Beyond Referrals

I am fortunate enough to meet hundreds, possibly thousands, of consultants every year. They are some of the most well-educated, intelligent people I know.

So why do so many of them struggle to win client engagements for their obviously valuable services?

It’s a frustrating thing for consultants. They know they have the skills, tools, and knowledge to help potential clients – but it seems like they struggle to persuade clients to hire them – or waste time and effort attempting to win the wrong clients.

Most have plenty of marketing training including MBA’s, PhD’s, and tools like expensive web sites, glossy proposal covers, slick presentations, a nice logo, ads, and many network extensively. But still the new business seems to come when they least expect it, and never appears when they think it is a certainty.

And too often, consultants tell me selling feels sleazy. Like they are trying to convince people to do something they aren’t prepared to do. For many, this alone paralyzes their selling efforts, further undermining revenue.

The Consultant's Conundrum

Have you ever wished you knew more about selling? About what was going through the mind of a potential client?

Have you ever wondered what could inspire them to take the next step in hiring you and to take that step exclusively with your firm – without a competition, a request for proposal, or a meeting with your competitor?

Have you ever been in the middle of a selling opportunity and wondered what you should do next – worried that if you did the wrong thing you would blow the sale?

Have you ever felt that as a reasonably intelligent, well-educated professional you should know how to do all this?

You’re right. You should know.

But it’s quite likely that no-one has ever taught you.

You are not alone. For most consultants, their training and education has focused exclusively on developing skills to sell, not developing selling skills. But the key to a successful practice and a profitable consulting career is having BOTH skills to sell, and knowing how to sell those skills.

This is the Consultant’s Conundrum. Most consultants have never been taught the selling processes that are unique to selling consulting services.

The Conundrum Explained

Consultants dedicate years and thousands of dollars to develop and perfect their consulting skills – obtaining management degrees, professional accreditation, attending conferences, reading and undertaking industry research.

Conversely, most consultants dedicate a few days for seminars, and maybe a few hours reading questionable materials purchased in an airport book store, to develop their selling skills.

“But I took marketing and sales in university” is what I often hear.

Most consultants have university level marketing and possibly even selling education. And although it was probably a good introduction to concepts that support selling it likely missed one key element – a practical understanding of the behaviour of clients when buying consulting, and how this should shape your selling process.

Understanding your client’s buying process, is the key to having an effective selling process.

Specifically, you need to understand the journey that an individual potential client takes from being someone that has never heard of you or your firm, to someone that is buying your services today.

Most consultants need to build on their existing education in marketing and sales to understand specifically how you and your selling tools can influence that journey in a manner that is helpful, respectful, and appropriate for you as a professional consultant.

Why Doesn’t The Sales Training I’ve Already Taken Help Me?

So you’ve had sales training, maybe attended some good seminars – because there are good sales consultants out there – but things are still the same. The selling is not going well. How come?

Your individual sales performance is a function of three basic factors. Hellriegel et al, in their text Organizational Behaviour identify that performance is a function of motivation and ability. To that formula we must add market opportunity to help us explain your sales performance. Do any of the following sound familiar?

Motivation – are you really applying what you have learned? New insights, and new skills that are not applied, are the same as no insight and no skills. Stop for a moment and ask yourself truthfully – have you really applied your training? Or do you need help taking the first steps?

Ability – did you really learn new skills or just get old skills re-packaged as a new product? And most importantly – are your new skills specifically designed to sell consulting and do you clearly understand how and why to use them? Selling hammers is quite different than selling consulting.

Environmental Factors – are you selling something that is already over-serviced in the marketplace or has decreasing demand? Is it perceived as valuable? It may be time to change your focus. Or maybe it’s simply time to do a better job of stating your offering.

Did your sales advisor consider all three elements? Or just hand off the selling techniques and run?

Click here to read about Your New Practice – The One That Knows How To Sell