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Maverick Selling:
Go BEYOND Consultative Sales
Many so-called tried-and-true selling techniques typically do NOT work for consultants, attorneys and other professionals services practitioners. Yet most blindly go forth employing them anyway! This blog entry offers “maverick” suggestions for selling consultative services, for the purpose of producing long-term, loyal client relationships.
Trust above all
When considering a professional service of some kind, your prospects wish to purchase a relationship with you the practitioner in addition to buying your expertise. As much as anything, they want to trust you as their advisor, now and in times to come. The buying/selling process therefore must not subvert that. Consider these principles of consultative selling:
- If you fail to engender trust in your first few connections with your prospect, he/she may decide: “This is not a person I want to work with.”
- If you manipulate a prospect into signing with you, using carefully constructed “closing” techniques, that new client’s feelings of partnership and trust may never materialize. He/she will constantly be wondering if they made the right decision.
- Genuinely listening to your prospects, showing authentic concern for them and for solving their pain, is the best way to engender trust.
- Reining in your desire to “sell” yourself also helps you refrain from putting undue pressure on your prospects to make a decision.
Though “consultative” selling is good, is it enough?
Going beyond consultative sales techniques toward a “Maverick Selling” approach offers a better chance of turning your prospects into long-term client relationships. Practice these tenets and your clients will hang around year after year, coming back to you repeatedly for help with their problems and referring others to you without reservation. Specifically:
- Get them to CALL YOU. Alan Weiss CMC, author of Million Dollar Consulting, insists it’s always better to get prospects to call you rather than you spending time and energy calling them. Achieve this by publishing articles and/or books, using media, speaking before targeted groups and using email to create a “client community.” See articles on our articles page to learn more about these tactics: http://www.thoughtleading.com/articles_home.htm
- RATE YOUR PROSPECTS so that you measure beforehand their potential for hiring you . Are you gauging how qualified new prospects are for you? Think through your history of those prospects who have tended to become your clients. Then establish a rating system that fits your experience. This will save you from wasting time on low-potential prospects.
- Make it a little HARD for prospects to hire you. Don’t rush in and do a proposal right away! Instead, ask your prospect for materials you can look at, or take time to survey their website. Send them an article of your own for their review and ask for comments. Meet with them at least once, maybe twice or thrice. If your prospect hangs in there for all these hurdles, then you know you’re looking at a motivated, committed prospect. He/she is probably sold on you and the value of the relationship plus service that you are offering.
- Do NOT try to close your prospect, in person or ever. Of course,at some point you may have to say, “Well, should we do business together?” But is there anything better than a prospect who says, “OK, I’m sold. What’s the next step?”
- Leave fees OUT of the first draft of your proposal. By sending a preliminary proposal covering everything EXCEPT fees, you can both further the relationship-building effort of this maverick selling approach as well as be absolutely certain you understand what your prospect wants from you. Keep submitting your proposal without fees until you’ve nailed down exactly what your prospect is looking for.
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