Think about it. What’s the last thing you want when you’re looking to buy anything—financial services, software, web hosting services, a car, a refrigerator? I say it’s a pushy salesperson who’s interested only in getting a commission check. It’s someone who will not leave you alone until you agree to the sale or storm off furious. It’s someone who cares nothing about return business and strong customer relationships.

The better way for salespeople to behave is to show buyers how their lives will be better if they buy from them, says RAIN Group co-president John Doerr in his podcast interview, Don’t Convince and Coerce Prospects, Influence Them.

You want to influence them, he says. Ask questions, make recommendations, and share ideas. Use your influence to guide them down a certain path. That’s a lot different than coercing them.

“If I set the agenda by sharing certain ideas that I have, that’s influencing people down a certain path. If I summarize and communicate the impact of taking a certain course of action, and let people see what may or may not happen if they choose that course of action, that’s influence as well. And finally, if I just recommend an action, the influence that I might have because I’ve shown myself to be an expert and I’ve developed trust with a particular person, all those things are helping to influence the sale,” Doerr says.

How Confident Are You?

Your sales success also depends on whether you sound confident in what you’re selling and the value you provide to clients, says Matt Heinz in his article, Why Your Sales Are Struggling. If you are desperate, you will say and do anything to try and win the sale. (Think of Jack Lemmon’s character Shelley Levine in Glengarry Glen Ross.) You could find yourself lowering your price, which can be detrimental in the long run.

“It’s tempting to lower prices and create aggressive offers to sell your services. But those offers, while they have the potential for a quick bump in sales, have a downside. They can immediately put you in a position where you’re competing on price and failing to justify a premium price for a premium product (and result!),” Heinz writes.

Make Sure You Sell to the Right Buyers

If you find prospects still aren’t interested in what you’re saying and show no interest in buying from you, then you might be targeting the wrong buyers. That’s sales mistake number one, according to Heinz.

“Make sure you understand who the right decision maker is for buying your service. Is that person different from the eventual end user? Is there a third “influencer” that needs to be on board before the buyer will sign?” Heinz says. “How well you understand the purchase and decision making ecosystem within the buying organization can make a big difference in whether or not you can quickly get to a ‘yes.’”

But even before that, you have to make sure you correctly identify the market that you can serve, says Bruce W. Marcus in his article, Setting Realistic Objectives, Part 1.

“There are three aspects of a market that must be considered—its size, its needs, and its location—and all three must be viewed carefully in formulating objectives,” Marcus writes. “How large a market can you realistically serve? What are the parameters of the market’s needs that you’re prepared to serve effectively? What geographical limitations are realistic? Do you have the skills to succeed in a particular market?”

Don’t set your sights on a certain market segment if you’re unable to serve it.

Those are three things that can contribute to sales success. What other factors do you think can help you succeed?

Photo by: Deb Walker

How many of you have taken to the social networks when you’ve been unhappy with a company’s service? Posted on their Facebook wall when you couldn’t get someone to respond to you? Tweeted your unhappiness? Or posted comments on Yelp? I suspect a lot of you have. And if you’re doing it, you know your customers are also doing it.

We’ve been given so many venues to connect with people and share our thoughts and opinions, and we—as well as our customers—are increasingly vocal about our experiences. That’s a great thing when customers say good things about you. But when they say negative things, watch out. The picky, fickle, and vain customers of today will quickly leave you when not satisfied, and they’ll tell the world about their unhappiness, causing others to not even consider you.

What you must do, then, is turn those “wired and dangerous” customers into “wired and loyal” customers, write Chip R. Bell and John R. Patterson in their article, Turn Picky, Fickle Customers into Loyal Clients.

There are a few things you can do to make that happen and keep customers from abandoning you, all of which revolve around giving exemplary customer service, say Bell and Patterson. Start by monitoring all mentions of you on the web and take all comments and complaints seriously. Catching and resolving issues early is essential.

“Research reveals a strong relationship between effort and satisfaction,” Bell and Patterson say. “When a client found an experience to be both satisfactory and effortless, they were three-and-a-half times more likely to say they were loyal. It means the concept of ‘first-call resolution’ may need to take a back seat to ‘first-contact resolution.’”

Become Irresistible

Customers today are also “crazy busy,” says Jill Konrath. They’re going as fast as they can to produce products, provide services, meet deadlines, resolve problems, and keep their businesses going. But you can capture their attention—and their business—if you can understand their thinking and show how you can help them, she says.

For example, buyers won’t listen to you if you present them with complex ideas. They don’t have time to sort it all out. They also won’t change anything if they think it will inhibit their careers. And if your service looks the same as what they currently use, they won’t switch. But they will pay attention if you keep things simple, demonstrate a strong business case, and minimize the risk of working with you, says Konrath in her article, How to Make Yourself Irresistible to Crazy-Busy Customers.

You must also be prepared, adds Konrath.

“If you aren’t prepared, you aren’t credible. In fact, you’re just like every other self-serving salesperson. Make sure every meeting with you is well worth their time,” she says.

Don’t Depend on Gravy. Get Out and Prospect

A little “gravy” in your sales diet is a good thing. New business simply falls into your lap. But if you rely on that easy business, or go on the “Gravy Diet,” you could starve. Successful salespeople know they have to take control of their future and have a system for getting new business, says Landy Chase in his article, Want to Lose Sales? Try the ‘Gravy Diet’.

That means you have to prospect for new business or potential customers will pass you by. You could provide a fantastic service that’s unique compared to nearly everyone in your field, but buyers have no idea. You need a system that includes marketing, referrals, branding, networking, and integrity, Chase says.

Generate Referrals

Referrals—absolutely, you think. That’s how you prefer to generate new business. But are you asking for referrals, or introductions, the right way? Or are you inadvertently pushing clients away and causing them to not refer you?

If you ask for a referral with an open-ended question—such as “Who else do you know?”—you will cause the client to resent you, says Colleen Francis in her Q&A, Avoid this Mistake When Asking for a Referral or Testimonial.

“Clients resent it when you go to them and ask them to do a whole bunch of work for you,” she says. “Asking for a referral in that open-ended statement won’t get you any referrals … because your clients have other things to do.”

Instead approach your client with the names of specific companies you would like to work with whom you think your client can help with, and say something like, “I was thinking that these engineering firms in California—A, B, and C—would be a really great fit for our business. I’m wondering if you can help me with an introduction,” Francis says.

Consider All Possibilities, Not Just the Tactic of the Week

We’ve said it before, the strategies you use to attract new customers depends on what your buyers prefer. If they actively use social media, then you need to network with them there. If they respond better to email, then you need to communicate with them via that platform. You can’t adopt a strategy or tactic simply because it’s new and sounds exciting.

In fact, when EPIC Translations needed to generate new business it went back to a marketing tactic many businesses have dropped since the explosion of online marketing—direct mail. Only it added an online twist to its campaign, writes Mary Flaherty in her case study, Firm Combines Direct Mail with Online Features to Increase Sales.

The company sent a postcard to a highly targeted list, and on the postcard included an online call to action so that it could better track responses. The postcard directed prospects to a specific landing page, and it had a QR code that people could scan to get information.

Imran Virk, director of sales at EPIC Translations, said he decided to explore direct mail because he noticed not many companies were using it.

“Don’t be afraid to be different and try tactics that have worked in the past,” he says. “What can actually get somebody’s attention now? Believe it or not, people do pay attention to something that they receive in the mail. I know I certainly do.”

Photo by kymillman

It’s a “wired and dangerous” world, especially now that social media use is in full gear.

You have adults doing inappropriate things via Twitter, ruining their professional and personal lives. You have teens bullying other teens via text messages and Facebook, pushing them into depression and sometimes suicide. And you have businesses that, when they don’t provide good customer service, find themselves in the social media crosshairs of unhappy buyers.

Remember the viral video United Airlines’ baggage handlers damaging a passenger’s guitar? Or when Southwest Airlines told movie maker Kevin Smith he was too fat to fly on their plane? Those customers were angry and took to the social networks to point out those companies’ flaws.

Don’t think your B2B service firm is safe. Your clients are just as armed and dangerous, warn Chip R. Bell and John R. Patterson in their book, Wired and Dangerous: How Your Customers Have Changed and What to Do About It. They will air their complaints on social networks, and people—complete strangers—will listen to them. And before you know it your reputation will be damaged.

“Today when [customers] have any kind of frustration or hiccup, as Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, said, in the physical world they can tell six people if they have a bad experience, but in the cyberworld they can tell 6,000 and bring down a company,” says Bell in a podcast interview he did along with Patterson, How to Keep Wired and Dangerous Customers Happy.

Keeping Customers Happy

Now that you know the dangers, how do you keep wired and dangerous customers happy? Here are a few ideas.

1. Apologize

If you make a mistake, a project takes longer than predicted, or the project results are less than you told your client they would be, apologize. As Dan Waldschmidt points out in his article, Terrible Sales Ideas We’re Addicted To, Part 2, emotions play a huge role in buying services. If something goes wrong, that buyer’s reputation—and maybe job—is on the line. Apologizing can diffuse a bad situation.

“Emotion is like a pendulum. Crying can turn into laughter with the right comment. Anger and frustration can turn into relief and appreciation with the right touch,” Waldschmidt says. “And instead of using this to our advantage (and frankly, just doing the right thing), we stand with our chests pushed out, defiantly reminding our customer that ‘we don’t make mistakes like that.’ It’s naive business-making at the core.”

2. Manage Your Mailing Lists Well

No one, I repeat, no one likes unwanted email. For me, it’s got to the point where I sometimes wish I didn’t have email. So much junk comes in. I admit a lot comes from me signing up to download a report or get a silly 10% coupon. But with some I scratch my head and wonder how they got my email address and why these people think I would ever respond.

You must make sure the people on your list want to be there. And if they don’t, remove them immediately. Not only will they take their grievance to the social networks, but they’ll complain to the government that you are sending spam.

As Bruce Marcus points out in his article, Whom the Gods Would Drive Mad They First Put in Charge of Mailing Lists, “a mailing list is more than a compendium of names. It’s an active and constantly changing profile of a segment of your audience, with carefully defined and predetermined characteristics and needs that are specifically responsive to your skills and practice. And as active and dynamic profiles, they’re constantly changing and have different needs. ”

And as their profiles and needs change, so must your list.

3. Raise Prices Appropriately

With buyers still cautious about spending money, a price increase can cause them to rethink doing business with you. And blatant price increases without any explanation or reason will have them scurrying to the web to complain. Think about how you feel when the oil companies raise fuel prices 7 cents in a day for no apparent reason.

That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t raise prices. After all, you have to earn a living, too. What it means is you have to do it carefully and with the buyer in mind.

You want to consider raising your price if you provide real value to your customer, writes Mark Hunter in his article, When Is It a Good Time to Increase Your Price? Has your customer realized added value during the past year from using your services? Are there improvements in service or performance you can document that your customer would see value in? Can you show your customer how what you provide them will give them a competitive advantage or minimize their risk in the year to come?

“When the customer can see increased value, you have every right to increase your price,” Hunter says. “Yes, there could very well be other strategic or even tactical reasons why you would still not want to take a price increase. Those questions are going to be answered only after assessing your overall business plan.”

Be Proactive

Negative comments on the Internet will affect your business. With so many people turning to the web to research companies, those comments will surface. You must keep an eye on what is being said about you. Use Google alerts, use Twitter tools to track mentions, and monitor what is posted on your Facebook page.

If customers do post negative comments, react immediately and remedy the situation as fast as possible. Do not ignore those complaints.

More important, provide outstanding service to encourage customers to post positive comments. So, if someone posts a negative experience, all of those positive experiences will outweigh it.

Photo by Thad Zajdowicz

Do you have all the building blocks for creating a strong value proposition positioning statement?

You know you provide value with your services. But do your prospects and clients understand what that value is? Do you effectively communicate that value?

If you’re struggling to get meetings with prospects and win new clients, chances are you’re failing in that area. What you’re saying does not resonate with them, pique their interest, or indicate that you can do anything to help them.

To fix that, take a close look at your value proposition positioning statement. Does it include the six essential components?

1. Who your target customers are
2. Needs that you fulfill
3. The impact of fulfilling those needs
4. Your offerings
5. How you have helped others
6. What makes you different from other similar providers

“These six components are building blocks that you can use to build the story you want to deliver,” write Mike Schultz and John Doerr in their article, ‘What Do You Do?’ The Best Way to Communicate Your Value. “Just like the wooden blocks we all had as kids, you can use the same blocks to build all sorts of different shapes, towers, and cathedrals. Pick and choose which blocks to use in your conversations based on the particular situation.”

When PNT Marketing Services decided to beef up its lead generation efforts, it had all of those building blocks. It knew exactly who its ideal clients were and how to demonstrate its value and get those buyers to take notice.

What helped the company most, however, was identifying trigger events so that their sales conversations were warm, not cold, writes Gwen Moran in her case study of the firm, Media Detective Work Helps Firm Generate Leads and Land 6-Figure Deals.

PNT hired consulting firm Only Insight to scour a variety of media outlets, as well as its database of existing clients, and find trigger events that cause issues PNT specializes in addressing. PNT then used the information to personalize their conversations and communication with potential customers.

Buyer Personas Play a Key Role

Equally important when talking with prospects is the ability to understand their buying style and accommodate them, adds Schultz.

If you recognize that a prospect likes to have lots of data before making a decision, give him that data. On the other hand, if the person is more innovative and wants new ideas for how to solve a problem, providing case study after case study for how things worked in the past will frustrate him.

“If you really understand one [buyer persona] versus the other and introduce flexibility and open-mindedness into your selling, you’ll make more sales,” says Schultz in his podcast interview, Peel Back the Onion: When You Know Your Buyers’ Personas, You’ll Sell More.

It might take more effort than you’re accustomed to—especially if the prospect’s persona is different than yours—but if you think they will be a good client, it is worth it.

Holding On to Clients

A lot of professional services people are analytical. Lawyers, accountants, actuaries, consultants, engineers—they are for the most part left-brained people who like the idea of goals and measuring their performance in achieving them.

It’s their softer skills and their ability to relate with clients that can be their downfall, Charles H. Green points out in his article, Is CRM Harmful to Your Business? And data-packed CRM systems can inhibit their ability to nurture client relationships.

“If the CRM problem definition is based in data, for data-centric people, there’s a good chance that the solution will also be based in data. Which means it won’t be based in activities such as visiting clients, getting on the phone, collaboratively defining problem areas, surfacing conflicts, or talking about over-runs or misaligned expectations,” Green says.

If your client needs that type of interaction with you, and you don’t provide it, they will look for it elsewhere.

You also risk losing repeat business from clients if you don’t pay attention to them, says Eric Burton in his article, The 7 Biggest Marketing Sins Businesses Commit. You need to remind them that you are there and of the value you offer. Do it through enewsletters, phone calls, direct mail, and shared information via social media networks.

“When you continually provide value to your clients and remind them you are there, you will have a better relationship and better results,” Burton says.

Photo by Carsten Schlip

Last year, we asked you to share your selling services challenges. You flooded us with your challenges and concerns, which included communicating the value of your services, client relationship management, and qualifying leads. In this blog series we identify 12 of the major selling obstacles you are struggling with the most and offer advice and suggestions for overcoming them.

Today’s challenge: cross-selling to clients.

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Many service firms that want to grow their business will turn immediately to marketing and lead generation as the answer. They rarely think to sell more to the clients they already have.

Cross-selling to existing clients can be a profitable way to grow your business.

Yet cross-selling to clients who are already satisfied with your services is the quickest and most cost-effective way to bring in new business and grow your firm. Your clients already value your services, so if they have a need you can address, you’re well-positioned to sell more.

In response to one concern that was posted in the Selling Services Challenge, one reader posted this sage advice:

When developing your pipeline of future work, don’t ignore your most qualified prospects: the clients who already value your services. How much more opportunity exists in the areas you are currently deployed? What other areas of the business could hold similar opportunities? Who else in the client’s network should the service provider be talking to?

-Ryan Hale

Grow Your Business Profitably

Research has shown that it’s 7 to 9 times more expensive to acquire a new client than to sell additional services to an existing client. That’s a pretty good reason to take the time to make cross-selling an integrated part of your client relationship management.

It’s an important point to remember: this is about your relationship with the client. As Charles H. Green says in his excellent RainToday article on cross-selling, “As the relationship owner, you are the ideal candidate to cross-sell.”

To cross-sell effectively, you must:

• Understand how you can help existing clients in additional ways
• Introduce new services to clients that meets a need
• Believe you will add more value with additional services

How do you know when you should be cross-selling to an existing client?

Here are some common cross-sell opportunities that John Doerr, President of RAIN Group, identifies:

• Your current clients have needs you don’t serve
• Your current clients have needs that no one serves
• Clients of colleagues in your firm have needs
• Prospect conversations can be expanded past initial need
• Additional needs can be identified during service delivery (by you or other team members)
• Additional options in sales process and proposals

Now, when you identify one of those opportunities, how do you take advantage of them? Like a Girl Scout (or Boy Scout), be prepared.

Be well-versed in the service offerings of your firm:

• Description of your service
• Deliverables
• Why clients should know about this service
• Value to clients
• Who needs this service

Write a service overview that includes the above information for each of your firm’s services, one service per page. Ensure that everyone in the firm becomes more knowledgeable about the firm’s services. Doerr suggests you test yourself and your colleagues, expect fluency, set expectations, and reward success.

He also suggests you build a cross-selling plan such as the one below and reach out to your existing clients.

Of course, cross-selling won’t work if you haven’t served the client well in one service to begin with. But if you do deliver on your client service promise, then cross-selling can be a profitable way to grow your business.

Last year, we asked you to share your selling services challenges. You flooded us with your challenges and concerns, which included communicating the value of your services, client relationship management, and qualifying leads. In this blog series we identify 12 of the major selling obstacles you are struggling with the most and offer advice and suggestions for overcoming them.

This week’s challenge: client relationship management.

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You know you need to differentiate yourself from your competition. And having a strong value proposition can help you do so. But sometimes buyers might consider your services to be the same as those from other providers. What do you do in that situation? It actually comes down to the relationship—whether the buyer likes you—says RAIN Group President Mike Schultz.

People buy with their hearts and justify with their heads, Schultz says in RainToday’s Mastering Rainmaking Conversations Ebook. They pick people who make the best personal connection with them.

That’s why relationship management is so important.

How do you establish that connection? How do you develop strong relationships? It begins with your initial contact with prospects. Say, for example, you meet someone in a social context or the person is someone you know personally. They are a decision maker in a business that is an ideal client for your firm, and you’d love to tell them how your services can help his company—but you don’t want to come off as a pushy salesperson.

In that situation, you want to simply initiate a conversation about issues in their industry. Ask for advice or feedback, suggests Vickie K. Sullivan, founder and president of Sullivan Speaker Services:

“If you have a speech or article coming up, ask if you can interview the person to get their perspective. That’s a great conversation starter and will showcase your ideas in a non-selling situation. Be sure to send them the article or video clip of the speech showing their contribution. Those multiple touch points get the message across much better than selling them first time out.”

It’s the beginning of a relationship you can then nurture over time.

If you contact prospects via email, sending information about industry changes, research reports, or case studies, make the correspondence personal. Make a point to mention something of personal interest, such as their recent accomplishment (addition to staff, industry award, mention of them in a published article, etc.) or even a win from their favorite sports team. Doing so shows you are interested in them and not just their buying dollar. Again, think relationship. Think long-term.

One RainMaker Blog reader even suggests adding a personal touch to email that is sent in response to website inquiries:

“When registrants receive a personalized email as opposed to an automated response—especially when they have registered interest in a certain offer or service—it has improved response rates. At the very least it helps our reputation, so that if a potential client is unable to commit at this time, they are far more likely to return to us when they have the budget in the future or to refer us to others.”

The main thing that will help you develop good relationships with prospects and clients is demonstrating that their needs come first. You have to see their issues as they do and be able to explain clearly solutions to help them—even if the solution comes from someone other than you. Being genuine in what you suggest and offer goes a long way toward developing trust with the buyer and establishing a good working relationship.

“What works best for me,” says RainMaker Blog Reader Raj Bowen, is “helping the prospect as a friend (even if they end up going with someone else) to make sure they are addressing a true need and getting it right and working collaboratively with the client stakeholders to build a solution together.”

The Best Business Comes from Repeat Clients

Once you establish the buyer as a client, don’t let the relationship end. It’s time to take it to the next level and keep clients as happy as possible. Not only make sure the service you deliver is excellent, but stay in touch with them after the contract is fulfilled. Offer support throughout the year, send them articles and reports they might be interested in, call them once a quarter to check in, send them gifts marking their anniversary with you as a client.

Use those touches to also make sure clients know about all of your services, adds Erica Stritch, Vice President at RAIN Group. Because while they may know about the one service they received, they probably don’t know about other ways you can help. Says Stritch:

“Tapping your current (and past) client base, introducing them to other services, and networking your way through the client firm are all ways to grow and get new projects. Your direct contact can act as an internal champion for you and your services to introduce you to other decision makers within their organization.”

The more you stay in front of someone, the more you are on their mind and likely to call on you when a new need arises. Plus, they’re more apt to refer you to others. Do not underestimate the power of a client’s happiness and word of mouth. When they’re happy, your business can grow. When they’re unhappy, your business can suffer.

Are you giving clients and prospects a human touch?

When you have your head down working like mad on prospecting emails and calls, it’s sometimes easy to forget you’re working with real people, not simply some business or item on a list.

As editor of RainToday I, too, have to stop and consider subscribers feelings and state of mind as I field their emails and calls. Recently a simple misunderstanding about access to a free download sent one person into a fury, demanding the PDF and to remove him immediately from our mailing list. Once the issue was cleared up, everything was fine and he withdrew his request to be removed. He said he was having a bad day, and the complication pushed him over the edge. I knew exactly how he felt. We all have had those kinds of days.

I could have written him off as an unhappy reader and removed him from our list, thinking we have plenty of other readers. I chose instead to acknowledge his frustration and help resolve the problem, and I ended up with a grateful and happy reader.

Contributing editor C.J. Hayden agrees that we have to remember to apply a human touch to our conversations and correspondence, especially when calling on prospects. Persuading other human beings to work with you calls for more than the perfect script or email, she says in her article, Prospects Are People, Too. There’s no magic sequence of words that will guarantee you new clients.

“Your prospects are people, just like you, me, and your best friend. Instead of hiding behind some anonymous words, you need to treat your prospects like they’re human beings and reveal yourself as human, too,” she says.

Part of that involves uncovering their needs so you can best serve them, adds John E. Doerr. When talking with them avoid the tendency to talk only about your services, he writes in his article, Do You Know What Your Clients Really Need?

“We should never be selling anything when we talk with prospects about our services,” Doerr says. “Instead we should seek out conversations about their needs. When we hear a set of needs with which we can be of assistance, we can then offer to help. No hard sales pitch, just a connection of our skills and services with someone else’s set of needs.”

Once the prospect becomes a client, the human touch must continue. Exceptional service and client care will ensure your clients remains happy—and remain your clients. Anything less will have them considering other providers should they come calling.

“While many factors influence whether a relationship grows, you and your team can have an enormous impact on the trajectory that it takes,” writes Andrew Sobel in his article, How to Grow Client Relationships—and Grow Your Business.

To help you think about this Sobel came up with a list of 20 events and opportunities that can all help grow client relationships, but “if and only if you recognize them and capitalize on them effectively.” Consider, for example, a company crisis. You can use the crisis to show your client “how you can help dig them out of a hole,” he says. Or if it is a personal crisis, you can show empathy, be a sounding board, and let the client know you are there for them.

Happy Employees = More Sales

Happy clients aren’t the only way to grow a business. As Tony Hsieh proved with his success of Zappos, when you have a strong company culture that focuses on happy employees, you generate more sales, says Hsieh, in his podcast interview, Employee Happiness Key to Driving Profit and Growth.

“The number one driver of growth has been repeat customers and word of mouth, and all of that has been driven by customer service, which can only happen if you have the right culture in place,” Hsieh says.

What does Zappos’ culture look like? For Zappos it starts with delivering “WOW through service.” Employees “must do something that’s above and beyond what’s expected.” And they must have an emotional impact on the receiver.

Employees must also be humble, Hsieh says. There are lots of smart and talented people out there who are also egotistical, and Zappos will not hire them. It doesn’t matter how smart they are.

With that culture in place, customers know they are dealing with people who are passionate about their job and care about customers, not that they just want a paycheck, he says. That leads to loyal customers who will share their experiences and recommend their service.

Photo credit: Chris Evans

(Photo by Athena Workman)

Focus on your clients and prospects. You’ve probably heard those words many times, and know you should do it, but are you actually doing it? These days, when all buyers are busy and seemingly more providers than ever are vying for their business, this client-centric focus can make the difference between winning a deal and losing it.

As C.J. Hayden says in her article, Prospects Are People, Too, “Successful selling is not a power struggle between two opposing sides; it’s a friendly conversation between peers.”

You cannot make the mistake of thinking that the perfect sales letter or phone script will guarantee you new clients, she says. Treat your prospects like humans, not robots, and focus on personal exchanges of useful and targeted information.

Matt Heinz, author of the new book Successful Selling, agrees with Hayden. In his podcast interview, How to Avoid Becoming a Commodity in a Buyer-Centric World, Heinz says, “Sales has changed significantly over the past years. No longer can firms have the same approach for every prospect.”

And if you want to differentiate yourself from the competition and avoid becoming a commodity where buyers make a decision based simply on price, take the time to analyze your prospect’s problem and explain how you can solve it for them, he says.

“Take their problem and ask them questions to identify and quantify the problem in a way they might not have been able to do themselves,” Heinz says. “Too often when they can’t do that, they find the easiest thing that they can understand, which is price. And you don’t want to have to compete on price.”

One company who has seen great success with a client-centric approach is On Your Mark. In M. Sharon Baker’s case study on the firm, Market Research Firm’s Client-Centric Approach Leads to Many Cross-Selling Opportunities, co-founder Brenda Laguarta says she knew they needed to focus on their current clients if they were going to weather the economic storm.

By focusing on existing clients and increasing their visibility, On Your Mark found new opportunities in different divisions of their current clients. And to keep the pipeline full, the team started looking and thinking ahead about new opportunities.

“We’re intensely involved in our clients’ businesses, with projects going all the time,” says partner Jeanne Corrigan. “We started to take a look at what we were doing now, what we still needed to learn, and what could help our clients based upon what we were already doing.”

Laurie Young and Bev Burgess further state that the development of new services should focus on buyers’ unique needs. Using a process they call New Service Design (NSD), “allows marketers to create a new perception of value for the core service. They can create different versions of the core service for different segments of buyers and introduce innovations, both large and small, that enhance the existing service and improve its perceived value over time,” they write in their article, How to Develop Innovative and Profitable Services.

In general, services that are high-volume, low-margin, and easily reproducible can more easily be developed using a rigorous design plan than those that are highly customized (like consultancy or other professional services). But it is possible to apply the rigorous innovation process to professional services using their NSD approach, Young and Burgess say. Doing so will enable firms to produce much more lucrative services that are distinct and different from others.

How you communicate with clients and prospects also makes a huge difference. When you communicate using jargon and “corporatese” you alienate them. How can they possibly understand how you can help them when they can’t figure out what you do,” asserts Ernest Nicastro in his article, Is Your Writing Driving Away Clients?

Consider this real-world example from a firm’s website:

“Leader Coaching leverages a proprietary coaching framework, proven over years of practical application and success, to collaborate with clients in pursuit of shared goals.”

Such writing is “flat out bad communication, and bad communication is bad for you, bad for your reader, and, if you’re communicating in a commercial way, bad for business,” Nicastro says.

Fortunately such writing can be easily fixed using a simple tool in Microsoft word—Spelling & Grammar Check. It provides four important results that can make the difference between good writing and bad writing. Businesses would be well-advised to use it before sending out or publishing anything.

Now that you know how some firms are benefiting from a client-centric focus, tell us what you’re doing—or plan to do. What results have you seen?

Ignore the voice you hear that says to advance sales quickly (Photo by Don Fulano)

If you’re involved in sales in any way, shape, or form, I’m sure you feel constant pressure to close deals—and close them quickly. You probably feel it from managers who tell you the prospect will slip away if you let them sit. The worst culprit, however, is the voice inside your head that says you need to act quickly.

But if you’re involved in selling professional services and you try to put a long-term sale into a short-term cycle, you will, as Charles H. Green says, shoot yourself in the foot. You will destroy any chance you had at winning over that prospect.

“Short-term selling comes from a mismatch between the pace of a client’s decision-making, and our desired pace of the client’s decision-making. Typically, of course, we want the pace to be faster than that which the client appears to desire,” writes Green in his article, Don’t Be a Short-Term Seller. “Our unfortunate response is to attack the client’s pace as too slow. The client’s equally unfortunate (but entirely predictable) response is to dig in their heels and push back. Paradox. Stalemate. Short-termism kills another deal.”

You will similarly lose prospects and leads if your sales conversations center on you, your firm, and your services, says Jill Konrath, author of the new book SNAP Selling, in her podcast interview, How to Get Prospects to Sit Up, Pay Attention, and Buy Your Services.

Prospects, who are busier than ever, don’t want to hear about those things.

“The most typical [mistake] I see is the gracious call where the person calls a prospect and leaves a message in which they introduce themselves and say they’d love to meet with them to explain what they can do. But those messages are deleted in a nanosecond because they have no meaning to the prospect,” Konrath says. “A SNAP seller starts entirely with the client in mind. They try to get inside their head and understand the business issues and challenges they’re facing, the goals they’re trying to reach, they problems they’ll have if they remain status quo, and why they won’t change.”

Similar tactics apply if you want to grow your client relationship. If you want to retain that client and continue to have them buy from you, try doing joint account planning in which you solicit the client’s ideas in your plans for them, writes Andrew Sobel in his article, How to Grow Client Relationships—and Grow Your Business, Part 2. Doing so sends a powerful message that you put their concerns and challenges first.

Other suggestions from Sobel include making targeted investments, creating a new relationship environment, and bringing new players into the relationship.

The main ingredient in client relationships is trust—without it you have nothing, but with it you can have clients for life. If it’s new prospects you’re trying to win over, webinars are a great way to begin developing that trust. They allow you to showcase your expertise and personality, and they allow you to interact with people—basically give a taste of what it’s like to work with you.

To have a successful webinar, however, you must make sure your target audience knows about it. Take a page from Kendra Lee’s playbook and put notices about it on all the social media networks possible. No one market segment prefers one particular network, so you need to hit them all, she says in her article, 6 Ways to Increase Attendance at Your Webinars.

“Once your content is perfected, [webinars] are a numbers game,” writes Lee.” The more interested people from your target market that you can attract to your event, the greater the number of leads. Social networking can get your message out, bringing participants and leads to you.”

What growing up at a motel taught me about running a service business. (Photo by Will V.)

The 4th of July has always signaled the beginning of summer to me. Fireworks, parades, barbecues, picnics, and baseball games—what better ways to celebrate the kickoff of the short-lived, New England heat?

The holiday also brings back memories of my childhood. I grew up in a small tourist town in southern Maine where my parents owned and managed a motel. Growing up living at a motel made for a pretty interesting childhood where I got to meet new people every day and make friends all over the world.

It wasn’t all fun and games. Growing up in a family business also meant that I had to work every summer. I’d do everything from housekeeping to running the front office to painting to cleaning the pool. But I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything. In fact, I learned a number of lessons that have stuck with me throughout my life.

Here are five of those lessons that have really become guiding principles for me in running a service business.

1. Always put the people first. Staff, clients, prospects—if you put the people first, everything else will fall in line.

My parents always put an emphasis on personal relationships. They built strong relationships with guests where they’d stay in touch throughout the year, sending Christmas cards, letters, and emails to guests just to see how they were doing and fill them in on what was going on in our lives. Every Friday night my parents would take one of the repeat guests out to dinner, and they would host small cocktail parties. These relationships kept folks coming back year after year.

They also built strong bonds with the staff. They genuinely cared about (and sometimes for) the employees, and in turn, the employees would regularly go above and beyond the call of duty.

Professional services marketing, selling, and management are all about relationships. If you put people first and allow this philosophy to drive the rest of your decisions, everything else will fall in line. Go above and beyond for your staff, and you will have a group of people working with you who go above and beyond for you, one another, and your clients.

2. The price of entry gets you only so far. The cleanliness of the rooms at the motel, having amenities guests want, and our location got us only so far. In the hospitality business, such things are the price of entry. If you don’t have them, you won’t survive for very long. But having them only gets you to the starting gate.

Your clients expect excellent service and technical competence. What can you do above and beyond “doing good work” that will help you compete?

3. Ask for referrals. More than 65% of the reservations at the motel came from customers who came back year after year. And the number one source of new customers was through referrals. As my parents built a relationship with each guest, they got know their extended families and friends, and they were not shy about asking for a referral.

It’s as easy as saying, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you all vacationed together next year?” Or, “Why doesn’t your cousin Joe who is staying down the road, stay here? It would be much more convenient for you all, and it would be wonderful to have him.”

It’s nice when clients make referrals on their own, but as a rule you can’t expect them to connect the dots between the people they know who might need your services and you. Ask questions, and ask for referrals.

4. Everyone needs to pitch in. On any given day you would find my mother making beds to help out the housekeeping team, painting a wall in a room, or fielding calls during the busy hours in the office. As the owner/manager, she set an example for me and the rest of the staff that everyone needs to pitch in and help out to get things done.

Helping your teammates goes a long way, no matter what your job description is. It may involve staying late or working on the weekends to get a project done, or proofreading that big proposal, or helping a colleague with a mundane task. As a leader at a professional services organization (or aspiring leader), you set the example that all others will follow. Provide support and help out any way possible.

5. Be genuine. None of this works if you are not genuine. People can tell when you care, are serious about building relationships, and give your all to be the best you can be.

These lessons are among the many I’ve learned from my parents. I hope that in sharing them, they will help you grow as an individual and a business leader as much as they have helped me.