We all face sticky situations and cranky clients–they go with the territory. It’s not tricks or tactics that help you meet those challenges, but a mindset of healthy respect for your client and yourself, and a focus on the interests you have in common.
That’s the subject of this month’s issue of The Guerrilla Consultant newsletter.
Consultants often define their practices by the services they offer to the market. Some might describe themselves as problem solvers, change managers, business strategists, or technology specialists, to name a few.
Thinking about what you do in those terms may cause you to overlook the fact that every professional practice, no matter its size, is largely an information business. Of course, you have to master the skills of service delivery, marketing, sales, communication, and many others.
But you’ll struggle to get the work you want if you don’t excel at creating compelling, market-ready perspectives on the issues your clients face. To do that, you need a systematic way to stay on top of what’s happening in the market.
And that’s the subject of this month’s issue of The Guerrilla Consultant.
From a seller’s perspective, clients don’t always choose the right firm for the job. You might hear a seller say, “I know we had the best proposal, but we still lost.”
Sometimes sellers kid themselves about the strength of their proposals. Other times it might be that a competitor simply outsold them.
After analyzing hundreds of services sales, I created the concept of the Seven by Seven Seller, and introduced it in my book, Winning the Professional Services Sale.
This concept, which is the focus of this month’s article in The Guerrilla Consultant, outlines the seven roles you must play to win in today’s market plus the seven skills you must master to be effective in those roles.
I often hear consultants bemoan clients’ resistance to implementing recommendations. Most often, client reticence means that you have failed to make a compelling enough case for change.
A common reason for that failure is how you interpret and present the facts of the client’s situation. This month in The Guerrilla Consultant, I offer some advice for using the power of facts to help clients understand and follow your recommendations.
Don’t get tripped up on your facts. Read the September issue of The Guerrilla Consultant.
Even powerful ideas can lose their potency when we lose sight of how to use them effectively. For example, you may understand the potential power of the questions you ask in sales situations. But are you really asking questions that help you?
In this month’s issue of The Guerrilla Consultant, we take a look at sales questions to make sure that yours are serving your clients, not some sales methodology.
I’m always amazed when consultants tell me that they don’t like (or want) to sell. Some seem to think that the whole sales thing is completely beneath them. Then there are others who believe they aren’t any good at selling. My reaction to both views is, you’re kidding, right?
In this month’s issue of The Guerrilla Consultant, I write about why these perspectives are missing the point, and why consultants, by virtual of their profession, can and should be top performing sellers.
Jumping to conclusions about any problem can be disastrous. When confronted with a small house fire, for instance, your first instinct might be to douse it with water.
In more than a few cases, though, spraying water causes a fire to spread, resulting in even more damage.
In this month’s issue of the Guerrilla Consultant, we explore why jumping to conclusions about your client’s issues can also be dangerous–for the client and for you–and what you can do about it.
Whether it’s a proposal, training seminar, status update, or final report, consultants use slides for nearly every presentation. When you show up to present (or even before), expect the client or meeting host to ask, “Where’s your slide deck?”
Unfortunately, too many speakers misuse slide decks as a glorified cheat sheet for remembering what to say next. In this month’s Guerrilla Consultant, we discuss some simple rules for transforming any slide presentation from a necessary evil into a powerful way to get your point across.
In one of our recent webcasts, a participant asked me if there is one service every consultant should offer. I didn’t hesitate with my answer.
No matter how different your practice is from that of other consultants, the one service you should offer to clients is a diagnostic assessment. You might refer to your service as a strategic assessment, gap analysis, business process evaluation, or even an initial consultation.
Whatever you choose to call it, the service is a relatively short, systematic project to evaluate a specific area of client concern and offer objective advice. The emphasis is on short, systematic, and objective.
In this month’s issue of The Guerrilla Consultant, I’ll discuss this service offering, which can form the basis for everything you do with your clients.
No matter how good you are at what you do, a compelling service offer is essential to keep those calls coming in from prospective clients. Last month, a reader wrote to me about how tough it can be to craft the right service offer.
The challenge is to make sure your service offer expresses your capabilities broadly enough to attract your entire target market, without being so general that clients can’t figure out what you really do.
Here’s an example of the lead-in to an offer that’s so broad it’s meaningless: “We are committed to being the best, with effective management that uses the creativity and talents of our people to build client satisfaction through competitive prices and high-quality products and services.”
I know you don’t want to leave out any potential client interests, but you have to accept that it’s just not possible to capture every aspect of your capabilities in your service offer. Instead, search for the balance between being overly general with service descriptions and burying clients in minutiae.
That’s the topic of this month’s article in The Guerrilla Consultant.
Enjoy the article, and let me know what you think.
 |
|---|
Michael McLaughlin is an advisor to organizations and individuals who offer high-value services to their clients. Read more.. |
Stay in Touch