Consultants rely on marketing communications to get the initial attention of prospective clients. If your marketing is working as it should, it helps you open a dialogue with a prospective client. Before you can close a sale, though, you must prove to the client how you are truly different from the rest.
How you create personal differentiation–the ultimate differentiator–is the subject of this month’s issue of The Guerrilla Consultant.
Read the March 2007 issue of The Guerrilla Consultant.
“We need more time to consider our options.”
That’s not what a consultant wants to hear from clients in response to a proposal but, as clients ponder which consultant to hire, it’s not uncommon.
You may think client waffling is a signal that you haven’t done a good job of selling the value of your proposal. After all, most consulting projects come with high price tags, and value is a crucial counter-balance to cost.
But often the value of the project isn’t in question. Instead, the risk involved in achieving that value is what holds up the hiring decision.
This month in the Guerrilla Consultant, we discuss the unique role that risk can play in the consultant’s sales process and how you can use it to your advantage.
Read this month’s Guerrilla Consultant.
When a client selects you to complete a project, you may have mixed emotions—the good news/bad news thing. The good news is that you won the work. The bad news is that now you have to deliver what you promised and make the project a success.
After you’ve done the high-fives, remind yourself that the eventual outcome of any project can be influenced by seemingly inconsequential actions early-on.
Make good decisions at the outset and you’re set for victory. Misstep, and get ready for a long and painful ordeal.
In this month’s issue of The Guerrilla Consultant, we offer a handful of tips to convert your client’s “yes” into a winning project.
Enjoy the article, and let me know what you think.
In today’s corporate environment, managers are squeezing more and more meetings into a day than most of us could have imagined. And where there’s a meeting, it’s a good bet that the speaker will be displaying slides using Microsoft’s PowerPoint.
With the surge in speakers and meeting leaders using PowerPoint, it’s become fashionable to bash the software and its makers, implying that a lowly computer program is somehow responsible for the poor quality of many presentations.
In this month’s issue of the Guerrilla Consultant, we’ll look at why it’s just silly to blame software for lackluster presentations, and what we can do about it.
When I was asked to single out the one piece of advice I thought was essential for selling professional services, mastering the art of the client interview ended up at the top of my list of must-have skills.
Whether it’s done by phone or a personal visit, a sales interview with a prospective client kicks sets the stage for what–if anything–you will get the chance to do for that client.
This month’s Guerrilla Consultant article focuses on why the client interview can make or break a sales opportunity, and how to use the client interview to make a great first impression and gather the information you need to win the work.
Enjoy the article, and let me know what you think.
“Ms. Patterson, you have a call from some consultant on line two.”
That message probably rates as much excitement as a call from an IRS auditor. So, what usually follows is a quick brush-off from the “prospective” client.
Never mind the stiff-arm response, the consultant thinks. We cold callers know that a thick skin is table stakes, and we expect rejection. I’ve got to keep dialing for dollars.
Wrong.
With all the high-impact marketing and sales strategies available to consultants, it’s time to put the cold call out to pasture once and for all.
Read the article in this month’s issue of The Guerrilla Consultant.
When he was President of Columbia University in the 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower engaged the services of a consultant to review the collegiate organization and make recommendations on how to improve its performance. Upon receiving the report, Eisenhower commented that the report was “the most expensive and least-read document the University’s library ever acquired.”
Ouch.
Sadly, that kind of consulting nightmare didn’t end when Eisenhower held his post at Columbia. Since then, countless stories of consulting project meltdowns have hit the grapevine, leaving the “responsible” consultants—and their clients—with bitter feelings, payment disputes, and a lot of unfinished business.
The fact is that both client and consultant are responsible for projects that go wild. In this month’s issue of The Guerrilla Consultant, we’ll discuss a few steps clients can take before hiring a consultant that can prevent a project disaster.
Read The Guerrilla Consultant.
In my home state, we just wrapped up voting in statewide and local elections. In the previous few weeks, my mailbox, phone, and the airwaves were inundated with pleas from incumbent politicians and wannabes for my vote.
In most political races, incumbents enjoy an enviable competitive advantage over newcomers. For consultants, the power of the incumbent service provider can also make it tough—but not impossible—for others to get in the door.
In this month’s issue of The Guerrilla Consultant, we discuss what works, and what doesn’t, when selling against a strong incumbent consultant.
Read The Guerrilla Consultant.
Re•fer•ral n.: A person recommended to someone or for something.
Few tools pack the marketing wallop of a strong referral. In fact, a prospective client is three times more likely to buy from someone who comes with a strong referral. So why do consultants struggle with the process of asking for referrals?
One reason is that most of the advice we get about generating referrals just doesn’t work for consultants. Traditional thinking about referrals has us pleading with clients for a list of people we can “help.” That just turns referral marketing into a beg-a-thon.
There’s got to be a better way.
This month’s article in the Guerrilla Consultant discusses how consultants can get those referrals without begging.
When a potential client asks you a standard question such as “Tell me what you do,” you need a ready, engaging response so you don’t babble on. You need an elevator speech—a brief spiel that tells the listener who you are and what you do.
Sadly, most elevator speeches are confusing, boring, or worse—they make the listener want to run the other direction. The main problem with most such spiels is that they focus on the speaker, not the listener. And that can be an express trip to oblivion for a consultant hoping to shine in a personal marketing moment.
This month’s article in the Guerrilla Consultant points out why you may not get past the lobby with a standard elevator speech, and gives you some ideas on how to put together and deliver your introduction so it moves a client conversation in the right direction.
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Michael McLaughlin is an advisor to organizations and individuals who offer high-value services to their clients. Read more.. |
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