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RainToday Report: Turning No into Yes

March 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Free ReportRainToday.com just released a free report called Turning No into Yes: How to Overcome the Most Common Client Objections.

The report covers:

  • Why objections are a good sign in the sales process
  • 5 simple steps to overcome any objection and get closer to the close
  • Effective techniques for getting to the heart of the objection
  • The 4 most common types of objections and how to respond to each
  • What prospects are really saying when they push back on price
  • The key to mastering the art of overcoming objections.

It’s worth having a look at. You’ll find some good reminders of what you should be doing during your sales conversations and several new insights.

Access the free report here.

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Selling Tagged With: ,

You Don’t Like to Sell?…Really?

March 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Selling your servicesI’m 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 that they aren’t any good at selling. My reaction to both views is, you’re kidding, right?

For the reluctant seller (and there are fewer of them than some people think), I have one question: If you don’t like selling, how much do you loathe your work as a consultant?

I could understand resistance to selling if your job was to cold call people at dinner time and use high-pressure sales tactics to convert them to a new cell phone plan.

But your job is to help clients bring about change. You usually have to do that in an unfamiliar environment, working under tight deadlines, and facing resistance from the very people who need to change.

To overcome those odds, you spend a lot of time selling ideas and proposed actions to those who don’t want to change–or worse, to those who are indifferent. No matter how good an idea is, or how receptive clients are to it, you have to sell it.

The point is that if you can’t sell your ideas to others, your projects (and career) will hit the rocks. The simple reality is that to sell your services, you must be great at selling ideas. And many consultants do that exceptionally well.

Sometimes we already have the answers to our toughest problems, and don’t even know it. For consultants, the answer to the sales challenge is not so much about the mastery of specific sales techniques, useful as they may be.

If you feel that you need to improve as a seller, you don’t have to look very far for clues on how to do that. Just think about the selling (and re-selling) you do in your work with clients to make change happen in their organizations.

And if you really don’t like to sell, you’re probably not satisfied being a consultant either.

Filed Under: Managing Your Business, Selling Tagged With: , , , , ,

Before Your Next Sales Meeting

March 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

What do you suppose is on a prospective client’s mind before a sales meeting with you? I think an email to you from that prospective client might go something like this:

My team is looking forward to meeting with you and we are excited about the prospect of working together. Before we get going, I’d like to lay out my expectations for our meeting.

To begin with, we recognize that you’re interested in selling your services to us. Here are three tips to make that whole process easier and worthwhile for all of us.

The journey is important, but first we need to be sure of our destination.

Lots of service providers are quick to tell us how their approaches and methods will bring us fast, reliable results. We know that tools and approaches can make a project go more smoothly, but until you’ve really shown us where we’re going, we won’t be listening.

We need to know what the future will look like for us if we complete this project. And we need to know about it in a clear and compelling way. So we ask you to focus first on our destination, instead of how we’re going to get there.

Value breaks down barriers.

In this company, multiple people are involved with the decision to approve any sizable project. And, there’s always someone with lots of questions about why you and why now. The only way my team can mobilize people around our project and break down organizational resistance is with an explicit view of the value we would get from working with you.

Our expected value serves as a motivator to action–it’s the heart of our internal sale. So once we’ve defined a post-project future, let’s work to quantify the value we’ll achieve by reaching that future. Of course, it will be difficult to make those calculations, and we will have to make some assumptions. But people won’t be receptive to undertaking a complex project without substantial value in return.

Give us possibilities.

We have ideas about what we need to do and how to do it, but we’re not the experts. We’ll look to you to open our eyes to the possibilities we haven’t thought of. All we ask is that you recognize that we’re the experts on our business. We want collaboration on realistic options and opportunities, not theories.

Together, we can devise a plan that emphasizes the future state we’re aiming for, expresses the value of reaching that state, and gives us options for how to get there. If we can do those three things, you’ve got a great chance of landing this project.

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Managing Your Business, Selling Tagged With: , , ,

Selling Your Ideas

November 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

If you’re working on projects, selling your services, or just trying to get things done, you know the importance of selling your ideas to others. Want to improve your skills in getting people to hear, accept, and act on your ideas? Check out the  five superb books below on the subject.

Naturally, there are other resources out there, but these are at the top of my current list. If you have books that you believe should be on the list, let me know.

Here are my five suggestions (in no particular order):

The Language of Trust: Selling Ideas in a World of Skeptics, by Michael Maslansky, Scott West, Gary DeMoss, and David Saylor.

Influencer: The Power to Change Anything, by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler.

Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most, by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen, and Roger Fisher.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, by Dan Roam

Filed Under: Books, Selling Tagged With: , , ,

5 Sales Challenges You’ll Face (and What to Do about Them)

November 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Once you identify a sales lead, qualify it, and agree to pull together a proposal, you still face many challenges as you navigate the sales process. In a recent interview for her blog, sales strategist Jill Konrath and I talked about some of those challenges.

I thought I’d elaborate on five of the challenges in my latest newsletter. In short, those five challenges are:

  1. Manage Perceived Risk
  2. Respond to New Decision Makers
  3. Craft a Compelling Win Theme
  4. Understand How Clients Use a Sales Proposal
  5. Don’t Shoot Yourself in the Foot

If you want the full story, click over and read the article in this month’s issue of The Guerrilla Consultant.

Filed Under: Selling, The Guerrilla Consultant Tagged With: , , ,

Making the Case for Change

October 15, 2010 By 1 Comment

A harsh reality of selling professional services is that clients can always find more reasons to say no to proposed changes than to say yes. As you work through the sales process, anticipate resistance to change from at least the sources below.

A convincing case for change addresses these seven organizational barriers:

Barrier What You’ll Hear What to Do
Inertia: Predictable resistance to any change. “Why should we do this now?” Contrast present to proposed future in terms of potential value.
Indifference: Failure to take ownership of the issue/problem. “Not sure why I’m involved, but I’ll go along if I’m told to.” Point out the impact of the present conditions and ramifications for individual stakeholders.
Cynicism: Doubt that proposed change will do any good. “We tried this before and the effort fell flat.” Illustrate the plan for achieving results.
Risk: Perception that proposed change has too much financial, operational, or personal risk. “You want to do what?” Acknowledge all reasonable risks and describe your approach to mitigating them.
Cost: Concerns over known and unforeseen cost of the proposed service. “There are just too many other budget priorities.” Create a compelling case for what the organization will gain.
Priorities: Belief that other projects, initiatives are threatened. “So, we just pile this on everything else?” Discuss strategies for managing disruption and managing the project.
Effort: Perception that the undertaking is too complex to complete. “We’d have to hire an army to get this done.” Offer examples of how you have handled similar work in the past.

Filed Under: Organizational Change, Selling Tagged With: , ,

Interview: Jill Konrath on SNAP Selling

October 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Jill Konrath is a leading sales strategist and the author of Selling to Big Companies, and SNAP Selling: Speed Up Sales and Win More Business with Today’s Frazzled Customers. Konrath offers practical strategies to help you reach the right client, with the right offer, at the right time.

In this podcast interview, we asked Konrath how today’s services buyers view sellers and their offerings, and how we can be responsive to the realities of this market.

Get our podcast interview with Jill Konrath.

Filed Under: Selling Tagged With: ,

Interview: Mark Levy on Sparking Ideas with Freewriting

September 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

For the September issue of Management Consulting News, I did a podcast  interview with Mark Levy. He’s the founder of Levy Innovation, a marketing strategy company, and the author of Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content.

Levy’s book shows us how to use a tool he calls freewriting to explore ideas, solve problems, and create marketing and thought leadership material. In the interview, I asked Levy to explain what freewriting is, why it works, how to get started, and how to apply it in our businesses.

Get the podcast interview with Mark Levy.

Filed Under: Management Consulting News, Managing Projects, Managing Your Business, Podcasts Tagged With: , , ,

Committees

August 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

When a prospective client says, “We have a committee handling the selection process for this assignment,” you might feel the urge to pack it up and head back to the office.

Maybe it’s called by another name–a task force, work group, or an evaluation team–but journalist Richard Harkness once observed that a committee is “a group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.”

For companies steeped in the committee tradition, though, members can take comfort from the knowledge that they have little or no personal accountability for their decisions. If you ask about a decision that didn’t go your way, for instance, they can pin the blame on “the committee” and dodge your inquiry.

No matter what clients tell you, a committee isn’t a decision-making body at all. Someone (or a small cadre) on that committee is calling the shots. The others may have veto power, but they rarely have the influence to counter the wishes of the real decision maker(s).

Playing only to a committee as a whole is a fool’s errand. As with any sale, your job is to find the decision makers, understand their perspectives on value, and co-design a solution with them that outshines anything your competitors can offer.

If you’re facing a selection committee and you haven’t any idea who has influence, or where the power lies, think twice before jumping into the fray. There’s a high likelihood that one of your competitors does know the lay of the land.

I’m not suggesting that you walk away from clients who use a committee process (though some consultants choose to do that). But you do need to find a path to the real decision makers on a committee and appeal to them.

If a decision maker rebuffs your efforts, you may already be out of the running. So don’t be surprised if you eventually hear your committee liaison say, “Sorry, you weren’t selected for this project. The committee opted to go in another direction.”

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Selling Tagged With: ,

Nudging Clients toward Commitment

July 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

We’ve all been involved with sales opportunities that seemed to take forever to close. In spite of our best efforts to move the process along, someone or something conspires against the sale, and it drags on.

While many of the tactics you might use to “speed up the client’s buying cycle” could lead to a win, they could also work against your long-term interests. That’s the subject of this month’s article in The Guerrilla Consultant newsletter. Read the article.

Filed Under: Client Relationships, Selling, The Guerrilla Consultant Tagged With: ,
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