the right
to talk about your own
firm’s virtues in detail.
The consultative sales
methodology QUIS Selling™
addresses this in a very
comfortable manner for
most consultants.
Unfortunately, many
salespeople and talented
consultants still try and
go in feet first. They
believe this approach
proves their credibility
to win the contract based
on their USPs (which by
the way sometimes aren’t
actually very unique). I
would suggest that
people’s perception is
that this is the way
sales used to be done. If
that assumption is
correct, then you would
be right to say that
“selling techniques have
changed over the years”.
But this is an
incorrect approach. I
would suggest that
selling professional
services has not changed,
at least in the last 40
years. I feel comfortable
making this statement
because everything
described above is best
practice and the way we
should all sell
professional services.
What is interesting is
that much of the
messaging I have chosen
to use for this article
comes from a paper by
Warren J. Wittreich in
the Harvard Business
Review, March-April
1966, written one month
before I was born! Forty
four years on, we need to
understand that, when
applied correctly, buying
and selling professional
services has not changed
much since then. What
does need to be accepted
though is that highly
competent and technical
consultants can make
strong business
developers. They have
real credibility in front
of clients and, equally,
know the right questions
to ask a prospect in
order to help them
understand what services
they really need to buy.
If we can change the
perception that
professional selling is
all about listening and
understanding, and back
it up by real knowledge
on ways to add value, we
will discover that we
already have a great
salesforce within our own
firms – our own
consultants. Help them
learn what professional
selling really is: they
may enjoy it more than
they would like to admit. | |
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