Do buyers see you as trustworthy or as a snake oil salesman?

Trust—there are countless articles, books, videos, and webinars about the importance of trust when selling professional services. You might think, “OK, OK—I get it. I need to get buyers to trust me.” But are you doing what it takes to establish that trust? Do you really understand what can happen if you don’t have a buyer’s trust? You could see a sale slip away even when you think you’re doing everything right.

That’s exactly what Colleen Francis was seeing when she wrote her article, The Sale That Slipped Away: What Went Wrong? The thing that went wrong is sellers pushed too hard—they oversold their service. And by doing so, they raised doubt in the buyers’ minds. They made them question whether they were genuine and trustworthy.

Charles H. Green, one of the masters of establishing trust in business relationships, has developed a plan to help you increase your business’s trust. In his article, 3 Strategies for Increasing Your Business’s Trust he says there are three dimensions by which you should measure your business’s performance on trust: Are your people trustworthy? Does your organization promote trustworthiness? Do you trust others appropriately? If you want to increase your business’s trust, you must have a strategy for all three.

In this day and age when people have little trust for most things—the government, Wall Street, big banks, car makers, Facebook, etc.—firms must show that they’re trustworthy and perform amazing work that keeps clients coming back for more. It isn’t enough to simply outline your services.

Change is Needed

Firms must also realize that a couple rainmakers are not enough to help a firm grow or even survive, says Lisa Nirell in her podcast interview, What Firms Must Do to Achieve Sustainable Growth. A firm’s success depends on everyone in the organization working together to attract and retain clients, and you need a plan for doing that.

Marketing plays a key role in that plan. Increasingly firms are turning to inbound marketing tactics such as blogs, search engine optimization, and social networks. One attraction is the lower cost per lead compared with outbound marketing tactics. But with so much online activity from firms, you must develop a plan that helps you stand out and you must test various tactics, says Jasmine Sandler in her article, The Secret to Online Marketing Success.

Firms are also thinking creatively when it comes to networking to develop new business partners and generate referrals. Doing so has become a necessity when traditional golf games and mixers fail to produce results. CPA firm Piercy Bowler Taylor & Kern followed this path and created Table for Four marketing lunches. The lunches were a big success, immediately leading to referrals and a six-figure deal. And what helps you get referrals? Trust. The events gave the firm’s partners an opportunity to develop relationships and build trust.

So, what are you doing to build your business’s trust?

Did you know search engine marketing matters to professional services firms more than ever today? Even if you rely on referrals for new business, your prospective buyers are visiting your website before deciding to engage in an initial discussion with you. According to our research, How Clients Buy Professional Services, 80% of buyers typically visit a service provider’s website before buying. And, as Mike Cooch said in a recent RainToday webinar, Search Engine Marketing 101 for Professional Services, “If you’re not marketing online, you’re not marketing.”

But getting started with search marketing can be overwhelming. How do you know the keywords buyers use to search for your services? How can you beat out large companies with well-known brands and big budgets that top the search rankings? How do you get people to read and link to your thought-leading content?

Search Engine Marketing Tools and Resources

To help you get started with your search engine marketing efforts, Mike shared his favorite tools and resources:

Google Analytics: This web analytic tool allows you to track how visitors get to your site and what they do once they arrive. In search engine marketing, data is everything. Google Analytics allows you to see what people are responding to and where visitors spend their time.

Google Alerts: This tool allows you to monitor conversations on specific topics that are happening on the web. You simply create a list of keywords such as your company name, keywords related to your services, your name, and the competition. Then anytime these words are used online, you receive an email with a link to that online appearance. This allows you to stay on top of who’s talking about you and your company, monitor what your competitors are doing, and see who is talking about important topics in your space. It gives you the opportunity to respond and join the conversation.

Google Reader: As a professional services provider, you’re expected to be an expert. But it’s hard to stay on top of all the current trends. Google Reader allows you to subscribe to all your favorite sources of information and collect them in one place. You can quickly and easily keep up with what’s new in your industry. It also allows you to share the content with others through Twitter and commenting.

Twitter: Twitter remains a controversial and misunderstood tool among some B2B marketers. Many professionals dismiss it right out of the gate. At the same time, more and more people are signing on to Twitter and seeing it as a good source for quick bites of information. Twitter is a great tool in your search engine marketing arsenal, as it is a quick and easy way to send people to your thought-leading content. You can link to blog posts, articles, white papers, and presentations. It’s one way of letting your audience know you’re on top of all that’s going on in your industry, and it drives traffic and links to your website.

Facebook: While Facebook started out as a college thing, it’s now taking over the online world. It has grown amazingly fast—professionals, businesses, and colleagues (and even my mother!) are now on Facebook and use it on a regular basis. Don’t write it off as a thing for college students—there are many businesses with thriving Facebook fan pages these days.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn is probably the most common social media tool used by professional services providers. It is also one of the least optimized. Too many professionals (and I’m a victim of this) create their LinkedIn profile and forget it’s even there. Years go by without any updates. LinkedIn is not a one-and-done tool. Use it regularly to promote new content and events. Use it to find prospects and seek recommendations and endorsement. There is more power to LinkedIn than simply posting your resume online.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool: This free tool from Google allows you to identify keywords for your search engine marketing campaigns. You just type in the keywords you think your audience is searching for, and it will show you how many people are searching using those terms along with suggestions for other relevant keywords. This allows you to quickly and easily determine which keywords prospects use to find services and content like yours.

Google Local Business Center: Whether your business is primarily local, national, or international, Mike recommends getting listed in the local search directory. You can compete against larger brands with bigger marketing budgets and develop more relevant ads. It’s a great tactic many companies have not taken advantage of yet.

To claim your spot, visit the local business center and search to see if you’re already in the database. If you are, you can claim your listing and update it. If you don’t find your business, there’s an option to submit your information to the database. For the best results, tailor your message to the local audience.  For example, Mike’s company, Everon Technology Services, has offices in Boston and Denver. For the company’s Boston listing they use a “Wicked Smaht” headline, and for Denver they include pictures of mountains on the landing page. Each of those speaks specifically to the local audience.

Search engine marketing is no longer just about loading pages with keywords and trying to get inbound links to your site. Google has gotten more sophisticated and rewards those who publish relevant content and join the conversation. These tools and resources will help you get started, but you’ll still need to do the work to make your firm and your content valuable to people.

Are you doing enough to stand out from the crowd? (Photo by talk2frank)

Over the past few years, a lot has changed with direct email. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 laid out enforceable rules for content, sending email, and unsubscribing from lists; more lists became available for purchase; and email became the marketing tool of choice for many firms.

One thing that hasn’t changed, notes Eric Rudolf, is the quality of email. Businesses continue to make the same direct email mistakes that they were making a decade ago, he says in this week’s article, 5 Rules for an Effective Direct Email Marketing Campaign. They write bad subject lines, don’t put the important information in effective places, and bombard subscribers with too many email messages—among other things. All of those factors lead to receivers automatically deleting email, not to mention wasted time and money.

Email done well can be an effective tool for nurturing leads. You can update prospects with information about your services and send prospects articles and other resources to help them with issues they’re dealing with. But the most important things you need when nurturing leads and trying to turn prospects into clients is patience and persistence.

You must be willing to pursue the relationship; do not give up easily, says Peter Bregman in his article, The Key to Becoming a Sales Star (It May Surprise You). Prospects push back, cancel meetings, and reject proposals. The key is to stay the course and continue to reach out to them. The more you do it—just like anything in life—the better you will get.

Don’t Push

Bregman’s advice is similar to what Jill Konrath advises new sellers in her article, Sales Basics: Top 5 Tips for New Sellers, particularly her tip to slow down to speed up sales. Do not be too eager to close sales quickly, for if you try to rush things, your prospects will become more resistant. “When I learned to slow down, parcel information out over multiple meetings, and simply advance the sales process one step at a time, suddenly my sales increased,” Konrath says.

You can speed up the sales cycle slightly with effective search engine marketing, points out Mike Cooch in his podcast interview, How Search Engine Marketing Can Improve the Sales Cycle. That’s because when you do that well, you don’t have to take as much time to educate prospects about the services you offer or sometimes even what it’s like to work with you. Prospects already have that information. When you have a strong online presence that includes quality content (articles, podcasts, and video), case studies, descriptions of services, social media, and paid search engine ads, prospects are prepared to talk about the details of how you can help them, Cooch says.

In fact, those are many of the things buyers look for on a firm’s website, according to a recent RainToday survey. They want the staples, but you need to give them the extras if you want to stand out.

You can also take some of the content on your website and create booklets or downloadable PDF documents with them. Nancy Juetten, founder of Main Street Media, did that, and her booklets quickly became a hit, as she says in this week’s case study, PR Maven Turns Free Services into a Six-Figure Business. The booklets feature a collection of tips and are sold during her speaking engagements. Those who buy the booklets, she says, often engage her services.

Recognizing that people learn in different ways, Juetten also reaches out to people using various media. She created audio files and a live workshop, and she launched a blog. As a result of these efforts, Main Street Media has become a six-figure firm and brought in as much revenue in 2009 as it did in 2008, a time when many firms saw revenue drop. It clearly found a way to stand out in an ever-growing crowd.

Blogging is no longer optional

There was a time not very long ago when a business blog was optional.

My, how times have changed.

I’d argue a blog is no longer optional for any B2B professional services firm; it’s a must-have. Buyers are increasingly relying on Internet search to identify and learn more about firms with which they wish to do business. And a blog plays a substantial role in firms being found online by these buyers.

If you stick with it, a business blog can deliver big results. In Technorati’s 2009 State of the Blogosphere Report, 71% of respondents who blog for business reported they increased their visibility within their industries through their blogs, and 56% indicated their blog helped their company establish a positioning as a thought leader within their industry.

There are many success stories of professional services firms that have successfully leveraged their blogs for media coverage, business development, and client relations. For two examples, check out these case studies published on RainToday.com (if you’re not a member, the free trial gives you access to download): FirstRain’s Market Mine blog case study and Harris & Moure’s ChinaLawBlog’s case study.

Still wondering what a blog can do for your services firm?

Here are 5 benefits your firm can realize from blogging:

1. Extend your network. A blog is great way to develop relationships—it allows you to share your persona  (firm leaders, associates) with an audience of clients and prospects and helps to build trust.
2. Establish two-way communication with prospects and influencers. With commenting enabled, you leave a door open for prospects, colleagues, reporters, analysts, and others to engage with you in a “safe” environment (i.e., on their terms).
3. Expand your firm’s reach and strengthen your brand.
4. Gain a vehicle to publish and distribute thought leadership.
5. Increase website traffic. Blog content (when optimized for search engines) can drive traffic to your firm’s website and increase its search engine ranking.

Make Blogs Part of Your Internet Marketing Strategy Firms must pull prospects toward them with inbound marketing tactics, says Brian Halligan, co-author of Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. > Listen to “Internet Marketing Strategies Professional Services Must Adopt”

And, if those benefits aren’t enough to persuade you, Google’s recent move (12/7/09) incorporating real-time updates into search results adds another compelling reason to push your blogging initiative forward. As Shel Holtz explains on his blog:

As of Monday, Google began incorporating real-time updates into its search engine results pages (SERPs). Within seconds of posting, tweets, Facebook status updates, blog posts, and updates from news sources will be indexed by Google and made available for searches. This change has been anticipated ever since Google and Twitter announced the relationship, but it’s unlikely that most organizations have considered the implications or made adjustments to their SEO efforts.

Companies that have delayed or rejected social media nevertheless invest resources in search engine optimization (SEO). After all, we function in an era of what one writer called “survival of the optimized.” With luck, nobody reading this blog needs to be convinced of the importance of search.

Now, with real-time updates mingling with search results from static pages, if your organization doesn’t have a presence, you’ll be crowded out of the first page of results by those who do.

If your professional services firm isn’t blogging yet, take a look at what other service firms are doing. These can give you some ideas on how you can approach implementing a blog for your firm.

Some professional services blogs worth checking out:

• Accenture (consulting)
• Edelman’s Authenticities (PR)
• Foley Hoag (law): http://www.lawandenvironment.com, http://www.emergingenterprisecenterblog.com, http://www.massachusettsnoncompetelaw.com
• Forrester Research (market research)
• LexBlog (law)
• PriceWaterhouseCoopers (accounting)

Maintaining a blog remains a major time commitment; it certainly is not a silver bullet. When you launch a blog—beyond writing—you should also commit to participate in the blogosphere by reading and commenting on other blogs in your niche and provide marketing support (through linking, keyword optimization, and so forth) for your blog.

But, it’s a commitment you need to make, if you want your B2B services firm to thrive. If you’re not publishing a blog yet—what’s holding you back?