Winning The Professional Services Sale

An innovative approach to winning more profitable sales in the growing professional services industry In recent years, professional services providers have had to rethink their sales methods and adapt to profound changes in the way clients buy services. In response, Winning the Professional Services Sale argues for fundamental changes in the seller's mindset and sales strategies. Rather than pressing the sale, salespeople must help clients buy--the way that works best for each client. This new approach gives buyers what they now want in a services seller: a consultative problem solver, change agent, and solution integrator, all rolled into one. Author Michael McLaughlin presents a strategy for winning new business with a holistic approach to each client relationship. Only by fully understanding a sale from every angle, including its impact on the client's business and career, can salespeople thrive in the new era of the service economy.

A proven approach to revenue-generating marketing and client development Professional Services Marketing is a fully field-tested and research-based approach to marketing and client development for professional services firms. The book, now in its Second Edition, covers five key areas that are critical for firms that want to grow and become more profitable: creating a marketing and growth strategy; establishing a brand and reputation; implementing a marketing communications program; executing lead generation strategies; and developing business by winning new clients. You will also read real-world case studies that illustrate major points, as well as quotes and stories from well-respected professionals in the industry. The Second Edition features new research and updates throughout, including new chapters on social media and online marketing, as well as new case studies and interviews Authors Mike Schultz and John E. Doerr are the coauthors of the Wall Street Journal and Inc. Magazine bestseller Rainmaking Conversations and Professional Services Marketing; Lee W. Frederiksen is coauthor of Online Marketing for Professional Services Will be widely promoted via multiple online routes and direct mail marketing Firms of any size can use this proven approach to marketing and client development to attract new clients and grow their professional service businesses.

The real-world guide to selling your services and bringing in business How Clients Buy is the much-needed guide to selling your services. If you're one of the millions of people whose skills are the 'product,' you know that you cannot be successful unless you bring in clients. The problem is, you're trained to do your job—not sell it. No matter how great you may be at your actual role, you likely feel a bit lost, hesitant, or 'behind' when it comes to courting clients, an unfamiliar territory where you're never quite sure of the line between under- and over-selling. This book comes to the rescue with real, practical advice for selling what you do. You'll have to unlearn everything you know about sales, but then you'll learn new skills that will help you make connections, develop rapport, create interest, earn trust, and turn prospects into clients. Business development is critical to your personal success, and your skills in this area will dictate the course of your career. This invaluable guide gives you a set of real-world best practices that can help you become the rainmaker you want to be. Get the word out and make productive connections Drop the fear of self-promotion and advertise your accomplishments Earn potential clients' trust to build a lasting relationship Scrap the sales pitch in favor of honesty, positivity, and value Working in the consulting and professional services fields comes with difficulties not encountered by those who sell tangible products. Services are often under-valued, and become among the first things to go when budgets get tight. It is now harder than ever to sell professional services, so your game must be on-point if you hope to out-compete the field. How Clients Buy shows you how to level up and start winning the client list of your dreams.

Learn the secrets of how recurring revenue is driven at expert firms like BCG, KPMG, EY, and more Never Say Sell: How the World's Best Consulting and Professional Services Firms Expand Client Relationships explains how to scale individual engagements into long-term business relationships. Cowritten by Tom McMakin, the coauthor of How Clients Buy and expert in account development, and colleague Jacob Parks, this book provides insights from key rainmakers at firms like Accenture, IBM, and more into how they drive growth from existing relationships. Never Say Sell is a business development guide for professional service providers like consultants, accountants, and lawyers, whether they are sole proprietors or members of account teams tasked with expanding key accounts. Doing good work with existing clients is not enough to have them come back to you again and again. You must do more. This book explores the techniques and methods that leading professional service providers use to add value, cross sell, and drive recurring revenue from existing engagements. Never Say Sell will help you turn one-and-done clients into some of your most exciting and lucrative relationships. It is a must-have for any professional who benefits from repeat business.

The days of professionals simply hanging a shingle and waiting for clients to beat a path to the door are long gone. The marketplace is crowded with new service professionals of all types--from CPAs and attorneys to health care providers and competing service organizations. Professionals must realize that their services, no matter how good they are, simply will not sell themselves. Services marketing is the key to the game and here is the most concise, easy-to-understand, jam-packed source of services marketing. Professional Services Marketing provides a very readable and simple introduction to the marketing process for the professional service environment. It gives professionals an inexpensive way to successfully develop a strong client base and grow in a competitive marketplace. Using a step-by-step approach, this new book provides both strategic and tactical guidance for both the new and seasoned marketing careerist. Distinguished expert and international authority Fred Crane offers a realistic overview of the marketing process and discusses the characteristics and difficulties involved in marketing and managing professional services. He provides solutions to those challenges starting with a marketing plan, moving through client management, and the marketing audit. Professional Services Marketing discusses management principles and examines implications for site analysis, physical analysis and facility design. It explores the true meaning of communication in the professional service arena and what this means for the bottom line. A plus for professionals new to the marketing field, this practical book gives examples of professional services marketing ideas that have been put into practice successfully. Professional Services Marketing can be read in a single afternoon yet retains an encyclopedic breadth of vision and covers every major issue in the field. Specialists have already praised the work as essential and unique in the literature. It deserves consideration not only as a guide for established professionals but also as a basic text for future professionals as they prepare for their fields. Truly a practical guidebook for any professional, Professional Services Marketing shows you: a “cookbook” approach to designing a marketing plan that is easily followed how to take advantage of impression management and what it really means when to apply professional services marketing ideas that can be put to work almost immediately when to undertake internal marketing where to apply relationship marketing how to apply synchromarketing All professionals, from architects to veterinarians, will find valuable tips on marketing in this new book. Members in professional associations involved in training and professional development will also find helpful strategies for expanding their marketing capabilities, as will those teaching services and professional services courses in colleges and universities.

This deeply insightful guide to understanding what clients really want is “an indispensable resource for consultants” (Keith Ferrazzi, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Never Eat Alone). Independent consulting is a potentially lucrative enterprise—but the reality seldom matches the dream. Most solo consultants and boutique consulting firms are perpetually within six months of bankruptcy due to the sputtering unreliability of their new business engines. The problem, according to international consulting expert David A. Fields, is twofold: 1) lack of a consistent, proven plan, and 2) fundamental misunderstanding about what clients want in a consultant. Fields, who has helped hundreds of consultants and boutique firms worldwide build profitable, sustainable practices, replaces the typical consultant’s mindset of emphasizing expertise and differentiated processes with a focus on building relationships, engendering trust, and solving clients’ existing problems. In The Irresistible Consultant’s Guide to Winning Clients, Fields synthesizes his decades of experience into a step-by-step approach to winning more projects from more clients at higher fees. From nuts-and-bolts business advice and tactics to a deeply insightful breakdown of the human side of a very human profession, Fields, named one of Advertising Age magazine’s “Marketing Top 100,” delivers a comprehensive guidebook that is at once highly approachable and satisfyingly detailed. “If I could have just one book on client strategy, this book would be it.” —Marshall Goldsmith, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Triggers

ACHIEVE the HIGHEST LEVEL of PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIP - BECOMING an INDISPENSABLE PARTNER in YOUR CLIENT'S SUCCESS Are you looking for the keys to far more successful sales relationships, and client conversations that don't require manipulation, probing, and closing - yet which produce profoundly more powerful impact and results? The Ultimate Sales Revolution clarifies how to reach the highest level of professional relationship - being an Indispensable Partner in your client's success. You attain this exalted level of trust, respect, and differentiation from your competition by ensuring that every client request and activity delivers meaningful results, builds the strongest and most sustainable client relationship, avoids the 3 Sources of Miscommunication, and delivers massive value and impact. Each of the principles in this book transforms your ability to win business, get paid for your value (not your time, effort, or activity), and earn the access, recognition, respect, and rewards reserved for the most successful sales people and privileged professional services providers. Inside are the keys that promise to significantly advance your professional enjoyment, impact, and most importantly... your results.

Double and triple your sales--in any market. The purpose of this book is to give you a series of ideas, methods, strategies, and techniques that you can use immediately to make more sales, faster and easier than ever before. It's a promise of prosperity that sales guru Brian Tracy has seen fulfilled again and again. More sales people have become millionaires as a result of listening to and applying his ideas than from any other sales training process ever developed.