Are you engaged in selling some sort of professional services such as coaching, consulting, financial, insurance, real estate, etc.? Did you attend sales training with the promise "Do this and they will buy?" Well, how is that working for you?
If your response is not well, then probably that very time consuming and equally expensive sales training program or course was for selling products and not services. Many sales professionals are still engaged in product based marketing and hence their sales actions are focused around telling about price, product and let us not forget proposal. These 3-Ps or what I call the 3-Ps Virus are a definite indicator of someone who is clueless as to how to sell professional services.
Here are my six (6) top recommendations to change sales training for the better and not just for those who sell professional services.
#1 Change - Focus on marketing first and foremost specific to knowledge and skills
Until someone knows about your services, your bank account will continue to register zilch. Great marketing is a very well honed skill set. When you understand how to emotionally connect with your potential customers (a.k.a. prospects) and work from a specific plan of action, you will be much farther ahead of everyone else. Time invested in marketing should be 3 to 1 in time invested in actually selling.
#2 Change - Include understanding who you are as an individual and your specific role as a salesperson
Far too many people truly do not know who they are nor do they know what talents they bring to their roles. Investing the time to:
Understand your purpose (read the On-Purpose Person by Kevin McCarthy)
Determine your positive core values
Describe your vision of the future
Calculate your current annual mission moving you closer to that vision
Assessing your talents, decision making styles and levels of optimism and pessimism
Will help you know yourself better.
#3 Change - Develop interpersonal skills or what some call soft or people skills
Being successful in business is truly about relating to others. From active listening to higher order thinking ability all are necessary to develop that personal bridge between you and that prospect. Sales
Coaching Tip: People buy from people they know and trust especially when the transaction is personal.
#4 Change - Create written plans of actions for both marketing and selling activities
With investing the time to research the marketplace and understand current trends, your marketing and selling actions will be more like spraying and praying. There needs to be a proven goal achievement process included as well.
#5 Change - Work on questions and know the answers to persuade not dissuade
Open ended questions are essential, but do not forget about those necessary closed ended ones. Questions require a response and in some cases an answer from you. What you say should always be persuading your prospect to buy and not dissuading them.
#6 Change - Schedule multiple sessions over a course of time instead of 1 to 5 days of drinking from the fire hydrant
People need time to assimilate what they have learned and then need time to practice what they have learned. Without practice, learning becomes some fact floating around in the head and maybe some day it will come out. The brain only absorbs what the butt will endure. Technology allows for remote teleconferencing that can be reinforced with monthly or even quarterly face to face sales engagements. This approach may also be achieved through executive coaching where you and the coach meet weekly over the phone or even face to face.
The business world of professional services is different than years gone by. There is far more competition and a far more educated marketplace. People are seeking those individuals who can provide value and in some cases will pay more than others who just sell their services. If you wish to increase sales as an organization or individual who provides professional services, then rethink your sales training because the old way is truly the harder way to sell.
