Don't confuse buyers. Clearly and boldly state your purpose.

You can have the best looking website, ad, proposal, or email template, but unless you have a strong value proposition and state it clearly and boldly, no one is going to pay attention.

Buyers are deaf to marketing speak. They have no patience for a jumble of buzz words or praise and promotion about what you or your firm has done. They have real problems, and they want to hear how you are different from all of the other providers and how you can improve their lives.

As Michael W. McLaughlin says in his article State Your Perspective As If It Were a Tattoo on Your Knuckles, we look for shortcuts when processing new information. So, if someone visits your website and doesn’t see information immediately how you differ and can help, they will soon be on their way.

“You’ll have more success in all your marketing and selling efforts if you state boldly and confidently what your practice stands for. No one wants to hear boring claims about how you help organizations ‘manage change.’ To grab and hold clients’ attention, show them your compelling sense of purpose,” McLaughlin says.

Beth Carter, author of this week’s RainToday article Does Your Website Follow This Wrong Advice? agrees you need to be smart about what you say on your website. Also important is how you say it, she says.

“Visitors to your website are there for a reason; they’re not there just to browse around. They’re looking for specific information. Maybe they’re trying to determine if you offer the particular service they need. Maybe they want to know if you have the credentials to back up your claim. Maybe they want to know where you’re located or your hours of operation. These are specific goals,” Carter writes. “Your job is to help visitors easily accomplish those goals—with as much copy as it takes to get the job done: no more, no less.”

The need to clearly state your ideas and perspectives applies to conversations as well. Successful networkers are adept at this, writes Ivan Misner in his article 10 Traits that Make You a Master Networker—and Grow Your Business. They know that if they want to receive referrals, networking partners must clearly understand what they do and how they’re different.

“The faster you and your networking partner learn what you need to know about each other, the faster you’ll establish a valuable relationship. Communicate well, and listen well,” Misner says.

Buyers Are Users Before They Are Customers

With prospects’ increasing reliance on websites to do buying research, as well as make purchases. Business owners must make sure they meet the needs of those “users,” says Aaron Shapiro, author of Users Not Customers: Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business.

“We’re at an inflection point that’s happening right now, which is that the majority of sales that are happening are because of digital,” says Shapiro in his podcast interview Why Users, Not Customers, Are Key to Business Success. “What we expect to see is the pace of acceleration is speeding up where all of a sudden companies really need to think about a digital strategy as the way to become successful.”

The need for a strong digital presence continues after the sale, he adds. Online customer service is critical to maintaining customer relationships over time.

Successful Digital Strategy

SingleHop, an Internet-as-a-Service company, understood that the faster their users could get something implemented or installed, the better. So it built a platform where “customers could use an online interface to order the services they needed. Instead of waiting for days for new servers to be manually installed, customers could access services from virtually any computer or mobile device,” writes Gwen Moran in her case study IT Hosting Company Differentiates in a Highly Competitive Market to Propel Growth.

The on-demand aspect of SingleHop’s automated services, which required no human involvement unless the customer wanted it, helped the company stand out among the thousands of other hosting providers. To further differentiate it from the crowd, the company allows buyers to purchase only what they need—an a la carte-like menu.

To get the word out about its services, the company partnered with area businesses. High visibility combined with clear explanations of what it does resulted in 60% of its business to come from word of mouth.

The result: SingleHop grew 7,034% in just three years and landed the #25 spot on the on the 2011 Inc. 500 list.

Photo by Guudmorning!

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

When you’re out on the web checking out blog posts, articles, white papers, podcasts, and webinars, do you get bored? I know I do. Save for a few of my favorite writers, presenters, and sources, I find so many people say the same things—provide the same advice—and don’t offer original viewpoints.

Maybe I read more than the typical person and so I notice it more. But if I were searching online for a provider, weighing their expertise in certain areas, most of the time I’d have a hard time choosing one based on their content marketing or thought leadership marketing strategies. Search results offer up a wall of noise with most people parroting one another.

If you can separate yourself from that and offer interesting and innovative ideas—and in an exciting way—then I and many other buyers will take notice.

RainToday contributing editor Michael W. McLaughlin has also noticed how service professionals and their firms are failing to stand out. Many are failing miserably with their thought leadership marketing strategies, he says in his article, Is Your Thought Leadership Strategy a Waste of Time?

“Thought leadership marketing is shaping up like an arms race, with no apparent goal except keeping up with the competition by churning out more of the same,” McLaughlin says. “In spite of the volume and intensity, a lot of the material that firms tout as ‘thought leadership’ just isn’t.”

Their thought leadership isn’t original and lacks hard data to support the arguments in it. Their thought leadership lacks leadership.

That doesn’t mean thought leadership is a lost cause, however. It means you have to ask the right questions when developing your strategy, such as these: Are these leading ideas? Why should anyone care about this? Do you have facts to back up your statements?

Developing Trust

A strong thought leadership marketing campaign can go a long way toward developing trust with potential buyers. You don’t want to destroy that trust by following unethical marketing practices, says Janet Kyle Altman in her article, Wrestling with the Ethics of Marketing? 7 Rules to Consider.

You can start by always telling the truth, she says.

“Don’t write or say anything—anywhere—that isn’t true. True is not a relative term—it’s black and white. If it looks a little grayish, don’t say it,” Altman says.

And if you use research to support your statements, make sure you credit the source.

“We all do research before we write. It’s so easy to get information these days, and much of it is free. But that doesn’t mean you can take credit for someone else’s work,” Altman says.

Get Your Message Through to Buyers

With a strong thought leadership strategy in place, more buyers will start to notice you. That notice, however, won’t win their business. You must still persuade them of the benefits of working with you, and that takes careful communication skills.

Those potential buyers may have approached you, but they are still on the defensive. In initial conversations they think with their crocodile brains, which are instinctive and care about their own survival, says Oren Klaff, author of Pitch Anything, in his podcast interview, Getting Through to Your Buyers’ Crocodile Brains.

“When you make a pitch to someone, you develop that pitch and you communicate it or send it from your neocortex—from the smart part of your brain,” says Klaff. “The problem is it isn’t received first in the other person’s neocortex. You’re not communicating from the smart brain to the smart brain. You’re communicating from smart brain to the crocodile brain. It has to get through that defensive, keep me alive part of the brain first before it gets up to the other person’s neocortex. ”

That means you have to tune your message to the crocodile brain’s inputs, not how you want to pitch it but how that part of the brain receives messages, he says.

How do you get through to the crocodile brain? Your presentation has to be safe, visual, fast, novel, and concrete, Klaff says.

How Much Does It Cost?

Equally important in attracting and retaining clients is your pricing strategy. Often firms turn to pricing methods based on calculations that allow competitors to one-up them and make them look less appealing, says Eric Rudolf in his article, 3 Pricing Strategies that Hurt Your Business.

One such strategy is penetration pricing in which you “set a low initial entry price with the intent of raising the price once market acceptance has taken place,” Rudolf says. The downside to this is the Internet makes it easier and faster for buyers to find another provider willing to provide services for less. Not only that, but what do you do when a competitor reduces prices to match yours?

“Determining an optimal price for the things your company sells has little to do with math, formulas, and complex calculations,” Rudolf says. “It is based more on perception, convenience, and competitive positioning.”

What perception do buyers have of you and your services? Do they see you as providing high value? Do you offer something that can’t be found elsewhere? And are you communicating that through your content and thought leadership marketing?

Photo by Felix Atsoram

Some prospects just want a "dog and a beer."

Ray Kinsella: So what do you want?

Terence Mann: I want them to stop looking to me for answers, begging me to speak again, write again, be a leader. I want them to start thinking for themselves. I want my privacy.

Ray Kinsella: No, I mean, what do you WANT?
[Gestures to the concession stand they're in front of]

Terence Mann: Oh. Dog and a beer.

—Field of Dreams, 1989

All too often it seems I am stuck in this great scene from the movie Field of Dreams when I ask consultants what needs they fill for their clients.

Me: So what do your clients need?

Service Provider: They need an organizational assessment followed by an intensive training program. A six-stage customer research evaluation survey. They need a communications review. They need a detailed tax evaluation.

Me: No, I mean what do they NEED?

Service Provider: Oh. Profitability and a good night’s sleep.

The tendency is to think of what prospects need in terms of what services you have to offer. Even though you know prospects do not think of your service set, you retreat to the familiar in describing what you do in your marketing messages and sales conversations. As a result, you try to “convince” a prospect to buy your services. Meanwhile the prospect’s eyes glaze over as her thoughts turn to her own worries and dreams, which usually have little if anything to do with the list of services you’re babbling on about.

In your sales conversations, seek to understand your prospects’ challenges and desires. Then, when you hear a set of needs with which you can be of assistance, offer to help. No hard sales pitch, just a connection of your skills and services with someone else’s set of needs.

So if prospects don’t explicitly need your services, what do they need? Most of your prospects’ needs can be broken down into organizational and personal. Both sets of needs drive prospects to seek solutions.

Organizational Needs

What is the organization trying to accomplish or avoid? These can be categorized as:

• Strategic: The need to increase revenue and growth. The need to expand into a new market. The need to reduce expenses. (Not a strategic or marketing plan or cost reduction analysis.)
• Technical: The need to have their servers up and running at all times. The need to operate more efficiently. The need to launch a new product. (Not a new monitoring service, time/motion study, or new logo.)
• Financial: The need for ideas on how to become more profitable. The need to sell the business. The need to improve sales results. (Not a tax return or valuation or sales compensation study.)
• Political/Environmental: The need to bring a new acquisition into the fold. The need to allow a new store to be built. The need to avoid bad publicity. (Not an employee survey, grassroots campaign, or series of press releases.)

Individual Needs

What is influencing the individual or individuals who will decide to engage your services? These are the needs that are often unspoken and less obviously connected to your services. While you cannot always uncover these types of needs directly, by being aware of what may be going on you can be alert to the obstacles that can keep you from connecting your services with your prospects needs.

• Professional: To get a promotion. To prepare for a new job. To become well-known. To gain experience in new areas. To do a good job. To make more money.
• Social: To impress the neighbors. To be accepted and respected by peers. To have a nice place to hang out.
• Psychological: To avoid risk. To take risk. To have someone to talk to. To please the boss. To gain recognition. To sleep well at night.

Determining Your Client Needs

When talking with clients and prospects you must first uncover their true needs, and then you can position your services as the solution rather than rattling off all of your services and hope that they choose one. I suggest the following exercise to get you thinking about how your clients view your services and how you can define them in terms of your clients’ needs.

1. Bring your key principals, partners, or business developers together for a brainstorming session.

2. Think of all the clients you have. Why did they seek you out? What needs did they have that caused them to look for a third-party service provider?

3. Think about the last sales conversations you have had. How did your prospects speak about their needs? What specific terminology did they use?

4. Try to use the words that your clients and prospects used, not the marketing speak you use to describe your services.

5. On a flip chart or whiteboard, write all the needs that your clients have expressed down the left-hand side.

6. On the right-hand side, write the services you provide.

7. Connect the needs to the services. Which ones satisfy the most needs? Are there any needs you have listed for which you have no services? Should you have those services?

8. Develop questions that will help you uncover these needs in future conversations.

9. Continually refine and reshape your needs list as you engage new conversations and new clients.

10. Repeat the process as needed.

Now the next time you are asked what your clients need, you will be prepared to answer with the real reasons they seek out your services. You will make better connections, develop stronger relationships, and most likely find new clients in the process—even if all they need is “a dog and a beer.”

Photo by: Sonnett

“…but I know it when I see it.”

- Potter Stewart, Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court

Help prospects see the value of working with you by painting their New Reality.

In writing his ruling on pornography, Justice Stewart probably sounded like so many of the clients you work with as consultants. Since you are selling something that clients cannot see or touch, they have a hard time knowing exactly what they are buying and what value they will get in return.

Thus, one of the greatest difficulties in selling consulting services is helping the buyer understand exactly what they get when working with you. If you don’t communicate the value, sales cycles drag on and objections become insurmountable. Clients need to be able to justify, to themselves and to others involved in the decision making process, moving forward with you.

Whatever your service may be, engaging it will somehow change your client’s world for the better. In other words, you will create a New Reality for them. Your goal is to paint the most compelling picture of this new reality and communicate the value of working with you.

To do so, follow these four steps and you’ll find that you’re able sell more with less buyer resistance:

1. Establish the New Reality Benchmark
In the end of a well-managed sales process, your job is to create a New Reality that will be the best for your client, given their specific needs and challenges and the impact of doing (or not doing) something about them.

One of the first steps—even before you have engaged your complete needs discovery and solution crafting process—is to ask the buyer what they want the world to look like once your work is done. Broad questions that start them envisioning the future are a good way to get the creative juices flowing.

For example, ask questions such as:

• At the end of this engagement, what will success look like?
• After working with us for six months, what do you see happening?
• What is your current service provider delivering in terms of creating the changes you need? Where are they falling short?
• What do you want to have happen as a result of our work together?
• What would The Wall Street Journal article say about you (your company, your group) three years from now?

Don’t be surprised if the prospect’s first answer to those questions is, “I don’t know.” More than likely they also will say, “That’s a good question.” If that happens, do not jump right in. Silence will indicate you expect an answer, and with some thought, they will give you one.

2. Craft Your Solution
Armed with your client’s answers along with a growing relationship and rapport, deep knowledge of their afflictions and aspirations, and an understanding of the impact of taking action with you, you can now craft a solution.

With this much client knowledge, most service providers believe that they can make a huge positive impact for their client. Thus, they write out a list of their services that will make their prospect’s world a better place. In the end, all the good work they did in the sales conversations is lost in a blurred picture of reality.

To combat this, you must translate the New Reality into dollars and cents, and then (literally) paint the picture for the buyer so they can see the difference between their current state and their New Reality.

3. Quantify the Impact
Whatever the New Reality is, you need to describe it to the buyer. For example, you might tell them they will:

• Save 22%, or $1.2 million, on costs of XYZ Widgets
• Improve their cycle times by 13 days, cutting out major inefficiencies in their operational process
• Set up new operations for them in a new city that will improve quality levels by 17%
• Improve revenue by $600,000 by increasing the effectiveness of their lead generation programs
• Eliminate the headaches of working with their current service provider who is always late and does not call them back

Do the best you can to quantify the new reality for the client.

4. Paint the Picture
It is now time to put the New Reality into your proposal to the buyer. If “a picture is worth a thousand words,” then a chart, a graph, or a table is worth at least that many words and probably more. The goal is to paint a compelling picture.

A simple chart outlining the value of each of your services to deliver to the client will sell better than paragraph after paragraph of prose. In other cases, a table of figures might be the right approach.

You do not have to rely on just one picture. As much as is appropriate, you can present the New Reality in both qualitative (descriptive or conceptual) terms as well as quantitative (financial or other numerical-based measure).

Seeing is Believing
Buying consulting services can be as difficult as selling them. It is tough to get a handle on what to buy because it is difficult to differentiate between competing services and competing service providers. Understanding and communicating the value of moving forward is where the difficulties often surface.

If, however, you follow these four steps and paint the picture of a compelling New Reality, your prospects will know the solution is you—because they will know it when they see it.

Photo by:  pedrosimoes7

In 2010 firms wanted to be as memorable as the Lollipop Guild, not another munchkin in the crowd

In 2009 professional services firms focused primarily on making it through the economic storm, but in 2010 they started poking their heads out to see what the new landscape looked like and how to move forward. Much like the munchkins in The Wizard of Oz after Dorothy’s house landed, they slowly emerged from their hiding places while a voice coaxed them, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Firms that were not crushed by houses landing on them discovered they had to change the way they marketed and sold their services. They realized it was more important than ever to stand out from the crowd—be more like the lollipop toting member of the Lollipop Guild rather than the hundreds of other munchkins who blend into the background.

The most important aspect of standing out from the crowd, services professionals discovered, included creating a value proposition that not only got people to take notice but prevented them from competing against price. RainToday.com readers craved information about that. They also sought out information to help them determine the most effective ways to generate leads, conduct high-performing email marketing campaigns, have effective conversations with buyers, and handle client objections. The demand for those topics helped get the following articles, podcast, case study, webinar, and research report onto RainToday’s list of top content for 2010.

Jill Konrath, author of SNAP Selling

Stay Away from the B Word

Traditional sales training tells you to make sure prospects have enough money in their budget to afford your services. But asking “what’s your budget” would be the wrong thing to do when your prospect is interested but hasn’t committed to taking action, says contributing editor Jill Konrath in RainToday’s top article of the year, The One Question that Can Kill Any Sales Conversation. If there’s a desire and a need for your service, but no budget specifically allocated, a prospect will find the money. Asking about budget right off the bat stops the conversation in its tracks.

Make a Bad First Impression, and Watch the Door Shut

Kelley Robertson, author of The Secrets of Power Selling

You have an extremely short window in which to make a connection with your prospects and pique their interest. Make a mistake during those first few seconds, and you can say to goodbye to the sale, says Kelley Robertson in his top RainToday article, How to Lose a Prospect’s Attention in 5 Seconds. Robertson says there are eight things guaranteed to put sales conversations on a downward slope, starting with the seemingly benign question, “Hi. How are you?” followed by an introduction of you, your company, and what you do. Those seemingly innocent statements are red flags for prospects. They know a sales pitch will soon follow. So, stay away from them, as well as the other six conversation mistakes so many services professionals make.

Keep Readers Away from the Unsubscribe Button

Eric Rudolf, THEsmall COMPANYBLOG

Over the past eight years, a lot of things have changed with direct email. One thing that has not changed, unfortunately, are the poor practices many businesses—large and small—continue to use, says Eric Rudolf in his top RainToday article, 5 Rules for an Effective Direct Email Marketing Campaign. And the result has been readers unsubscribing in droves, decimating the results of what can be perhaps the most effective marketing tool in your toolbox. Success is possible, however, if you follow the guidelines explained by Rudolf.

Mike Schultz, President of RAIN Group

Avoid Competing on Price

Why do people buy from you and not your competitor? Is it a higher level of service? Is it a diversified level of service? Is it a complex niche that you’re in that because of your experience or industry will give you a leg up and help your clients?

When you can answer that—explain your value proposition—then you can build out your marketing plan, target your ideal clients, and grow your business. You won’t have to compete against price, says Mike Schultz in RainToday’s top podcast interview, How to Use Your Value Proposition to Stop Competing Against Price.

But if you don’t have a strong value proposition—if “there’s no reason for [people] to buy from you versus all of the other options, then they’re just going to shop around for the better price,” Schultz says.

Stop Giving Away Your Services

Nancy Juetten, Main Street Media Savvy

After offering professional public relations services to small and medium-sized companies for seven years, Nancy Juetten, founder of Main Street Media Savvy, realized she spent too much time having coffee or tea and giving away free publicity advice to prospects who ultimately could not afford her services.

Rather than looking for ways to halt such requests, Juetten, a solopreneur in Bellevue, WA, saw it as a market opportunity and used that information to reinvent her business, a move that helped Main Street Media Savvy thrive despite the recession, writes M. Sharon Baker in her top RainToday case study, A Blueprint for Professional Services Reinvention: PR Maven Turns Free Services into a 6-Figure Business.

Juetten learned how to reach out to more people using different techniques: booklets, audio products, workshops, and training events. As a result, she was able to reach organizations that have little budget as well as firms that are willing and able to pay for her services.

John Doerr, President of RAIN Group

What to Do When a Client Says No

No one likes it when a client or prospect pushes back or says no to what you propose. We’d love it if everyone went along with what we suggest and didn’t balk at the cost of our services. But getting objections doesn’t have to mark the demise of a sale. It’s actually the opposite, says John Doerr in his top RainToday webinar, Don’t Take No for an Answer: How to Handle Common Client Objections.

In fact, objections are an opportunity to understand your prospect better and move him closer to the sale. But responding to them does take some tact. In this webinar, Doerr explains how to overcome objections, especially the most common one of “Your price is too high,” how to get to the heart of an objection, and mistakes to avoid when responding to objections.

Top Research Report of 2010

The Best Ways to Fill the Pipeline

As companies struggle to compete in a crowded market and gain the attention of busy buyers, lead generation has risen to the top of technology and professional services marketers’ priority lists. Facing such competition, how can you keep up and compete to win new deals? Lead Generation Benchmark Report: How the Best Firms Fill the Pipeline, RainToday’s top report of 2010, shows you. It examines the lead generation practices of professional services companies and identifies the best practices that drive superior business performance. As you look to 2011, now is your chance to adopt some of these winning lead generation practices.

Earlier this 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: communicating the value of your services.

——————————————————————————————————-

When it comes to telling prospective clients what you do, are you stacking bricks or building cathedrals?

Your methodology. Your brains. Your brawn. These are the bricks, or how you do what you do. They’re critical to the services you deliver; however, they matter more to you than to your client. They are the inputs you use to help your clients.

What your prospective clients really want (and need) is to hear about are the outcomes they’ll achieve as a result of working with you: grow the business, comply with regulations, eliminate downtime. These are cathedrals.

What’s a Value Proposition and Why Do You Need One?

A common issue readers shared with us in the selling services challenge is how hard it is to communicate the value of the services they provide when:

• terminology is unclear
• technology is new or different
• the competitive field is heavily populated (by competing firms, do-it-yourselfers, or inaction)

Are you stacking bricks or building a cathedral?

In fact, professionals in all situations struggle to figure out how to communicate their value in terms of outcomes. It’s easy to get lost. But the good news is it’s completely doable. And the added good news is when you have a strong value proposition, it does the heavy lifting in selling your services for you.

I’m going to get you started on that process of crafting a value proposition, but first let’s get some definitions out of the way. These are the ones we use at RainToday, as developed by Mike Schultz and John E. Doerr in their book Professional Services Marketing:

Value Proposition: Collection of reasons why a person or company buys something.
Value Proposition Statement: A compelling, tangible statement of how a company or individual will benefit from using or engaging your services.

In this post, let’s focus on the first, your value proposition.

Figure Out the Value You Provide

Your value proposition must answer the question: why should I do business with you versus anyone else (a competitor or in-house) or not do anything at all?

To get at that answer, you need to uncover the value you provide—do you help solve an affliction (pain) or help reach an aspiration (dream)?

Here’s how to get started:

1. Ask yourself,

Do you help:

• increase revenue
• decrease costs
• increase profitability
• respond better to the needs of your clients customers
• respond better to new opportunities or threats
• improve productivity
• improve client retention
• improve their quality

By pinpointing the need, you are better able to communicate with prospects with a laser focus.

2. Next, ask your clients,

• If you were to recommend us, what would you say we did for you?
• How did we provide tangible value to you?

This will give you the words your buyers will understand and relate to—it’s an approach that is especially helpful if you offer a service that is technical in nature, technology related, or recent on the scene (e.g., social media consulting). But for anyone, it can help you view your value from the vantage point of your buyers.

Ultimately, the goal of asking yourself and your clients these questions is to arrive at the underlying components of why your clients buy from you.

You want your value proposition to be one that:

• Resonates with clients (”I want to work them; they ‘get’ it.” “I need to use that solution to improve our productivity.” vs. “This isn’t important enough to spend on.”)
• Differentiates you from the competition (”ABC is simply the best option.” vs. “We can do this without you.”)
• Substantiates for buyers that you’ll do what you say (”I trust ABC will deliver as promised.” vs. “I’m not convinced you’ll help so I won’t risk it.” )

Once you’ve worked through the questions you ask yourself and the questions you ask your clients, you can develop that collection of reasons why a person or company buys something from you—your value proposition.

Your sales conversations can now be much more productive.

Does this approach make sense to you? Let us know in the comments below.

Following the crowd could lead to your demise (Photo by Tim Schuitemaker)

In nature (and in middle school), the safest thing is to look and act like all of the others. That way you won’t be singled out by a predator, whether it’s a wolf eying a herd of sheep or a school bully looking to put someone down. It’s a defense system that works in those situations. But in marketing it’s the worst thing to do.

Think about it: imagine 100 people who do the same things as you—whether it’s accounting, legal services, consulting, etc.—all standing together looking and acting the same. And you’re among them. Then a prospect comes along and they’ve got a hundred indistinguishable providers from which to choose. Your chances of being selected are not good. If you stand out from that crowd, however, then prospects will notice you.

Start by identifying one thing you do differently than everybody else and apply that to all of your marketing, including your website, says Ben Hunt, author of Save the Pixel: The Art of Simple Web Design, in his podcast interview, The One Thing Every Professional Services Website Must Do.

“What is your thing? What do you want to be known for? What do you want to mean to people? And you need to get that message to come across straight away as soon as people arrive at your website,” Hunt says. “When somebody comes to a web page, they need to get an immediate impression of what you are. And that could mean this is what we do, this is our range of services. But I think more than that, you need to distinguish who you are from the rest of the mass of service providers in your segment. I really feel strongly that every website needs some kind of hook. “

You need to provide “something of value,” adds Joseph DiMisa. Create a vehicle that attracts prospects to you, your service, or your offering, he writes in his article, Want to Sell More? Try these Simple Yet Effective Value Offerings.

“It gives information and guidance in a way that piques interest, stimulates demand, and creates a need,” DiMisa says. “It engages and persuades clients to window shop while you learn their needs and issues. In the best case, it spurs a client to seek you out for more information; in the worse case, it reminds a client that you’re around.”

You could offer complimentary material, client testimonials, industry information, self-assessment tools, surveys, or best practices.

Marketing Copy Dos and Don’ts

Once you determine what sets you apart, as well as your something of value, you must resist the urge use what C.J. Hayden calls “killer copy” to get people to notice you. This is marketing copy that urges you to “buy, buy, buy, now, now, now!” Once seen only in product advertisements, it’s now showing up on websites, in email, and in direct mail pieces from independent services professionals. And it’s a huge mistake, writes Hayden in her article, Run Away! Attack of the Killer Copy.

“Have you ever chosen a financial advisor because she offered you a free set of steak knives? Or decided to work with a personal trainer because he promised to reveal the seven hidden secrets of how to lose weight with zero effort? Or hired a graphic designer who declared she would blow you away with the brilliance of her breakthrough work guaranteed to produce instant results?

“Of course you haven’t, and neither has anyone else. Unrealistic promises, overblown claims, and bonus gifts that have nothing to do with what’s being sold are not what persuade us to hire a professional service provider,” writes Hayden.

Your copy should instead focus on specific results people get from working with you, as well as their experience, Hayden says.

Cautious Clients

Sales success also comes from understanding how buyers and prospects operate as a result of the recession, says Kelley Robertson in his article, Sales Lessons Learned from Selling in a Recession. Companies are leaner, the buying process has changed, decision makers are no longer able to sign off on large purchases, and value is more important than ever.

“There is no question that decision makers in corporate America have changed the way they make buying decisions,” Robertson writes. “Caution is now a standard business practice, and I suspect that it will remain that way for years to come. This means you need to become more adept and proficient in your discovery process. You not only need to find out who is responsible for the buying decision but also what internal factors your key decision makers are facing that may derail the sale or prevent the process from moving forward.”

Kathy Miller, founder of Miller Consultants, knew she had to carefully consider her clients’ preferences and needs when she went from a traditional bricks-and-mortar business model to a virtual business model. Adopting this model would allow her to hire top staff, but would client service suffer as a result? The answer was no, writes Mary Flaherty in her case study about Miller Consultants, Virtual Model Allows Consulting Firm to Become Million-Dollar Business.

The move to a virtual model succeeded because Miller set up an infrastructure and processes that enabled the staff to act as a team and to provide the personalized and creative services her clients were accustomed to.

“We had to know each other well to maintain our culture. We had to be inter-personally astute with each other, as well as [with] our clients,” says Miller.

The move indeed paid off for Miller Consultants, for in the 15 years since the change the firm has gone from five employees and 20 clients to 20 team members and 100 clients in 2010. In addition, it has surpassed its initial goal of $1 million in revenue and is looking to expand to Europe and South America.

But it couldn’t have done that without first understanding the needs and concerns of its clients and then creating a plan that addressed them.

Don't let mistakes derail your sales and marketing efforts. (Photo by Louise Docker)

We all want to grow our businesses, but making that happen is sometimes much harder than anticipated. Sometimes you might even overlook things can derail efforts, mistakenly thinking they aren’t important.

Consider, for example, getting everyone in your firm to help with marketing and prospecting. If you employ people from different generations—Baby Boomers, Generation X-ers, or Generation Y-ers—your one generic rallying cry isn’t going to work. As I’m sure you’ve noticed outside of work, these different generations have different needs, styles, and aspirations. And inspiring them to act requires different approaches, writes Anne Scarlett in her article Expand Your Business Development: Tap the Talents of Your Multigenerational Staff.

Gen-X and Gen-Y people want to know the “why” behind a project or direction, and they want flexibility to accommodate their robust lives. They also want an aura of fun when it comes to work. Baby Boomers, on the other hand, seek position, power, and prestige. Their motivation is more straightforward.

“Contributing to the marketing and sales efforts should not be an option. However, the method in which they do so can be a collaborative, mutually beneficial decision that will keep all staff—aka all generations—engaged,” Scarlett says.

Don’t Leave Clients Scratching Their Heads

Another thing you might do unintentionally, which can have negative consequences on your sales efforts, is communicate poorly with clients. You might be accustomed to speaking in jargon and rattling off statistics about your services—or you might think speaking that way impresses prospects and clients. But the reality is that communicating like that only confuses them. And a confused prospect will not lead to a happy client, writes Michael W. McLaughlin in his article The Power of Simplicity: Confuse Your Client, Lose the Deal.

“Clients will reward those who can organize and explain the most complex matters in a way that ‘non-experts’ can easily understand. That way, clients can use their brains to evaluate—not decipher—what they hear,” McLaughlin says.

Start by putting yourself in their position: What does the client need? What information will help them make their decision? How can you simply describe options?

The same applies when explaining what you do and the services you provide. When someone asks, “What do you do?” you need to be able to respond in a way that piques their interest, touches on an issue important to them, and gets them wanting to learn more, says Mike Schultz in his podcast interview How to Use Your Value Proposition to Stop Competing Against Price.

When you have a strong value proposition, you can work it into such conversations, demonstrate your value over competitors, and keep out of the pricing game.

Putting Buyers First Works

ProofreadNOW.com has benefitted from a buyer-centric approach. Using an inbound marketing plan, which includes producing ebooks and white papers that address prospects’ pain points to draw prospects to them, and a lead nurturing system, the company is being found by many more prospective buyers online. And they’re converting those leads into paying clients.

“The site’s overall traffic has increased 16%, with organic search—those who come to the website by searching for specific keywords—jumping 191%, without any pay-per-click support. [And] nurturing prospects through a constant drip of information and outreach has resulted in an 8% revenue increase in one of the most challenging economic climates in history,” writes Gwen Moran in her case study Firm Boosts Organic Web Traffic by 191% Using Inbound Marketing.

Don’t Operate in the Dark

Such measurements are important for all marketing programs. Not only do they help the marketing team understand what tactics work, but when budget dollars get tight and management begins to question marketing’s worth, you have the data to support your claims, writes Maeve McDonald in her article How to Use Measured Marketing to Deliver True ROI.

“How many of us actually know the true value our company’s marketing activity contributes to the business? Can you determine at any point in time how well your marketing program is performing against objectives? Are your marketing and sales teams working to the same objectives? Do you even have clear objectives defined,” McDonald asks.

“If you can’t answer those questions easily, then you should definitely think about adopting a measured approach to marketing. Without it, you’re effectively operating in the dark, with no way of knowing how much—or little—marketing has contributed to your company’s sales performance,” she says.

What about You?

Have you or your team unintentionally done something that caused you to lose sales? Was there something you overlooked or didn’t think was important to consider? What were the consequences?

One of the biggest problems that consultants have is articulating the value of what they do, especially to prospects they’ve never met before. After all…

* Your services are complex and difficult to describe—it’s impossible to pare down all that you do into a 60-second elevator pitch

* Your solutions are customized to each client’s particular situation and needs

* You help your clients in a broad range of areas, so it’s difficult to know what will resonate with the person sitting across the table

* It’s easy to talk about what you do, but it can be difficult to quantify the impact

* You view (or perceive that buyers view) your services as a commodity—it just is what it is

Being able to position your value in a way that grabs attention and communicates the benefits of working with you is vital to your selling success.

To help, we developed the free report, The 10 Commandments for Building a Value Proposition that Sells. In it we walk you through the process brick by brick and show you how to build a value proposition that opens doors, wins you new clients, and allows you to charge (and get) premium prices.

In this 27-page report, you’ll learn:

• 6 common value proposition pitfalls to avoid
• How not to fall into the “your services are a commodity” trap
• 3 keys to a successful value proposition, and the many forms it can take
• How to use your value proposition to connect with potential buyers
• 6 building blocks that grab attention and get prospects to buy
• The myth of the elevator pitch, and what you need to do instead
• Why the concept of the unique selling proposition (USP) doesn’t apply to consulting

Plus, we’ll share real-life examples of winning value propositions.

>> Click here to download the free report, 10 Commandments for Building a Value Proposition that Sells.