Buy Rainmaking Conversations Today and Get Special Bonus Gifts

Our new book is finally here: Rainmaking Conversations: Influence, Persuade, and Sell in Any Situation. After close to a decade of research, training tens of thousands of people, and a year in the writing process, we’re thrilled with how it came out.

If you want a guide to leading masterful sales conversations, this is it. We cover everything from generating initial discussions to uncovering needs to overcoming objections to closing the sale. We wanted to bring the sales conversation to life, so each chapter is peppered liberally with examples, stories, and tips.

What We’re Asking of You

Through the Rainmaker Blog and RainToday website, we provide tons of free sales and marketing content, stories, ideas, and anything else we can think of to help you grow your business. We don’t ask you for much on this blog, but today we’re asking you for a favor: if Rainmaking Conversations sounds interesting to you, please take 30 seconds to pick up a copy today.

Why today?

• We’re offering an incredible bonus package. When you order today you’ll get tons of bonus gifts from authors and experts Jill Konrath, Jeffrey Gitomer, Dave Kahle, Art Sobczak, Tim Wackel, and many, many more.

• We’ve taken the best of what we’ve learned over the years and put it into this book to provide you with a guide to sales conversation success. We held nothing back. Chapter 14, Handling Objections, alone will change your selling results instantly.

• Last but not least, your help would mean the world to us. If you’ve benefited from our last book, our training programs, our RainToday newsletter, or our writing on this blog, we’d greatly appreciate your help. It’s been a huge undertaking for us.

Rainmaking Conversations is available on Amazon here.

After you order your copy, don’t forget to swing by and pick up all of your bonus gifts: http://www.raingroup.com/book/bonuses.

Most important, we hope you enjoy the book and that it helps you achieve greater sales success.

Get Your Free Chapter Download

We haven’t said much about the launch of our new book, Rainmaking Conversations, on this blog, but it’s certainly not for a lack of excitement about it. In fact, we’ve been incredibly busy since the beginning of this year preparing for the launch of the book, which will happen next Tuesday, April 19.

While the official book launch isn’t until then, Rainmaking Conversations is available in stores now. So, if you want a copy, it can be yours today.

But if you wait until next week, you will have the opportunity to access a ton of special bonus gifts we’re putting together for you. Not only will we be offering bonus items from us, but authors and experts Jill Konrath, Jeffrey Gitomer, Dave Kahle, Art Sobczak, Tim Wackel, and many more are giving away bonus materials.

If you’re on our RainToday email list, we’ll be emailing you the morning of April 19 with all of the details. If you’re not on this list, you can subscribe by clicking here. When you subscribe, you’ll also get a sneak peek inside Rainmaking Conversations with a FREE chapter download.

So, stay tuned. We have a lot of great content and bonuses coming your way. In the meantime, you can get started reading your free chapter by subscribing here. We hope you enjoy!

To Media, Bloggers, and List Owners

Thanks for reaching out so much already. We appreciate the support and interest in the book.

If you haven’t seen a review copy of the book and you’d like to do a feature, interview us, write a review, or post an excerpt, email Brooke Webb and we’d be happy to set something up.

Good communication is the cornerstone of every client relationship. Heck, it’s the cornerstone of any type of relationship—whether it’s with your spouse, partner, child, best friend, neighbor, you name it. Fail to communicate well, and a whole range of misunderstandings can pop up and possibly damage the relationship.

Think about the last time you had an argument with your significant other. Did you keep your mouth shut while they aired their concerns and really listen to what they said? Or did you interrupt them, trying to show that you—and only you—are right? Or maybe you “yes-ed” them without caring about what they said just to get them to stop talking and make them think that you care.

Unfortunately professionals use those same bad tactics when communicating with prospects and clients. With client relationships, however, you have the added risk of loss of business and revenue.

If you don’t address a prospect’s objection, for example, you could find yourself out of the running for the job. You could finish your presentation to your own satisfaction but turn the prospect off because they felt you didn’t care about their concerns.

“If you don’t get a sale, it is oftentimes because there was still a roadblock between where you wanted to take the prospect and where they thought they should go—they didn’t see the need, they didn’t see the urgency, they didn’t have trust in you, they couldn’t find a way to do the funding,” says Mike Schultz in his podcast interview, Dealing with a Client Objection? Don’t Do This. ” The problem is if you leave it unsaid and you leave it unasked about, then it will block your sale and you won’t even have had a chance to face it.”

You must unearth all concerns and address them, Schultz says. Ask questions, air the concern, confirm it, respond to it, and make sure they agree with what you’re saying.

Strategic Questioning Critical

Michael W. McLaughlin agrees that asking strategic questions is critical. That’s because your prospect’s face might portray a certain sentiment, but inside they could be thinking the opposite. In many cases, our perceptions of people are way off base, he says.

“Like you, I’ve heard the advice that we should listen carefully and observe the behavior of others,” McLaughlin writes in his article, Your Perceptions of Clients Are Probably No Where Near Reality. “But active listening and observation don’t necessarily tell you what motivates the people you’re working with. Why? Because a person’s beliefs and motivations take shape at the emotional level, so you can’t always understand those motivations simply by observing behavior.”

Ask prospects and clients to think about their roles and the reasons for their actions and beliefs, advises McLaughlin. Stay away from lame questions such as, “What worries you about X?” or “What keeps you awake at night?”

Effective Email Communication

Communicating via email can bring its own list of problems. We’ve all run into the problem where our tone wasn’t appropriately conveyed and the recipient mistook what we were trying to say—hence the increased use of emoticons to make sure a joke or sarcasm is interpreted correctly.

When conducting email campaigns with prospects, however, you need to be extra careful. The point is to get them interested in you and your services, not have them block your email and report you for spamming them.

You want your email to be valuable and not “Buy Now” messages that go nowhere but into the delete folder.

“You want people to look forward to getting your email, not dread it. You want them to stop everything and take a few minutes to read it,” writes Todd Schnick in his article, How to Conduct an Effective Email Campaign: 11 Pieces of Real World Advice.

Prospects are more likely to buy from you if your email provides help, guidance, and advice. When you do that, you build trust for when the prospect is ready to buy, Schnick says.

Schnick is also a strong believer in auto-responders, which allow you to schedule email for lead nurturing campaigns.

“For example, no matter when a new subscriber joins the list, they will receive the first email after seven days, the second email after 14 days, etc. This allows predetermined—and valuable—content to be distributed on a preset schedule,” he says.

Lumension benefited greatly from an automated lead nurturing campaign. Its marketing team needed to increase the volume of qualified leads by 12% to help the company meet its revenue goals s, but budgets had been cut and it had little money to spend on the effort. So, it developed a comprehensive lead-nurturing program to improve its ability to convert top-of-the-funnel leads into sales-qualified leads. The results were more than it expected: a 105% increase in sales-accepted leads, writes Stephanie Tilton in her case study about Lumension.

“The goal of the program was to deliver relevant and contextual content to contacts based on their specific business challenges, and to then drive them to a product trial to accelerate their movement through the demand funnel,” says Sam Erdheim, Director of Marketing Programs at Lumension.

Lumension’s marketing team tailored the content based on the role of the prospect (executive, end user, technical evaluator, etc.) and where the prospect was in the buying cycle. They personalized the emails as much as possible, and they sent additional email to people only if they responded to offers in a previous email.

“Many companies talk about engaging contacts based on behavior, but [they] end up bothering these people with irrelevant and unwanted content. That’s because organizations fail to pay attention to what contacts are not doing. The actions that prospects do not take, such as not responding to offers, are just as important as the ones they do take. By watching and listening to our prospects, we know better when to re-engage them,” Erdheim says.

The Importance of Goals

Lumension’s success can be attributed in part to the fact that it had goals. With its marketing team being given a clear role in generating leads and therefore revenue, it knew it had to come up with goals and plans for meeting those goals. It could have, like so many businesses, flitted around trying this or trying that based on whims or someone’s latest idea. But that butterfly tactic is far from effective.

“Rainmakers, those in the top 10% of all sales performers, believe in the power of goals and action plans,” say Mike Schultz and John Doerr in their article, Live by Goals to Achieve Sales Success. “They live by goals, and they are committed to doing what they need to do to achieve them.”

To get started, all you need is a target. It can be as simple as the Lumension marketing team’s goal for a certain number of leads, it can be a revenue goal, or it can be as lofty as wanting to purchase another company. Once you know where you want to go, commit to a goals routine and stick with it, Schultz and Doerr say.

Don’t let potholes and detours keep you off your road to success. Go around them and get back on the road.

“Remember that the road to success is always under repair. Live by goals and you won’t get lost on the side streets wondering why you’re not there yet,” Schultz and Doerr say.

Photo by: larrysphatpage

Learn to overcome the objections that are driving you NUT$.

“I just don’t think a project like this fits in our budget right now.”

“We are working with someone right now to handle all our needs in that area.”

“Sounds good in theory, but I have a pretty full plate for the foreseeable future.”

“I have been talking to some other consultants, and their fees are much lower.”

If any of those objections sound familiar, you’re not alone.

Consultants hear objections like those every day. Most react with dread, viewing them as a sign of rejection or a call to battle. With that attitude, it’s no wonder objections are handled so poorly.

Objections are not such horrible things. They are an opportunity to understand your prospect better and move closer to the sale.

How objections are handled is often the difference between a new client and a lost opportunity.

To help, we’ve developed the free report, Turning No into Yes: How to Overcome the Most Common Client Objections. In this special report, Mike Schultz, Publisher of RainToday, President of RAIN Group, and co-author of Rainmaking Conversations will reveal five steps to handle the objections that are driving you NUT$.

You’ll learn:

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

>> Click here to download Turning No into Yes: How to Overcome the Most Common Client Objections.

“…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

How do you respond when your prospect says, "Your price is too high?"

“Your fees are too high; can you do it for less?”

In the highly competitive marketplace we hear dreaded phrases like that all the time. The easy thing to do is to offer a discount, but that cuts into your profit margins and sets a precedent for the future. You don’t want to become a victim of discounting gone wrong.

So, what do you do when clients push back on your fees?

The glib answer is: focus on your value. Trite, but true. If it’s worth it to the client, they’ll pay for it. But when faced with price push-back, many are at a loss for what to do in the moment.

Here are six guidelines to follow the next time a prospect says, “Your price is too high.”

1. Don’t backtrack: I was playing golf with a bunch of old friends last summer. One of these gents is an attorney who was speaking about his services with another old friend who runs a hedge fund. Without being asked, he got to price and said, “My fees are $300 per hour, but if you need me to, I’ll work for less.”

Here’s an example of backtracking before even getting push-back. (I’d hate to see him in court, “Members of the jury, he’s innocent! Unless, well, you don’t think so. OK, we’ll plea bargain with opposing counsel…”)

The fact is, it can be tempting to respond right away with, “How much can you spend?” or “Let me see what I can do to lower the price.” Don’t just fold. Follow the process outlined in Turning No into Yes: How to Handle the Most Common Objections. Only then will you get to the heart of the issue and find your way around it (while also maintaining your desired fee).

2. Confront competitor pricing head on: Folks are tempted to backtrack when the buyer says, “But I can get it from XYZ provider at a lower price.” At this point, many sellers give the indication that they’re willing to negotiate prices.

Instead, acknowledge that other sellers’ prices are, indeed, all over the map and leave it there—you’re basically saying, “I acknowledge other providers’ prices are lower than mine, but my fee is my fee.” Then ask the buyer, “Is there a reason you haven’t already rewarded them the business?” Some buyers will share why they’d prefer to work with you, and you can leverage these reasons to maintain your price.

It’s true, buyers might walk—that’s a risk you take. Many times, however, you’ll simply set the foundation for continuing the sales process at your preferred fee level.

3. Don’t start talking cost structure: Imagine your firm has proposed a $15k / month retainer. Some clients will ask, “Well, how did you come up with that price?”

The seller then pulls out a scope sheet and shows how the technology costs are X, the implementation rate is Y, and the monthly service fee is Z, so here’s the fee. Heading down this path is a slippery slope and leads to nickel-and-diming here, there, and everywhere.

In our Fees and Pricing Benchmark Report, we found that firms of various price and profit levels use retainer pricing. However, firms that achieve premium prices and profit levels do not share the underlying fee structure nearly as often as the other firms.

Think of it like this: if you went to buy a car and asked what the exhaust system cost or how much the dashboard set them back, you would probably get laughed at. In the same vein, you should not lift up the hood simply because you’re asked what your costs are.

4. Ask, “Which part don’t you want?”: When selling consulting services, consultants are tempted to cut fees when they get push-back, especially for large deals. The logic goes like this, “Well, it’s a $120,000 deal, but if we get it, we can get by with $110,000 and be OK. That would be better than losing the whole thing.” So they cut their fees.

This is a bad precedent to set if repeat business is important to you. You’ll always end up playing the price-cut game at contract renewal time.

Instead, when a client is considering a $120,000 deal comprised of five major components, ask them which component they don’t want. You might find yourself going component by component, and as the client realizes they want the whole thing, you don’t cut any of your fee.

Also, going component by component forces the client to consider what it would take for them to do that particular component of the work (if they could even do it). All of a sudden they realize how much they’d prefer to pay you to get it done.

5. Don’t dismiss the buyer when they push back: I often hear this comment: “If they push back on price, we don’t want them! Pushing back on price is an indicator that a client will be high maintenance or worse down the road.”

That might not be the case. Buyers are often taught to challenge price in multiple ways. Just because they challenge you doesn’t mean they are bad people or are destined to be bad clients. It also doesn’t mean they’re challenging your value personally. (I’ve seen many salespeople react viscerally and personally to fee pressure. Bad form.)

It often means they’re trying to figure out how to engage you and your solutions. Some providers discount; others don’t. They’re just asking. Hold your ground and treat them reasonably in the process, and oftentimes they’ll just come around.

6. Offer financing and payment terms: For many buyers money is an issue right now, and they can’t buy because of the payment terms. Sometimes simply adjusting the payment terms is all the client needs to move forward.

Clients will, in the end, pay more for your products and services if they see you offer more value than the alternatives. And as much as you might disdain the thoughts, buyers will continue to pressure price and other consultants will continue discounting to win business. But if you follow these four guidelines when you get price pressure, you’ll find yourself winning more deals at your asking price.

Photo by: AMagill

Follow these 9 rules to shorten the sales cycle

It usually takes a long time to find a shorter way. ~Anonymous

I spend a good deal of my time selling and also teaching selling to consultants and professional service providers. Over and over I hear things like:

How do I get prospects to buy faster?

Why don’t prospects respond to my emails, calls, and proposals?

How do I shorten the sales cycle?

The crux of the answer is to have more and higher-quality prospects in the pipeline at all times so that more sales close and the sales cycle seems shorter.

Of course, since they don’t do that, the solution rarely makes anyone feel better.

However, doing that doesn’t have to be difficult. Here are nine specific things you can do to improve the quality of your pipeline and move prospects through the sales cycle faster.

1. Develop a Crisp, Clear Value Proposition

“We are becoming a commodity.” “Prospects just seem to buy on price.” “We are really good.” “How can I possibly separate myself from the crowd?”

Do those statements sound familiar?

If you don’t know how you are distinct, how will you prospect know? Ask your clients, your colleagues, and your network what they perceive your value is. Once you get an answer, refine the message, practice it, and refine it again. (Read more about developing a value proposition that sells.)

2. Talk to the Right Person

Many consultants waste time (and stretch out the sales cycle) by talking to prospects who have neither the budget nor the authority to buy their services. Is it lack of confidence in their ability to deliver or sell? Both?

Whatever the reason, the shortest distance to a faster sale goes through the ultimate decision maker. Enter into a prospect company at the highest level possible. If you can’t start high, find out as quickly as possible who controls the purse strings and who makes the decisions. Then get in front of them. If you can’t, most likely you want to move on.

3. Focus on the Prospect’s Needs

How directly do you connect what you offer with the needs of the buyer and those of his company? Too often, we talk to the prospect rather than with the prospect. Ask questions that will allow you to find the most pressing and compelling needs that your services can address. You can then draw a straight and direct line from their needs to your services.

4. Engender Trust and Confidence in Your Company

Buyers start conversations with consultants with a long list of reasons not to buy. As you are selling, they ask themselves, “Can you do what you say you can?” “Do you really understand my company and what I am facing?” “Will I get the return on my investment in your fees?” “Do I trust you?”

Provide stories, case studies, and examples of how you have helped similar companies. Don’t talk about how good you are. Demonstrate it. The sooner you can reduce the trust barrier, the faster you can move your prospect along to make the decision to hire you.

5. Deal with Objections Early

Contrary to popular belief, objections are helpful to the buying process. Objections are a signal that the prospect is interested in moving forward but that there is an obstacle in their way.

The earlier objections come up, the earlier you have the opportunity to explore fully what is getting in the way, deal with it, and move the sale forward. The worst possible scenario is for the prospect to nod in agreement but harbor major doubts about moving forward. It’s better to deal with doubts early, than to have to climb a steep hill at closing time, or to spend months working to win the client and get blind-sided at the end.

6. Plan Each Conversation

What do you want to have happen during (and after) the first conversation? The second? The third? The sales cycle gets stalled more often than not because the consultant doesn’t have a plan or know what he wants to get out of the meeting. Improv may be fine for comedy, but nothing will derail the sales express faster.

7. Have a Firm, not Fuzzy, Next Step

Prospect: This is great. Please send the proposal, and let’s talk sometime soon about moving forward.

• Response option 1: That sounds good. I’ll get the proposal out next week and will follow up soon after.

• Response option 2: It’s going to take me about a week to put the proposal together. I’d like to do that and walk you through it. How does Friday the 11^th at 10 a.m. look?

Option 1 will happen more often than not if you let it, but you shouldn’t. It’s too fuzzy. Open-ended next steps usually turn into no next steps.

Whether it’s early in the sales cycle, in the middle, or near the end, seek a firm, not fuzzy, next step. You’ll find your sales advancing more often to the close versus just floating along.

8. Provide Value in Your Marketing

When you sit down at the table with a prospective client for the first time, you might encounter one of two possibilities:

• Possibility #1: “I’ve never heard of you. I don’t know what you offer. I don’t know why you’re here. Now, what did you want to sell me?”
• Possibility #2: “I’ve read two of your white papers, seen you speak, and regularly read your newsletter. I love your website and your ABC Methodology. I’ve been looking forward to speaking with you for years now.”

Of course, Possibility #2 is what you want to hear. You can accomplish this through your marketing activities if you create and leverage value-based offers and experiences in your marketing efforts. Do those things, and the sales cycle will have started even before you meet them.

9. Be Persistent

The average complex sale takes five or more conversations to close. How often do you drop out of the running because you lose interest and quit the cycle half way through? Assuming (and this is a big assumption) the opportunity is a good one, don’t get discouraged if there are more steps along the way than you might have wished.

Indeed, it often takes a long time to find a shorter way. Many consultants spend years, not months, strengthening their pipelines and shortening the sales cycle. That’s a long time.

Follow these 9 rules and you’ll be working smarter, not harder, and the long sales cycle won’t be as long as it used to be.

Photo credit: Mags_cat

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: responding to pricing objections.

——————————————————————————————————-

My 11-year-old son and his friends are into codes and ciphers in a big way. I find bits and pieces of paper throughout my house. They’re on my desk, in bookcases, tucked under the leg of a dining room chair—all bear strange, unreadable markings. Here’s one I thought was straight out of outer space:

When you understand the code, it's easy to decipher the message.

Of course, what appears to me to be undecipherable alien text, the 11-year-old boys can quickly decipher and read in minutes. The reason is simple—they understand the code and have the key.

The same concept comes into play during the sales process.

When you’re in a sales conversation for your services and the prospect raises a pricing objection, it’s easy to take what the prospect says at face value.

But here’s the thing—what you’re hearing and what the buyer is saying are often two very different things.

You need to decipher the message. Take a lesson from the 11-year-olds and understand the code.

Mike Schultz and John Doerr, Co-Presidents of RAIN Group and authors of the forthcoming book Rainmaking Conversations, offer the following key to pricing objections to help you decode what your buyers are really saying:

• Honest Pushback: “Wow, that’s a lot. Can we do it for less?” This comes from the buyer who always asks for a price reduction because it’s worked for him in the past.
• Bluffing: “Oh, I don’t have the money. We’ll need to do it for less.” In this case, the buyer has the money, but doesn’t want to reveal his cards. He wants to see how low you will go.
• Value Challenge: “It costs too much; money is going to be a problem.” This buyer doesn’t see why he should spend $x on your service; perhaps he doesn’t see the reason to spend 20% more than in the past for a similar service.
• Budget Pushback: When a prospect claims, “It’s not in the budget,” it may be that (a) it’s true, and he’d like to see what can be worked out; (b) it’s true, and he’s using that as a bargaining chip; or (c) it’s not true, and he’s just saying it.
• Competitor Pressure: “We got other proposals, and your price is the highest.” In this situation, the buyer could be (a) telling the truth and using it as a bargaining chip, or (b) may not be telling the truth, or at least the whole truth. As Schultz says, most people tell the truth, but some will do things in the purchase process to make it turn out the way they want. “Just be wary that some people are posturing to try to get more out of you,” he says.
• Reversing Direction: “Too much money. Call me back if you think there’s something you can do.” In this case, the prospect may be (a) bluffing, and he figures you’ll call back and he’ll get a lower price, or (b) not bluffing, and he hopes you’ll lower the price so he can buy.
• Masking a Non-money Problem: “Money is going to be a problem.” Sometimes, a price objection is a convenient scapegoat. The buyer may have multiple issues holding him back, but he is only saying money is the problem right now.

Once you’ve decoded what the prospect is saying, you’ll have a better chance to respond to the objection in a productive way.

Here are some tips from Schultz and Doerr to help you do that:

Don’t cave. You may be tempted to say immediately, “Let’s see if we can lower the price.” But you need to explore and understand the situation to get at the heart of the issue.

Choose your words carefully. Don’t take a price pushback personally and react emotionally.

Don’t dismiss them. Buyers are taught to challenge price. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will be high maintenance or a bad customer down the road.

Focus on value. As John Doerr says, “In money situations, it’s often a question of clarifying your value proposition, and the best scenario is to get the client to clarify it for you.” He suggests you ask questions that uncover the impact your solution will have on the buyer’s business, such as:

* If you’re able to solve this, what would happen to your financial situation?
* If you were able to work on this and get this done, what would happen to your goals?
* If you don’t get this done, what might be the consequences?

Ask, “Which part don’t you want?” Review the component parts of the solution with the buyer. You may be able to get him to realize he does, in fact, want the whole package. Or you could reduce the scope of the project, thus the total cost, without reducing your price.

Deal with competitor challenge. Acknowledge that other sellers’ prices are all over the place and what you get for your money also differs. Try to get the buyer to indicate why they’d like to work with you. You may be able to leverage those reasons to maintain your price.

Don’t talk cost structure. You’ll end up going down a slippery slope if you start justifying your price by time, staffing, billable hours, etc. You don’t have to lift up the hood just because someone asks.

Financing and payment terms. Many buyers can’t buy due to the payment terms. If you have the capacity to offer financing support, you have a tool to overcome a big block—your buyers’ cash flow issues.

Of course, these approaches won’t resolve all pricing objections.

If the prospect is bluffing, there’s only so much you can do. You can call the bluff—and if he comes back, great and if not, well that’s the way it goes.

And if the prospect really doesn’t have—and won’t have—the money, then it’s better to just move on.

When you decipher the code and understand what your buyers are really saying when they raise pricing objections, you’ll possess the key that allows you to respond to more objections successfully.

You’ll also know when to move on—which allows you to be more productive, improve your pipeline, and focus on new, more valuable opportunities.

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.

(Photo by Thomas Hawk)

Overflowing email in-boxes. Ceaselessly ringing telephones. Continuous streams of tweets. You, like your prospects and clients, are bombarded regularly with information. It’s a wonder anything gets seen or heard above this wall of noise. But things do get through. More than that, truly effective items get people to take action. And when you’re looking for new clients, those types of items are the best way to initiate a relationship.

In Vickie K. Sullivan’s recent article, White Noise, Part 2: 3 Publicity Campaigns That Cut Through the Clutter she outlines three publicity campaigns that get pique people’s interest and motivate them to take the next step. First on her list: top 10 lists. When done right, they can make your expertise relevant and intriguing, especially if you link your findings to an environment you want to redefine or penetrate.

“Instead of simply conducting campaigns and hoping for the best, let’s implement strategies that will drive traffic to our website, generate leads, and, yes, create more opportunities,” Sullivan says.

What Not to Say During Sales Conversations

Once you have a prospect’s attention, it’s time to move the relationship forward with a phone call or an email. You may be tempted to turn to the traditional sales conversation format (BANT: budget, authority, need, and timeframe), but think before you do. If you normally start off by asking prospects about their budgets to make sure they’re qualified, you could be killing relationships before they even get a chance to start. No budget doesn’t always mean no sale, write Mike Schultz and John Doerr in their article, No Budget, No Problem: The New Definition of a Qualified Sale.

“If you want to change the tendency to ask about budget in the wrong situations, you need a new definition of a qualified buyer. A definition that won’t drive you as a seller to ask inappropriately about budget and that can help you capitalize on the hidden opportunities all around you,” according to Schultz and Doerr.

That new definition is FAINT: funds, authority, interest, need, and timing.

Instead of focusing on budget target “organizations and buyers that have the financial capacity or funds to buy from you. They may not have a budget, but they have the overall financial wherewithal to spend. Sell where the money is,” Schultz and Doerr say.

After you’ve captured their attention and addressed the components of FAINT, you should have a good sense of what the business impact of moving forward will be. Then you can discuss the value you bring and how you can help them.

Build Trust Using Thought Leadership

Trust plays a key role in sales conversations and in determining whether a client relationship will grow. If you go into your meetings with a trustworthy background, the foundation is already there. You know prospects will Google your name and your firm’s name before meeting you, so make sure you have a strong online presence.

“Business leaders and marketers are going to have to work a lot harder at winning business in the future. Clients are demanding better reasons to buy from you, they are more thoughtful about their purchase, and in many instances they are buying with a conscience,” writes Craig Badings in his article, Client Trust and Corporate Consequences Drive Need for Strong Thought Leadership.

“Well-researched, client-focused thought leadership campaigns have the ability to circumvent these issues by tapping into the real needs of the target public and in the process showing that you care about their lives, the issues they face, and that you are prepared to provide information/services/support that make their lives easier or help them make decisions through your insights/thought leadership,” he says.

Success Story

One company that has seen great success with its thought leadership campaign is Dynamic Advisory Solutions, writes Gwen Moran in her case study, Accounting Firm Uncovers Niche and Sees Business Take Off. The firm was competing in a saturated accounting market and was getting little reception from its marketing efforts. It decided to focus on a niche segment and put into place a thought leadership platform. The result: increased demand for their services, higher fees, and franchises across the U.S.

Founder Ren Carlton began building a positive reputation by networking with key influencers in the market to build trust. “He explained his new business model and how his firm was different from other accounting and tax prep organizations. Those influencers then began sending new business referrals his way,” Moran writes.

Then Carlton stepped it up with a thought leadership effort. He landed local business association speaking gigs, taught continuing education courses at a community college, started broadcasting a radio show, and wrote a book.

“It’s about getting people to see that you have ideas and you believe in what you’re doing. We had a very substantial opportunity come about [because of the book]. They said, ‘We want to work with you because anyone that’s passionate enough to write a book about finance and accounting must really believe in what he’s doing,’” says Carlton.

Handling Client Objections

You might do all of that and still have a prospect object to your service or your price. I’m sure you’d be tempted to reply in frustration, “What do you mean you aren’t sure? I’ve just explained everything. And I’ve literally written the book on how to help companies like yours!” But don’t do it. You have their interest, and a response like that will cause them to shut down. Instead continue to talk with them to get to the root of their concern, advises John Doerr in his podcast, How to Turn Client Objections into New Sales.

“You want to understand what they’re saying and why so that you can respond to it in the best possible way,” Doerr says.