Selling services is a tough challenge. You face a long sales cycle, you’re selling high-ticket, high-end services, often the prospect isn’t even sure if they want or need your services, and after the sale you have to work with the client.

Since trial and error are the norm when it comes to learning how to sell consulting services and become a rainmaker, the learning curve is long and steep and often filled with anxiety and pain. But it is possible to shorten the learning curve, make selling feel less “salesy,” and increase your level of success as a seller.

To facilitate the transition from trusted adviser to rainmaker, we’ve developed the concept of RAIN Selling. RAIN is an acronym for the four keys to winning sales conversations:

1. Rapport
2. Aspirations and afflictions
3. Impact
4. New reality

Watch this short video where we walk you through the RAIN Selling conversation framework, teaching you what you need to know to lead winning sales conversations.

Using the RAIN Selling conversation framework, you can quickly and easily learn how to apply the same skills that make you a great consultant to your selling efforts.

Like any good conceptual model, RAIN Selling goes a lot deeper than what can be described in a short video. Applying a new process that will make a difference in your sales results requires practice, training, and coaching.

To help, we’ve developed an online training program, Selling Consulting Services 2.0 with RAIN Selling that will have you confidently selling and bringing in new clients in short order.

This program will walk you step by step through the RAIN Selling process and will provide you with tools and strategies that have been field-tested and proven to work for consultants by consultants. We’ll equip you with the practical how-to information and tools you need to fill the pipeline with qualified opportunities, win more new business, and command higher fees for your consulting services.

“Selling Consulting Services with RAIN Selling has given me greater confidence and comfort with selling my services. The program structure and tools are logical and practical, and they have helped me learn how selling can be a natural extension of who I am and what I have to offer. Additionally, it allows me to go at my own pace, which given an already busy schedule is a huge plus. This program is really enjoyable and valuable.”
—Jeremy Bromberg, Bromberg LLC

You can learn more about the program here.

Learn more in Mike Schultz's on-demand webinar "The Year Ahead: How to Make Your Business Thrive in 2012"

Technology has evened the playing field for businesses’ websites, and content marketing has made nearly everyone a thought leader. More than ever you and your firm look “on paper” the same as everyone in your market. That means when a prospect talks to you or someone on your sales team, you need to shine.

Your sales conversations must convey the value you offer, reliability, trustworthiness, and likability, says Mike Schultz, co-author of Rainmaking Conversations.

“The fact of the matter is when [a prospect picks] up the phone, especially with service firms, and they say, ‘Hey, I want to talk to you guys about x, y, and z,’ while three companies may look similar, the experiences they have immediately when that salesperson answers the phone … it’s a wild sense of differentiation,” says Schultz in a recent RainToday.com interview.

When a prospect talks with you they immediately get a sense for whether you’re smart, attentive, caring, helpful, responsive, arrogant, and more, Schultz says.

“There are all of these things that happen that can create wild differentiation that can make their perception of value on behalf of the potential client shoot way up or way down and also build up their belief: ‘Can they or can’t they deliver on the things that I want them to deliver on,’” he says.

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Listen to the complete interview here:

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The simple truth is if salespeople can’t lead strong sales conversations, can’t express how they provide more value, and can’t prove that they offer solutions to help prospects make tough decisions, they will lose to salespeople who can.

“You’re not going to get very far if you don’t have people who can sell,” Schultz says.

When I was in high school, one of my teachers was fond of saying, “Never assume. You make an ass out of U and me.” He wasn’t giving us a tip on how to spell the word, though it is a good one. His point was that incorrect assumptions can leave you and the person you’re making the assumption about in bad light—and more than likely with you looking foolish.

In the business world, however, you have more at risk than looking like a fool. You can lose business, particularly if you make assumptions about your buyers.

One of the biggest mistake sellers can do is assume their buyers are ignorant and that they know better than the people making the purchases, writes Kristin Zhivago in her article The Biggest Sales Lie in Business. The reality is the customer has always been in charge of the buying process—even before the Internet and Google, she says.

“Customers who are about to spend money on services take the time to educate themselves. They keep digging until they find answers that make sense. Their buying process is guided by the experiences of customers who have already bought that type of service,” she writes.

In fact, by the time a prospective buyer approaches a salesperson these days, he has answers to all of his generic questions. That means salespeople must have answers to their very specific questions. They must listen and learn what the customer needs and then explain how their service satisfies that need. If they don’t uncover their full needs and jump in prematurely with a solution—assuming they know what the real problem is—they will either lose the sale or their effort to solve the problem will fail.

Traits of Top Salespeople

Steve W. Martin agrees that salespeople who are modest, don’t assume they know all about their buyers, and don’t act like know-it-alls sell more.

“Contrary to conventional stereotypes that successful salespeople are pushy and egotistical, 91% of top salespeople had medium to high scores of modesty and humility,” Martin writes in his article Top Traits of Successful Salespeople. “Furthermore, the results suggest that ostentatious salespeople who are full of bravado alienate far more customers than they win over.”

Martin says top salespeople are also conscientious and curious. They have a strong sense of duty and are responsible and reliable. And their high level curiosity contributes to their having a strong presence during sales calls and to ask strong questions “to close gaps in information.”

Success in 2012 and Beyond

A firm’s success also depends on its marketing and its principal’s ability to work on challenges facing the firm, not just on client work.

A recent survey conducted by EnergizeGrowth found top challenges included attracting new clients and increasing referrals. But when it came to addressing those challenges, 41% of the people surveyed said they were unfocused and “too busy to work on the business versus in the business,” says Lisa Nirell, CEO of EnergizeGrowth in a podcast interview Top Challenges of B2B Firms and How to Address Them.

Yet when asked how much they’d be willing to invest to address those issues, over 60% said they’re unwilling to invest or don’t know how much to invest, she says.

“If they do believe in learning and they do want to grow, why is such a large percentage of them unwilling to do anything to take action to move their business forward,” she asks. “[They] really have to look deep inside and say, ‘What can I do to make sure I’m not part of that 66%?’”

Longtime marketing strategist Bruce Marcus further says that principals and partners need to play a role in marketing if firms are to succeed.

Under what Marcus calls Professional Services Marketing 3.0, service professionals recognize not only that marketing is an integral part of any practice but that they must participate in and even initiate the marketing process.

They must be willing to compete, change as needed, uncover buyer trends, and truly focus on the client, he says in his article Why Professional Services Marketing 3.0 Matters for Your Future—and What to Do About It.

“Understand that successful marketing is client-based strategy, not a collection of marketing skills and mechanics routinely applied, and that it is client-focused, not firm-focused. ‘This is what I’m selling’ is not the same as selling from a clear understand of client needs,” Marcus says.

Image by Brett Jordan

Learn more in Tom Kennedy's on-demand webinar Persuasive Presentations: How to Capture the Hearts and Minds of Buyers

Think about the worst presentation you ever sat through. Did it feel like you were experiencing “death by PowerPoint”?

If the speaker was like your typical speaker, he relied completely on his PowerPoint slides and bored the audience by reading verbatim the text on those slides. Just thinking about someone doing that is enough to make you yawn.

That approach is the primary mistake people make when giving a presentation, says Tom Kennedy, who is giving a webinar November 8 titled Persuasive Presentations: How to Capture the Hearts and Minds of Buyers.

“There are probably three primary mistakes,” Kennedy says in a recent RainToday.com interview. “First of all people calling the slides the presentation. They aren’t. And when someone says send me the presentation, the only answer is ‘I can’t’ because you’re the presentation.”

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Listen to the complete interview here:

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Other mistakes people make when giving presentations:

* Using your slides as notes: Slides can be effective, but not if you load them up with your speaker notes.

“There’s nothing wrong with having slides. Great visual aids are wonderful,” Kennedy says. “But text on slides is invariably the speaker’s notes. Have notes, but don’t show your audience your notes.”

* Failing to target the audience: Often speakers feel they need to talk about themselves. If it’s a keynote or seminar, they’ll spend the first 10 to 15 minutes talking about themselves, their firm, and their accomplishments. If it’s a sales presentation, they’ll talk only about their services. The audience wants to know how what you’re discussing affects them. They don’t care about you.

“It’s always about [the audience]. It’s not about the presenter,” Kennedy says. “The ‘I/me’ talk I call it—about us—is not the way to target the audience. Make it about them.”

The key is to cultivate a relationship with your audience, particularly if it’s a sales presentation, he says.

“We buy from people that we like and trust and are comfortable with. So, it’s all about relationship. It’s not about the data,” Kennedy says.

* Handing out your slides in advance: Audience members often want a copy of presentations in advance. Don’t do it, says Kennedy. If you do that, people will look ahead and not pay attention to what is being said.

It’s better if you provide a handout after your presentation. And that handout can include more information than what you included on your slides, such as your speaker notes. That way people can pay attention while you speak, and they won’t worry about taking notes.

Everyone is a salesperson, says Kennedy. Whether you’re presenting to a client, giving a keynote, or networking with prospects, the people you speak with matter the most. Develop a relationship with them and you will then be able to sell yourself and your ideas.

There's money to be made in social media if you sell the right way.

There’s money to be made in social media if you sell the right way.

There’s this age-old problem with selling: If we could only get more people to pay attention to us, we could build relationships that lead to sales.

Fortunately, social media offers an amazing source of business opportunities. If you approach it the right way, you can build many relationships that could be crucial to your business growth and success.

This article is about successfully selling (not marketing) with social media. And by selling, I mean the “two people getting to know each other and starting up a conversation that might go somewhere” kind of selling.

Here are eight ways to strike up social media conversations with people you want to meet:

1. Boil the Frog

There’s an old wives’ tale (some truth to it) that says  if you put a frog in boiling water, it will sense the heat and jump out. But put a frog in cool water and turn up the heat slowly, and the frog will hardly notice.

When reaching out online to people you’d like to meet, don’t come on like gangbusters. Nothing screams “jump out of the hot pot” more than a blatant “let’s talk so I can sell you something” message.

Start cool and warm up slowly. Comment on their blog post. Retweet them thoughtfully. Compliment something they wrote. Become familiar to someone—even if they don’t engage you right away—and it’s more likely that they’ll engage you in the future.

For example, this person wrote to me personally, said something pleasant, and left it there. Nice start!

Dr. Rachna Jain, who studies the psychology of social media, says, “When people see you more, they like you more. The shorthand is that familiarity breeds likeability. Especially if you’re seen as giving them value or good content or information.”

2. Givers Gain

The world of social media changes faster than the Clippers change coaches. But some things never change—like the golden rule of networking (social or otherwise).

The golden rule? Givers gain. (Bet you figured that out from the section header.)

As Dr. Jain said, “…especially if you’re seen as giving them value or good content or information.” How? Share a white paper. Share a relevant piece of research. Invite them to a private local business event.

Remember, starting relationships can take many touches. Do this right, and people will perceive you as valuable even before you interact with them personally (which we’re getting to), and you boil the frog at the same time.

3.  Make Henry Kissinger Proud

There’s an old story that’s been told and retold about how Henry Kissinger approached getting the best out of his staff. Before reviewing anything from his people, he’d ask, “Before I look at this… is it your best work?” and the staff would go back and keep working until they could say yes.

When reaching out through social media, give it your Henry Kissinger effort.

RAIN Group and  RainToday have about 160,000 subscribers and followers combined.  And they reach out to me fairly regularly and want to connect.

Many of them remain strangers because they made no effort to relate to me. A standard “my products would be of value” overture does not catch anyone’s attention. No personalization… no genuine connection. Even something better than bad would be good.

But every once in a while, someone reaches out with real effort, energy and thoughtfulness—the kind that would make Henry Kissinger proud. Here’s an example of how one gentleman started a conversation:

This example goes on with several more paragraphs explaining our connections and reasons for why we might both be interested in connecting. This contact effort was obviously customized and it resonated well with me.

4. Be Brave

Call reluctance is common on the phone. It happens online, too. People don’t reach out online because of some kind of fear. “They won’t respond.” “They’ll say no.” “They’ll be angry with me.”

The fact of the matter is most customers believe salespeople don’t reach out enough. In the online world, there’s a heavy emphasis on the concept of inbound marketing. I think inbound marketing is a great approach. But that doesn’t mean proactive outreach—the online equivalent of cold-calling—is either dead or bad.

When you find a particular person you want to connect with, reach out.

As long as you keep points 1, 2, and 3 in mind, you’ll be fine. As business guru Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

Be brave. Take shots.

5. Be Positive and Pleasant

When some people gear up their bravery for outreach, they think, “I’m about to reach out to a big-time person. I need to seem big time too!” So they puff out their chest and brag about how awesome they are.

Who made the rule that “important” people should be temperamental and full of themselves? Not endearing. I’ve had the good fortune of interacting with lots of guru types and most of them are pleasant and humble.

Don’t try to come off as the BMOC. The fastest way to come off as inconsequential is to keep saying how influential you are.

Todd Schnick says it so well:

“Actions make you influential. Not your words or tweets. People who serve, people who help others, people who share the cool things that others are doing… those are the actions that make you influential.”

Right on, Todd.

6. Prepare for Window Shopping

When you reach out to people, expect that they’ll check you out. When someone writes to me and I’m curious, the first thing I do is Google them and see what comes up.

Make sure that when the people reaching out to you search for you online, you’re portrayed exactly how you want to be. Determine how your personal brand and online reputation come across, as they’ll greatly affect people’s impressions of you.

7. Release your Inner Battlestar

People build relationships with people they like. If you want to build relationships, be endearing. And the best way to do that? Let your personality shine through.

We’ve received tremendous feedback since publishing Rainmaking Conversations about the core content of the book. But the people that got the most kick out of it caught all the Battlestar Galactica references in the chapters. Geeky? Yes. Me? What can I say.

Boring is forgettable. Personality is memorable. And social media outlets are the perfect place for you to be yourself.

For example, in my research for this piece, I came across articles by Amy Porterfield. I visited her website, and saw her nifty little description of herself:

I BELIEVE in:

• Hard work, but that you have to be able to throw it all away for love and family.
• No drama. Really… not even a little!
• Acceptance. No judgment lives here.
• Wearing my heart on my sleeve.
• Embracing whatever’s next.
• But most of all, I believe that social media should be something you enjoy, not dread.

No drama. Not even a little. I love it!

Now that’s letting your personality shine through.

8. Take It Offline, When It’s Time

Social media outlets are great places for starting conversations, but they’re not the only place to have them. When the time is right, take the conversation offline.

You can start with a phone call or go right to face-to-face (assuming you’ve boiled your frog correctly). In any case, take the leap.

Selling is a contact sport. After you’ve begun your conversation and built rapport, find a good reason to take the conversation offline and see where it takes you.

And a little bonus…

There are so many social media tools available now it can be difficult to keep up. Here are a handful of tools that are helpful for lead generation and sales:

• Google Alerts and Twitter Alerts help you find reasons to create conversations by following trigger events.
• SocialToo can help you keep track of new and lost followers.
• GeoChip is good if you need to focus on a specific geography.
• TubeMogul can help you spread the word with video.

TubeMogul is a video advertising and analytics platform that connects advertisers with highly targeted audiences.

• Twellow finds people you’re looking for with a sort of Yellow Pages for Twitter.

Twellow is a directory of public Twitter accounts to help you find people who matter to you.

• SproutSocial helps if you’re getting serious about this whole thing. And, of course, the three biggies: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

If there were a ninth way to succeed in building relationships and selling with social media, and you were to add it to this article, what would it be? Leave your comments in the box below.

*No frogs were in any way harmed in the process of writing this article.

Are your prospects leaving the conversation?

Sometimes it takes being in the buyer’s seat to realize how sellers fail to do their jobs. In many cases they rush to sell something without understanding your true need, they don’t adequately explain why they’re a better option, and they say things that make you wary of whatever they say.

I ran into this recently when researching tutoring services for my daughter. Geometry—a math unlike any other math you have to take in high school—is proving to be a significant challenge. I started by calling companies such as Sylvan and Huntington to learn what they do compared with individual tutors.

The people I talked to at those companies seem to rely on the organizations’ reputations and widespread knowledge of them to win business. I’m sorry, but just because you’re big it doesn’t mean you’re better or that I will instantly trust you.

The company representatives did ask a few questions to learn more about my daughter and what our needs are, but most didn’t make me feel like they could address them. One person tried to scare me into going with his company, saying my daughter is missing critical learning skills and will be forever lost if I don’t do something now, and tried to press me into scheduling a $185, three-hour evaluation for the next day. He was the first person I called, and even if he did present his services better and didn’t try to scare me, I wouldn’t have signed up right then and there.

I spoke with someone from a smaller, math-specific tutoring service, and she was so much better than Mr. Scare Tactics. She was friendly, caring, talked like she understood the challenges of high school math, explained the backgrounds of the tutors, offered to send me information, and invited me in to see what they do. She put me at ease when I was stressing out about how to address the problem. I’m still researching my options, but if I choose a service company over an individual tutor, her organization is at the top of the list.

Considering what I’ve experienced, here are a few things to consider when selling your services.

1. Make sure you uncover your prospect’s true needs and provide a solution relevant to those needs. Don’t jump on the first problem raised and say you can solve it. Ask questions and uncover what your prospect really needs.

“You really have to find out what’s driving them because that’s the only way you can create any urgency for them to move forward,” says John Doerr in his podcast interview Are You Meeting Your Client’s True Needs?

2. Address the rational and emotional aspects of going with your service. In my case, the goal is to improve my daughter’s grade but also to ease the stress on both of us and help her enjoy high school, not hate it. Mr. Scare Tactics didn’t understand that. He pounced on the rational part only and tried to turn that urgency into terror.

He also relied on his company’s big name to do his work for him. As Matt Drought points out in his article Your Great Idea Won’t Sell Itself, that won’t work. You need to make your prospect’s feel something for you, your idea, and your company. Successful salespeople know they have to tie their solution to their prospect’s very real problems.

3. Understand your buyers’ price tolerance ratio. This is the price range where they’re willing to make a decision without further thinking. As a seller, you want a price that will allow you to make a profit, but you also don’t want to create resistance with clients that hinders the relationship, says Mark Hunter in his article Why You Need to Know Your Client’s Price Tolerance Ratio.

With most of the people I talked with, the price was about the same for each company’s services. But then I talked with someone who has a pricing structure that is so complicated and seemingly high that I tuned them out after they started explaining it. She didn’t make it easy for me to understand why any of their options are good for me.

4. Be a trusted source. If you want people to work with you, they have to trust you. They want you to provide trusted information and materials.

One way to do that, as IT security company Tripwire learned, is to become like a journalist or blogger and interview industry experts and publish those interviews.

Using a multimedia campaign, the company rose from obscurity to being “a trusted agent among the network of security influencers, writes David Spark writes in his case study Company Uses Video to Build Relationships, Become Trusted Source in Their Industry.

5. Be respectful of email. I suspect you get more email than you can bother with. Your prospects are the same. They will give email 2.7 seconds before deciding to read it or delete it. That means you need to make sure you capture their attention with the subject line.

As Jill Konrath writes in her article How to Write Irresistible Subject Lines, anything salesy will have receivers clicking delete faster than 2.7 seconds. Don’t use words such as excited, new service, or free offer. And restrain yourself if you feel the need to use all capital letters.

Instead, use a referral’s name, ask a question, or include an idea. In my case, the emails I received were follow-up warm emails, such as “Thank you for calling. Here’s the information you requested.” Thankfully no one tried to get me to “REGISTER NOW OR LOSE OUT.”

Photo by Jamie Homer

Learn the formula to creating masterful sales conversations

Yesterday I released the third video in the How to Turbo-Charge Your Sales series, and this is a big one. We’re talking all about how to hold masterful sales conversations so that your business can make millions of dollars. It’s can’t-miss stuff for entrepreneurs, growing businesses, and anyone who wants to see their sales go through the roof.

You can check it out here: www.entselling.com/turbo-charge.html.

As you’ll learn in the video, the launching point of any good sales conversation is the ability to build rapport with your prospect. If you build rapport, you’re well on your way to generating the kind of trust that will eventually lead to outstanding business relationships and more sales.

When you build rapport in sales, keep in mind you want to make a sincere connection. All too often chitchat before a sales call seems contrived…because it is. Assuming you want to build solid and real relationships with people, consider the following:

1. Be genuine. Before the first day of school, first jobs, camp, and any family get-together, Dad always said, “Just be yourself, and everything will be fine.” This lesson applies to generating rapport with prospects and customers.

Be genuine. Be yourself. Don’t try to be anything you are not, create a new persona, or adopt a “sales-like” tone. Relax, smile, and go in with a positive attitude. Good things will follow. As Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

2. Be warm and friendly. Chilly people get chilly reactions from other people. Approach rapport building with the intent to be warm and friendly. Smile, give a firm handshake, make eye contact, and engage.

3. Show interest. No surprise to anyone, people are self-focused. This is quite helpful to those of us in selling because we need to learn about our prospects before we can provide the best solutions. People want to feel like they have an opening to share what they’re thinking, including their desires, fears, and problems. The more genuinely interested you appear, the more relaxed and willing to share they’re likely to be.

4. Don’t seem too needy. Most of us know someone who wanted to be liked, so he “tried hard,” but it didn’t work. In trying to be liked, he appeared needy and conspicuous. You cannot force rapport. Show interest, but don’t act subservient, overly friendly, or too pushy or you will only turn the other person off. Don’t come on like gangbusters.

5. Give genuine compliments. Sycophants get nowhere, but genuine compliments are endearing. If you like someone’s office, think their website is great, or are impressed with their book, say so. If your prospect had a recent accomplishment, relay your authentic congratulations. They’ll appreciate it.

6. Calibrate the rapport to “just right.” New salespeople are often overly sensitive to the time of a potential buyer. They often think, “I have an hour for this meeting, and she’s a CEO of a mid-size company. I need to use the whole time to get my points across. No time for chitchat.” So, they dive right in with no ice breaking conversation, and it doesn’t go well.

Others can spend too much time chatting, and the prospect might get antsy to get down to business. Do your best to read the other person and find the right amount of rapport-focused conversation.

7. Read the culture. Always be yourself, but at the same time you can adjust your approach to the other person and company. Don’t change who you are to fit the culture, but be aware of how the culture works and how it best responds.

For example, if they’re a suit-and-tie joint, showing up with your Grateful Dead ‘95 tour tie-dyed shirt won’t fly so well. (Unless you’re meeting with me, then I’d be impressed.) And if they’re a jeans-and-sneakers place with a ‘Never Lose Your Whimsy!’ sign on the wall, well, you get the idea.

If you’re curious to know where to start with rapport building, the following questions will help.

Questions that Build Rapport in Sales

• How was your weekend? Anything interesting?
• It was good to hear the short version of your background at the meeting, but since we’re out for lunch, I’d love to get the long version. What’s your story?
• I have to say, I really like your (insert something about them…their lobby, the artwork on their walls, how friendly their staff is, or anything else you actually liked. Then ask an open-ended question about that particular thing).
• Are you from this area? Oh, interesting. I know people in… . Do you know (this person)? Oh, I’ve never been there, but I heard it’s got…the most amazing restaurants…the most amazing scenery…the most amazing fly fishing.
• Welcome to the town. Have you been to Scottsdale before? Where are you staying? What’s that like? A lot different from Vancouver, wouldn’t you say?

If you think these questions are pretty basic and straightforward, you’re right. Rapport building is an area that doesn’t need over complication. Do what you can to create positive feelings and positive emotional reactions with people, and you’ll be well on your way.

Now you have a decent understanding of how to build rapport, want to learn the other cornerstones of a masterful sales conversation? Head on over to www.entselling.com/turbo-charge.html and watch the new video. If you’re an entrepreneur or a salesperson in a growing company, it will absolutely make a difference in your sales. Enjoy!

Guide buyers down the sales path

There’s no doubt about it. Buyer behavior has changed. And to win buyers over you need to educate them, not pitch them.

That means the traditional strategy of sales teams carrying the ball while marketing supports them has to change, writes Eric Keiles in his article Changing the Sales Process to Reflect New Buyer Behavior.

“To match new buyer behavior, marketing has to carry the ball and provide content to help educate prospects. The sales team now finishes the effort started by marketing by guiding the prospects to make the right purchase decision and close the deal,” he says.

Companies, through marketing, need to educate their prospects so thoroughly that they become the obvious choice with which to do business. It can include articles, white papers, webinars, blog posts—anything that educates people about challenges, provides advice, and demonstrates your expertise.

Key to this strategy is developing relationships with prospective buyers. They might enter their email address to get your free white paper, but then you must cultivate that relationship if you want them to buy from you. That can take the form of a regular email campaign where you continue to give them educational content and advise.

Online Conversations

Another way to share your expertise is through online groups and networks. Keep in mind that these are no place for blatant self-promotion, stresses Vickie K. Sullivan in her article Online Discussions: How to Kill a Sales Conversation. For example, you never want to say, “Want to improve your SEO ranking? Visit my website to learn how.”

The goal in the forums is to invite discussion and share what you know, Sullivan says. Ask a provocative question, and as the discussion continues, post a detailed comment and point to your article, blog post, etc. for more information. The key is to give specific answers.

When Sales Steps In

Only after a prospect asks to talk with someone about your service, does the sales part of the strategy come into play, Keiles says.

“This is the new role of the salesperson: to sift through the opportunities that the expanded marketing effort presents to them and to guide the qualified prospects the rest of the way home. This is a dramatic shift from depending on the sales team to find, educate, pitch, and close new clients,” he says.

Note that Keiles said “guide.” Sales must ask questions, listen, get to the root of the problem, and offer a solution based on that.

“As consumers in this new era of buyer behavior, we want to be guided—not sold. The challenge is changing the way you approach the sales function in your company,” he says.

The Power of Satisfied Buyers

With a job well done you get satisfied buyers. Even better are satisfied buyers who sing their praises about you. That’s where testimonials play an important role. But you can’t expect your clients to volunteer them. You need to guide and advise them with this process as well, says Colleen Francis in her article 5 Strategies to Proactively Get Client Testimonials.

“Placing a form on your website and waiting for clients to fill it out will not deliver the results you want. You must instead develop a process to regularly and systematically gather testimonials,” she says.

That process includes making sure you ask for requests, providing guidance for what should be included in a testimonial, and in some cases writing the testimonial for the client to simply approve.

Getting It All Done

All of this might sound like a great plan, but it takes time and effort. Helping your crazy-busy clients adds to your already-full list of things to do. If the actions are worthwhile—if they will help you achieve your monthly or yearly goal—then you can’t dismiss them. The things that don’t help you achieve your goals need to be taken off the list.

“One of the things that I talk about is to create an ignore list,” says Peter Bregman, author of 18 Minutes in his podcast interview The Most Important Thing You Can Do to Be More Productive. “I have a blog that I wrote that became very popular called ‘A No Thank-You List’ that people have been adding to. I started out with 27 things to just say no thank you to—kind of an ignore list—things to not even consider doing or dealing with. If you begin to create that list, then you take those things off of your mind space. And if it’s off of your mind space, it’s no longer going to stress you out.”

To improve productivity, Bregman also advises taking one minute each hour to evaluate whether what you’re working on is worthwhile. If it isn’t, stop and focus on something that is and that will help you achieve your goals.

“If we just let the day go by and we don’t do that, it’s very easy for us to lose traction,” he says.

And before you know it, the day is over, you’re exhausted, and you accomplished almost nothing of value.

Photo by Edmondo Dantes

In this video, I teach you how to effectively communicate your value to prospects. Don't miss it.

Last week I announced the launch of our new sales training video series geared specifically to help entrepreneurs and sellers at growing companies build their businesses. It’s called How to Turbo-Charge Your Sales.

Since we launched the first video last Thursday, we’ve had a ton of positive responses, so I thought people might be interested in hearing a bit about the topic we’re covering in the second video, which just launched today.

This video is all about communicating an effective value proposition. In short, it’s all about how to respond to the question: “What do you do?”

It seems like a simple question, but many entrepreneurs and salespeople get tripped up when trying to answer it, making it almost impossible for them to succeed in a sales conversation. After all, you can’t sell what you can’t describe.

It’s tough because, of course, you need to get your value across, but when communicating your value proposition, you don’t want to deliver the same canned speech for everyone.

What you need to do is first craft, then learn to deliver, specific nuggets of information you can use to get your value across. Put all these nuggets together, and you have what we call a value proposition positioning statement.

A value proposition positioning statement is a compelling, tangible description of how a company or individual will benefit from buying from you.

For example, we might start ours with, “We at RAIN Group help companies to improve their sales performance. If you want your salespeople, professionals, and leaders to sell more, we can help.”

This is the umbrella under which we operate. It’s a nugget of information we use in the early part of conversations. And it’s an important nugget, as it’s the ultimate reason why clients eventually hire us!

But there is always a set of factors and specifics that sway them to choose us versus:

1. Doing something themselves
2. Choosing someone else to help them, or
3. Choosing to do nothing at all

Obviously, as the conversation moves along, we (and you) need to communicate more if we want to tip the scales in our favor.

To get a full picture of your value across, you need to be able to cover six areas, including:

1. Target customers. Whom do you serve? What makes for an ideal customer regarding industry, location, size, type, and so on? This allows the person on the receiving end to know if you work with companies and people like them. Know your target customer so you can craft messages that will resonate with them. In addition, the more you can position specialization for a particular buyer set, the more you typically resonate and differentiate.

2. Need/business problem.What types of needs and business problems do you address? How do you help? This helps prospects understand how and when they should use you.

3. Impact of solving need. What are the rational and emotional benefits of solving the need? Getting this right is a major factor in whether or not you resonate.

4. Your offerings. What’s your product and service approach? How do you run your company, solve problems, and work with customers? Notice that company and offerings are a fourth here. Think buying first and selling second, and frame your offerings within the context of the needs you can help solve.

5. Proof of concept. How can you demonstrate that your approach has worked to solve similar problems for others? How do you substantiate your claims? How do they know that what you say will happen, will actually happen?

6. Distinction. Why is your offering preferable to other options for solving the need? Do you have something special about you that’s worthwhile to share? Is there some way to highlight how you’re distinct from others?

If you follow these building blocks, you’ll be well on your way to generating a powerful value propositioning statement that will help you close more deals.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Want to learn more about how developing an effective value proposition will help you close more sales? Check out part 2 of my new free video series: How to Turbo-Charge Your Sales. We’ll dive deeper into this topic so that when it comes time to answer “What do you do?” you’ll know exactly what to say. It’s great advice for anyone in a growing business who wants to see their sales skyrocket.

Check out the video here: www.entselling.com/turbo-charge.html

Every prospect is different. Every client is different. Heck, every service professional is different. So, every business development or sales conversation you have and every relationship you develop will also be different.

There are a few things, however, that stand true when developing new business for your firm no matter whom you work with—or want to work with. Here’s a look at a few of them.

Dos

Approach Prospecting and Sales with a Positive Mindset:
For many, including service professionals, thoughts about sales conjure up an image of the typical bad salesperson. That combined with self-limiting thoughts such as “I hate sales” can severely hinder your sales efforts.

“As long as you think you hate selling, you’re not going to do it with passion. And because you’re not going to do it with passion, you’re going to reinforce [that self-limiting record],” says John Doerr in his podcast interview, Sales Is Not a Dirty Word.

Service professionals need to adopt sales methods and strategies that work for them, their personalities, and their preferences. When they do that, and approach each conversation with a positive mindset, they will like it more, and they will see better results.

“You will do the things that you love to do and have fun doing. Why not make selling one of them?” Doerr says.

Cross-Sell Your Services:
It costs five times more to sell a new service to a new client than it costs to sell an additional service to an existing client. Yet many firms focus their business development on new client acquisition. That’s a big mistake, writes Janet Ellen Raasch in her article, Time for Lawyers to Overcome Their Reluctance to Cross-Sell.

If you do your job well, your existing clients already know, like, and trust you. You’re already in! And you can more easily sell them new services or sell them services provided by another branch within your firm.

Raasch’s article focuses specifically on lawyers, who say lack of time, lack of awareness of what other services their firm provides, fear of selling, distrust of colleagues, and no compensation for cross-selling are what holds them back.

But with the help of the firm’s marketing team, and the support of firm leaders, lawyers (and other service professionals) can get over that reluctance.

“Cross-selling is a proven way to lower costs, shorten sales cycles, increase client retention and business, and strengthen law firm culture and morale,” says Phil Nugent, managing director at NCG Strategic Marketing in Raasch’s article. “Do not let your lawyers use compensation concerns—or any of the above challenges—as an excuse to hold your firm back in today’s highly competitive environment.”

Nurture Client Relationships:
Reston Limousine and Travel Service, Inc. discovered it needed to enhance relationships with existing clients if it wanted to survive the recession.

President and CEO Kristina Bouweiri “decided to tap into the company’s client database. She wanted to thank current and past clients for their business, get to know them better, and ask them for referrals. That’s when she came up with the idea to hold a series of Client Appreciation Lunches,” writes Mary Flaherty in her case study, A Little Appreciation Goes a Long Way: CEO’s Masterful Use of Client Relationship Marketing Grows Revenue by 27%.

Those lunches have increased awareness of Reston Limousine’s services, enhanced client relationships, and created a targeted referral system that includes several business partners.

Without any new advertising programs or major large contracts to account for the spike, the company increased its revenue by 27% following the launch of the Client Appreciation Lunches. It’s grown to a total of 150 vehicles and generated $16.6 million in revenue in 2010. Projected revenue for 2011 is $18 million.

Don’ts

Get Dazzled by Hot Prospects:
It’s easy to get caught up in the thrill of an impressive prospect contacting you about your services. But before you begin jumping through all of their hoops, you have to consider whether they are the right client for you, warns Jill Konrath in her article, Don’t Be Seduced by the Allure of Hot Prospects.

“It’s so easy to be tempted by these opportunities. And when you yield to this temptation, you make fatal mistakes—ones that can totally derail your sales efforts and cause you to lose the business,” Konrath writes.

When you willingly jump to fulfill a hot prospect’s requests, you put yourself in the “nice” seller category, she says, but that doesn’t help you win their business.

“While hot prospects may hold the promise of big paychecks, there’s often much that still needs to be determined if it’s a good fit for your company,” Konrath says. “Don’t be overeager. Instead be ruthlessly realistic. Detach from the fantasy and assess your true chances. Bring up the tough questions.”

Ask Prospects Bad Questions:
Asking a prospective client good questions can be incredibly powerful. But just as there are powerful questions, there are lousy ones. Some are so bad that the person you’re speaking with might kick you out of their office, writes Andrew Sobel in his article, Questions You Should Never Ask a Prospect.

Questions you should avoid include closed-ended questions, judgmental questions, sarcastic questions, leading questions, and clichéd questions, he says.

What’s a clichéd question? “What keeps you up at night?” is one example.

“Salespeople have been using that question for as long as there have been things to sell. In reality, most people aren’t going to share what really keeps them up at night until they develop some trust in you. Client executives tell me this is a lazy question because it shows you haven’t done your homework and thought about the conversation in advance,” Sobel says.

Other clichéd questions to avoid: “What has surprised you?” and “What question haven’t I asked you?”

“Remember, good questions are sincere. They reflect a genuine curiosity. They are open-ended. They get at the “why” of things. They explore implications. They challenge assumptions. They help you connect on a personal level. They demonstrate your familiarity with the issues,” Sobel says.

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Do you have any dos or don’ts to add to this list?

Illustrations by: OCAL