| Blog
& Buzz
CMO
Magazine, Going Guerrilla - rules
for retooling marketing at a professional-service
firm, 1/06
My
favorites from Tom Peters' 111
Ridiculously Obvious Thoughts on SELLING.
Guerrilla Consulting Blog, 2/1/06
When
you're selling consulting services,
words
are worth a thousand pictures.
Guerrilla Consulting Blog, 1/13/06
A
little negativity can add
punch to your proposals.
Guerrilla Consulting Blog, 1/11/06
When
it's time to give
up on a sale.
Guerrilla Consulting Blog, 1/06/06
Broken
trust puts us all at risk.
Guerrilla Consulting Blog, 1/04/06
Fire
a client? Are you crazy? Actually,
that might be your smartest move.
Guerrilla Consulting Blog, 12/28/05
What
do clients want? Nail the answers
to these five questions.
Guerrilla Consulting Blog,
12/30/05
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The
Guerrilla Consultant –
a newsletter dedicated to applying the principles
of Guerrilla Marketing to the work and lives of
consultants.
Closing
a Sale May Be Harmful to Your Success
The covers of sales books should include this
equivalent of a Surgeon General’s warning
label: Advice on closing a sale may not apply
to selling consulting services.
Sales
experts imply that unless we’re always working
toward the close, we’re just one step away
from professional meltdown. With most clients,
though, you’ll have far more success if
you let them buy from you, instead of trying to
sell them something.
The
traditional “close” is a pure selling
technique that just doesn’t work for consultants.
This month we look at how you can sidestep the
hazards of the close and win more work.
Enjoy the article, and let
me know what you think.
Mike
McLaughlin
Co-Author, Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants
Stop
Closing and Start Selling
The
last time I was in the market for a new car, I
was reminded why the experience is so notoriously
unpleasant.
Before setting foot in a showroom, I loaded up
on information about the cars I was considering.
All that remained was to narrow down my choices
based on test drives, and get the answers to a
few questions.
The showroom salesperson was eager for me to do
a test drive. “Here are the keys, so let’s
go.” The car’s interior became a mini-sales
office as the salesperson launched into a scripted
monologue on every detail about the model.
After
the test drive, the salesperson herded me into
a cramped cubicle. In the game of poker, they
say that if you look around the table and can’t
spot the mark—it’s you. Well, it was
clear that I was the mark. The salesperson moved
in for the “close.”
Our
conversation morphed into a Sales 101 caricature:
Me:
Do you have the car in metallic blue?
Salesperson:
Do you want the car in metallic
blue?
Me:
I’m not sure. Is the model of
the car I drove available?
Salesperson:
When would you like to have the car?
Me:
I haven’t decided. Can we talk about the
sticker price?
Salesperson:
Sure. What price will get you drive that car
off the lot today?
Me:
I don’t know that either. Uh, maybe we
should talk later.
The
salesperson was executing a familiar sales closing
technique: get small commitments from a buyer,
and then slowly reel the person in. What the salesperson
didn’t get was that I hadn’t yet seen
myself owning that car, so efforts to close the
sale were failing.
The
salesperson’s attempts to close got in the
way of making the sale.
Over
the years, salespeople, including consultants,
have placed too much emphasis on closing. Consultant
Doug
Davidoff tells of one sales trainer “who
says that if a salesperson hasn’t asked
for the sale at least eight times (I repeat, at
least eight times), the salesperson has no right
to expect a sale.”
How
would you like to be that client?
Of
course, you’ll rarely get a sale unless
you ask for it. So here are a few thoughts to
consider as you work to land your next consulting
project.
The
harder you push, the easier it is for the client
to just say no.
The
fastest way to lose a sale is to push too hard,
too fast. When you lose a project, it’s
unlikely that the client will say outright that
it’s because you were too pushy. So you
must judge carefully how much is too much.
In
one case, a consulting firm lost a project because
of a relentless focus on closing the deal. Here’s
what happened at a critical time in the sales
process:
Consultant
1: The clients read the proposal last
week, and they’re planning to make a decision
early next week.
Consultant
2: That’s great. We need to be
sure they have everything they need to make
a decision in our favor.
Consultant
1: I confirmed that the decision maker
had everything she needed when we met earlier
today. In a couple of hours, she’s headed
out for a long weekend.
Consultant
2: In that case, I better get over
there right away and talk to her once more before
she leaves. We can’t leave anything to
chance.
The
consultant cornered the client decision maker
before she left for the day and went over the
same ground again. The consultant never received
another return phone call from her. And the project
was given to another consulting firm.
|
“If you ask for the sale before a client
has taken ownership for the outcome and approach
of the project, you risk losing the sale.” |
The
aggressive consultant failed to understand that
repeated client contact doesn’t necessarily
improve the probability of a sale. The most successful
consultants know when to back off and let the
client work through a decision process.
Clients
often behave in a predictable way when faced with
an overly aggressive salesperson—they seek
an alternative.
Selling
doesn’t end with the sale.
Once
you’ve made a car purchase, the salesperson
hands you the keys and says “See you when
you come back for your first service appointment.”
But unless you buy another car, you’ll have
limited contact with that salesperson.
For
consultants, the “close” of a sale
is more likely to end with the consultant saying,
“See you next week and we’ll get our
project started.” The “close”
isn’t an ending, but a starting point. The
client’s expected outcome, which is designed
during the sales process, isn’t created
until after the initial sale.
For
the client, the sale isn’t closed until
the expected outcome is achieved. The initial
“close” is a small step in the overall
sales process, which extends through the duration
of the project.
The
turning point that creates a win is not the close.
A
turning point is a pivotal moment when a decisive
change occurs. In the sales process, a turning
point occurs when a potential buyer decides to
become a client.
The
standard sales closing techniques of handling
objections and asking for the order rarely create
turning points. In most consulting situations,
the turning point doesn’t occur during the
close process, but long before. The turning point
results from high value activities the consultant
completes during the sales process.
For
example, a turning point can occur when a consultant
demonstrates that the needs of the client outweigh
the consultant’s need to make a sale. One
consultant cemented a long term relationship with
a client by recommending that a competing consulting
firm be used for a project.
From
that point on, the client knew the consultant
would put the client’s interests at the
top of the list, and continued to award new projects
to the unselfish consultant.
The
hard work of landing a new client begins and ends
with turning points. That process occurs throughout
the sales cycle, not just at the close.
Clients
will close the sale for you— if you let
them.
The
simplest—and most natural—approach
to closing a consulting sale is to let the client
close it for you. Consultants who force action
on a sale before the client is ready to buy risk
distracting attention from the most important
sales activity: helping the client embrace a proposed
outcome.
In
most consulting sales efforts, the client will
tell you when it’s time to close. Learn
to recognize the two-step progression from understanding
to ownership. A client begins by working to understand
what you’re proposing to do. Some mistake
that understanding for acceptance of the plan,
but that’s rarely correct.
Before
you ask for the sale, the client must make the
leap from an understanding of the solution to
ownership of it. If you ask for the sale before
a client has taken ownership for the outcome and
approach of the project, you risk losing the sale.
The
“successful close” never happens.
When
applied to buyers of consulting services, the
traditional advice for closing sales comes up
short. Yes, you must answer objections, offer
a competitive price, convey how your services
will deliver the desired outcome, and ask for
the sale. But that’s not enough.
Your
approach to the project must align with the client’s
vision. That means working alongside clients,
at their pace, to create a shared vision and ownership
for results. Selling is not about you creating
an artificial milestone called the close, but
rather it’s a natural process that results
in mutual agreement about what’s best for
the client.
As
consultant and author Jill Konrath says in her
article, Why
I Hate Closing Techniques, “The
very best salespeople don't employ any special
closing techniques at all.”
So
to sell more, stop closing.
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