001

Table of Contents
 
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Why Services Selling Must Change
What You’ll Get
 
PART 1 - Connect
 
CHAPTER 1 - Seven Realities of Selling Services
 
Sales Reality #1: You Must Prove Your Answers to the Three Burning Questions
Sales Reality #2: Insights and Capabilities—Not Relationships—Close Sales
Sales Reality #3: The Client Buying Experience Trumps Sales Techniques
Sales Reality #4: Likability Is Overrated
Sales Reality #5: Your People Are Not Number One for the Buyer
Sales Reality #6: Value Is in the Eye of the Beholder
Sales Reality #7: Not All Sales Techniques Are Bad
Reality-Based Selling
 
CHAPTER 2 - Before You Call (or Meet) Any Client
 
Think Second Impressions First
Dump the Elevator Speech
Explore the Client’s Buying Options
Prepare Thoroughly but Quickly
What Stan Knows
Make a Connection
 
CHAPTER 3 - Master the Client Interview
 
Six Steps to a Masterful Client Interview
 
CHAPTER 4 - Uncover the Real Problem
 
Forget What You Know
The Extra Step
Get to the Root
Check Every Angle
Finding a Solution
Oh, So That’s It
 
PART 2 - Collaborate
CHAPTER 5 - When It Pays to Walk Away
 
Choose the Right Clients
Find Your Real Opportunities
Do the Right Thing
Go for the Work You Know You Can Ace
When to Walk Away
 
CHAPTER 6 - Five Elements of a Winning Sales Strategy
 
Element 1: A Compelling Story
Element 2: An Airtight Case for Change
Element 3: A Comprehensive View of Value
Element 4: Mitigation of Risks
Element 5: Trustworthiness and Trust
 
CHAPTER 7 - Who Cares about This Sale . . . and Why?
 
Why Clients Buy
Assemble a Client Value Profile
Formulate Your Action Plan
 
CHAPTER 8 - Shift Happens: Predicting Surprises
 
Five Predictable Surprises
Slow Communication
Change in Project Direction
More Emphasis on Price
Introduction of New Decision Makers
Entry of a New Competitor
 
CHAPTER 9 - The Perfect Sales Proposal
 
Who Will Read Your Proposal?
Anchor Your Proposal with Buyer Win Themes
Anatomy of a Sales Proposal
More Than a Selling Tool
 
PART 3 - Commit
CHAPTER 10 - The Art of the Sales Presentation
 
Tip 1: Never Fly by the Seat of Your Pants
Tip 2: Get to Their Point
Tip 3: Build Consensus Brick by Brick
Tip 4: Prepare to Answer Your Toughest Critics
Tip 5: Collaborate on Every Presentation
Tip 6: Never Go Second
Presentations Are Sales Conversations
 
CHAPTER 11 - Seal the Deal: Negotiating to Close the Sale
 
Five Principles of an Effective Commitment Strategy
Watch for the Green Light
Working Out Terms and Conditions
Getting Commitment
 
CHAPTER 12 - What to Do When You Win . . . and When You Don’t
 
You Can’t Win ’Em All
Finding the Gap
What about Price?
The First Thing to Do When You Win
Define the Client Experience
Set Milestones
Know What You Want to Get
 
CHAPTER 13 - Making the Second Sale and Beyond
 
What Is Client Relationship Management?
Cultivating Strategic Relationships
Keys to Successful Client Relationships
The Obstacles You’ll Face
 
PART 4 - Challenges
CHAPTER 14 - The Seven by Seven Seller
 
The Service Sellers’ Path
The Business Adviser
The Idea Merchant
The Strategist
The Project Leader
The Change Leader
The Relationship Manager
The Communicator
Mastering the New Seller’s Skills
What the Rainmaker Does
 
CHAPTER 15 - Putting It All Together
 
What Makes a Great Seller?
Developing Sales Superstars
Parting Thoughts for Sellers
 
NOTES
——SELLER’S RESOURCE GUIDE——
——ABOUT THE AUTHOR——
INDEX
Also by Michael W. McLaughlin

001

For Sally

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It wasn’t my initial intent to write the book you’re holding in your hands. At the outset, I had a different idea. But my agent, David Fugate, tested the market and helped me broaden the concept for the project. And he did that with patience, perseverance, and publishing industry expertise that is second to none. Thanks, David—without your help, this book wouldn’t have made it to the market.
So many people influenced my thinking and lent a hand with this project that I risk leaving someone out unintentionally. But special thanks to my friends and colleagues, Fiona Czerniawska, Jeffrey Fox, Seth Godin, Ford Harding, Tom Sant, and Andrew Sobel.
I’m also grateful to Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of Guerrilla Marketing, and the coauthor of my first book, Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants. Thanks, Jay, for helping me understand the art and the business of writing a book.
Many of the perspectives in this book were forged by my experiences with the clients I’ve served over the years—both those who said yes to my proposals and the ones that got away. Just about everything I know about selling services came from those clients. I am indebted to each and every one of them and I’ve tried to reflect their voices and their lessons in these pages.
And, as importantly, the book distills what I’ve learned from the thousands of professionals I’ve met and worked with since the publication of my previous book. Thanks to all of you who told me what works for you and what doesn’t. This book is enriched by your collective wisdom.
The team at John Wiley & Sons, Inc., makes the hard work of publishing feel easy. My editor, Shannon Vargo, always knew exactly what to do and when to do it. Beth Zipko never missed an editorial detail, nor did she leave any question unanswered. The sales, production, and marketing teams, who work so hard to convert a manuscript into a book, may not know how easy they are to work with. For their efforts, I am entirely grateful.
No matter how well you manage your time, writing a book becomes a big part of your life—and your family’s life too. My wife, Sally, pushed this book along from a single idea to a completed manuscript. I can’t count the hours she spent sharpening the ideas, editing the text, and preparing the manuscript for publication. If it wasn’t for her, the book just wouldn’t have gotten done. From the first time we met, I knew I was a lucky man. I wish everyone could experience such joy.

INTRODUCTION
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”1
 
 
 
 
You might recognize that line from the movie, Jaws, in which a great white shark terrorizes beachgoers at the seaside community of Amity Island. While out in the newly hired shark hunter’s boat, the town’s police chief takes in the enormity of the beast up close and utters that now-famous understatement.
When facing extraordinary challenges, we often find our existing remedies inadequate. So we use all our resources and best ideas until we figure out how to overcome the latest obstacles. In other words, we find a bigger boat.
If there ever was a time when professional services sellers needed new strategies and tools (a bigger, better boat), this is it. In the not-too-distant past, you knew what to do. Before you met a client for the first time, you would run through a familiar checklist of everything you needed to consider. You would think through your service offering and brush up on your rapport builders. Then you would listen to what the client wanted, offer a solution, handle objections, and close the sale. For the most part, that approach used to work. But some not-so-subtle changes have crept into the services sales process, short-circuiting the power of this routine approach.
For starters, clients began asking tougher questions and demanding more precise answers, including exactly how sellers would deliver their services and who would do the work. No longer satisfied with resumes to make their assessments, clients insisted on handpicking the people they wanted. In some cases, buyers asked sellers to create working prototypes of their proposed solution, offer previously completed work product as examples, and participate in mock workshops to demonstrate that they really knew what they were doing.
Complicating matters, the client might hand over the purchase of the service to a procurement manager for negotiation, creating a buffer between the seller and the real buyer. Procurement executives, always anxious to cut the best deals possible, tend to emphasize price, terms, and conditions instead of the substance of proposals.
Clients have become impatient with the passive role of sitting back and waiting for a sales proposal from the supposed expert, instead demanding a hand in the process from the beginning. And they insist that services providers customize proposals and presentations down to the last detail. Generic claims from sellers, such as “Clients are our first priority,” have ended up as roadkill on the highway to success.
In short, clients have grown weary of constantly keeping their guard up against false sincerity, artificial deadlines, and programmed strategies that salespeople were trained to use. If you need evidence of this fact, just reflect on how hard it can be to get an appointment with anyone other than an intermediary, even if you have something a client needs. If you ask 20 prospective buyers if they’d rather spend the afternoon with a dentist or a salesperson, most will dash to the dentist’s chair.
Sales executives did hear these messages from buyers and responded with what some salespeople still call “customer-focused” sales strategies. Supposedly, these put the client’s interests, not the seller’s desire for a commission, at the center of the sales process. But, to many clients, these strategies looked like the same old seller-centric ones in a new guise.
The predictable outcome is that the client’s perspective about service providers has shifted from “We trust you” to “Prove it.” This is understandable. After years of listening to sales pitches, clients realize that relying solely on sellers’ promises is no longer enough to arrive at a decision. They want more certainty about potential results and risks before they commit their resources. Asking for proof of sellers’ assertions is a logical place to start. What clients are really saying is that they want another way to buy services.
For sellers, this transformation means that the services sale has taken on all the characteristics of a complex project, not just a sales pitch. The salesperson, in effect, has become a project manager—solving clients’ real problems, persuasively advocating for change, and managing the complex sales process. Salespeople are discovering that they not only have to develop superb selling skills, but competence in consultative abilities such as problem analysis, solution development, project management, and change management, to name a few.

Why Services Selling Must Change

One problem for services sellers who try to respond to these buyer demands is the outmoded definition of selling, which has its roots in the history of the product sale. For a business that sells bookcases, the buyer’s need is clear—a place for storing books. What drives that sale is the features, benefits, and price of the bookcases. But if clients are struggling with how to improve employee retention, cut shipping costs, or accelerate business growth, for example, what clients say they want may not be what they really need.
And, unlike those selling products, services sellers can’t afford to sit back in a showroom, waiting for a buyer to arrive with a ready-made need and a credit card. Today’s services seller must be active in the market, offering ideas and solutions that generate client demand, and then they must be able to put together a winning sales strategy to satisfy that demand. What sets service providers apart from other sellers is that they are first and foremost idea merchants.
Before they can sell anything, they must sway clients with their ideas for change. Only then can they attempt to sell their services. This is where traditional sales advice falls short. Without recognition of their role as purveyors of ideas, sellers get trapped in common mistakes, such as trying to close the sale prematurely or preparing sales proposals before the client’s problem is certain. As a result, if they win the sale at all, sometimes they solve the real problem; but it’s equally possible that they end up treating symptoms and nothing really changes for their clients.
What Is a Professional Service?
A professional service is the performance of tasks designed to address a client’s business issue(s) or need(s)—for a fee. A services sale is most often an individualized offering, such as an advertising campaign or a new business strategy. It usually requires more than a single sales call to close and, often, an extended time to deliver.
If you sell or deliver professional services, you know how much one client’s buying process can differ from another’s. You could find that one client wants a traditional dog and pony show for the sales presentation. Another client may want to see a prototype of your solution. Sometimes, clients want the process to have the precision of a symphony; other situations call for improvisation. Your sales process must accommodate either approach, or both. Instead of just listening to what you have to say, today’s clients may dictate the buying process, or at least they’re likely to want a hand in designing it.
But the client’s participation in the sales process doesn’t stop there. Today’s clients often want to coinvent the solutions to their problem with you during the sales process. More and more, clients insist on defining, along with you, every aspect of the service. It is less common for clients to agree to iron out unresolved issues during the delivery of the service. This means that clients are stepping up to take ownership of the solutions they create with you.
These trends, the buyer-designed sales process, coinvention of services, and client ownership of the solution, impact every aspect of the services sale. If nothing else, these trends should tell you that you need new rules for selling professional services. More flexible strategies and tactics will leave the cookie-cutter sales processes in the dust. The intention of this book is to help you reach more clients and win profitable work—without losing your sanity.
The New Environment for Selling Services
002

What You’ll Get

Whether your company sells business services, legal advice, outsourcing solutions, or management consulting, this book is for you. And, if you offer a professional service that is bundled with a product (or sold separately), you, too, will benefit from the concepts outlined here. In these pages, you’ll find strategies and tools for winning the complex services sale, whether you are a sales force of one or part of a team. You won’t find a monolithic sales process, but a set of consultative sales tools to help you identify the right opportunities and land the most profitable work—no matter what services you sell or who you sell them to. For those of you who already have a sales methodology, the principles in this book offer a powerful addition to your preexisting sales process.
Three essential concepts are the backbone of this book: First, in today’s market every sales situation, whatever its size, evolves in predictable ways, and your approach to pursuing the sale must be mindful of this fact. Second, you may offer the same services to every client, but the way those clients buy and the issues you must address will be different every time. That means you must build a winning sales approach dynamically, as each sale unfolds. And finally, the professional services sale is a consultative process, which demands that sellers develop a broader perspective on the client’s business than the sale right in front of them.
To help you respond to these realities and buying trends, the book offers a multipart framework, called “The Three Cs of Winning the Professional Services Sale: Connect, Collaborate, and Commit.” This framework is not a rigid, linear progression of sales activities, but a way to organize a client-specific strategy that leads to a profitable sale.
The Three Cs framework stresses that the professional services sale is a consultative endeavor in which the seller, in collaboration with the client, uses the tools of the business adviser to understand the real issue facing the client. Then, with a clear view of the challenge, the seller and buyer coinvent a range of solutions that reflect the choices the client can make to address the issue. You differentiate those choices by factors such as expected value, complexity to implement, risk, and cost.
Part 1, “Connect,” which helps you launch the sales process, begins with a rundown on the competitive realities confronting services sellers. Then I’ll show you how to get off to a fast start with every sales opportunity through targeted preparation, efficient data collection, and insightful analysis of the client’s issue. The emphasis throughout Connect is on the need to establish your unquestioned competence as the foundation for productive client relationships.
The Three Cs of Winning the Professional Services Sale
003
Part 2, “Collaborate,” lays out how to guide the client from the definition of the problem to a workable sales proposal, if that’s the direction you and the buyer agree on. The underlying idea here is that your eventual profit—and your level of stress—are often determined during this stage of the sale. This part of the Three Cs provides a systematic way to make the (sometimes) tough decision to pursue an opportunity or leave it for someone else. It also offers advice on understanding buyers’ motivations, crafting a winning sales strategy, managing inevitable surprises that crop up during the sales process, and designing the perfect sales proposal.
Among other things, Part 3, “Commit,” shows you how to tell the story about clients’ issues in a way that leads them to buy from you. Given the complexity of professional services offers, many sellers also assume the role of negotiator. If that’s you, then you’ll be able to use the advice on how to close a profitable sale while strengthening the client relationship.
No matter whether you win or lose a sale, you should use the wealth of intelligence you gain from the experience to refine your subsequent attempts to sell. To that end, the section about Commit also includes a way to look back at the sales process with clients to learn what worked and what didn’t. This part of the framework also covers how to kick off your client projects and cultivate your network of client relationships. You’ll find tips for building resilient client relationships that will support you on your current project and on future ones, too.
The Three Cs framework shows you how to become the go-to resource for clients, which should be your goal. You’ll be the first one who comes to mind when your clients need help because of the strength of your ideas and the depth of your relationships.
The final section of the book, “Challenges,” offers a practical guide for becoming a top-performing seller. The concept here, which I call the Seven by Seven Seller, outlines the roles and skills you must master to consistently land the work you really want.
And if you’re a sales manager or executive, look for advice on how to identify potential sellers with just the right mix of talent and skills to become your next rainmaker. You’ll also find suggestions for customizing professional development programs to cultivate the traits you want in all your salespeople.
Throughout the book, dozens of sidebars offer tips to make every part of the sales process more positive for your buyers and more productive for you. I’ve also included “Sanity Checks” along the way to suggest ideas for easing the pressures of selling and to challenge conventional assumptions about how to win the professional services sale.
The examples and stories in the book illustrate why some things work and others do not. These are based on real experiences, but I’ve changed the names and other details about the people involved to protect their confidences.
For simplicity, I use the term client or buyer throughout the book to mean either prospective or existing customer or client. I also use the terms seller and salesperson interchangeably to indicate the individual(s) working on the sales opportunity, whether they are business development professionals or service providers who have responsibility to both sell and deliver their services.
Those who offer professional services to clients are a diverse group, and each type of provider has its own terminology and jargon. Some of you may refer to your work with clients as cases, engagements, initiatives, or projects, and I use these terms interchangeably.
Just to be clear, this isn’t a theoretical book on sales. For more than two decades, I’ve sold and delivered professional services, from one-week assessments handled by a single person to multiyear initiatives staffed by hundreds of people—and everything in between. Most of those sales were purely for services; but some were bundled sales, meaning they included a product and service component. I do not attempt to offer advice on selling products exclusively. Most books that attempt to straddle the worlds of selling products and services end up treating neither subject with the care it deserves.
Whether your title is business development executive, account manager, salesperson, consultant, or sales manager, you will find something of value in this book. The successful salesperson, both now and in the future, will be a consultant, project manager, problem solver, change agent, and seller all rolled into one. You’ll consistently win the professional services sale if you approach each opportunity with two ideas in mind. First, your interests and those of your clients are inseparable. Your challenge is to help clients see that you genuinely believe that. Second, top sellers consistently land the most profitable work by realizing that drawing clients to them through the power of ideas is far more effective than chasing buyers with outmoded sales tactics. This book will help you do all of that and more.
Think of it as a bigger boat.

PART 1
Connect
004

CHAPTER 1
Seven Realities of Selling Services
Filmmaker Woody Allen reportedly once said, “80 percent of success is just showing up.”1 If that aphorism were true about selling, there would be little need for the countless books, seminars, web sites, and software programs that claim to be vital to sellers’ success. Especially when it comes to selling services, you’re likely to lose 80 percent of the time if you just show up. Imagine the advantage you would gain if your competitors believed that’s all they had to do.
If you ask 10 successful salespeople how they land profitable work, you will not hear, “Hey, I just go and see what happens.” Their answers will reveal consistent patterns of behavior that contribute to their clients’ success and, by extension, their own. It’s not accurate to call their behaviors customer-centered or client-focused, because that would imply that these sellers were, at some point, not focused on the client, which isn’t the case. Instead, these sellers embraced the transformation of the seller’s role to business adviser long before most people knew a transformation of selling was under way.
They also refuse to accept conventional selling wisdom at face value. Maybe there are cases, for example, when a client relationship is not the most important factor in a services sale. How can there be a list of hard-and-fast rules for selling services when each sales situation presents a unique mix of challenges, issues, and people? After all, today’s winning “rule” can readily become tomorrow’s relic.
Top sellers do share this goal: to deliver extraordinary value to their clients before, during, and after the sale. To accomplish that, they uncover what each client really needs and then use flexible, pragmatic strategies to chalk up wins for all concerned. Most of all, they understand the realities of selling services, and they use that knowledge to help their clients and themselves.

Sales Reality #1: You Must Prove Your Answers to the Three Burning Questions

Not all that long ago, services sellers rarely had to do much more than proclaim the greatness of their experience and promise to deliver results to make a sale. Naturally, even then this wasn’t always sufficient. But often enough, competitive situations became battles of seller promises. And whoever made the most confident claims won.
Sadly for some, those days are gone. The “Assert and Promise” routine always made for a good show. But those who cling to this antiquated approach will watch their profits slip away. Granted, you necessarily make assertions during the sales process. What’s changed is that you have to prove every assertion and show how you’ll fulfill each promise—in detail. It doesn’t matter whether your company is Global Galactic LLC or Two Guys in a Garage, Inc. You must back up everything you say.
Specifically, be ready to prove your answers to the three burning questions every client will ask (or is wondering about):
1. Do you really understand what we need? You have to demonstrate that you understand why the issue must be resolved and the implications of any solution you propose. You need to address risk and how you manage it, complexity, and the realistic level of client effort to get the job done. Clients expect you to take their preliminary ideas about how to manage a challenge and take that thinking a step further. Otherwise, why would they need you? To do that, you must grasp the issue with a degree of depth that allows you to speak authoritatively about resolving it. You prove your competence by conducting substantive discussions on the details of the issue. A superficial understanding will only get you into trouble and will likely lead to a sales process that veers off course. Your efforts to comprehend your clients’ situation send an important signal that you are thinking about their interests. That begins to build trust, which will serve you throughout the sales process and your client relationships.
2. Can you do what you claim? As you talk to clients about your capabilities, imagine them uttering silently to themselves that famous line from the movie, Jerry Maguire, “Show me the money!”2 They’re probably thinking about some version of that demand. Until you prove what you claim, by whatever means your clients want, it’s all puffery. Don’t use an unproven claim anywhere in your proposals, presentations, or discussions with clients. Be ready with your evidence, even if you don’t need all of it.
3. Will you work well with us? Expect clients to test whether you and your team fit with theirs. You don’t have to be clones of your client’s team, so ignore most advice about creating artificial rapport by pretending you’re someone you’re not. On the other hand, don’t be tough to work with, either. Find the balance between being too aggressive and being a pushover, and check your ego at the door. Remember, you may answer the first two questions with flying colors, but fail this one and you’re likely to lose the sale.
Besides seeking answers to these questions, clients will also try to gauge how much you care about what they’re doing. Some clients will assume that your interests are self-serving, but people pick up on the true motives of others in time. Be patient. If you do really care, your clients will figure that out soon enough. If you don’t, they’ll know that, too.
How to Escape the Commodity Trap
Some sellers complain that clients view their services as a commodity, leading them to ask for lower and lower prices. If clients say or imply that they can’t differentiate your services from those of others, what they’re really saying is that they can’t differentiate your ideas. And that shifts the competitive battle to something they can differentiate: price.
You can escape the commodity trap with the power of your ideas. That is, after all, what you are selling. Find the insights and innovative approach that set you apart from others. Clients want your ideas, especially ones they’re not hearing from every other services seller. Communicate your best ideas to clients and avoid the commodity trap.

Sales Reality #2: Insights and Capabilities—Not Relationships—Close Sales

Suggesting that a strong client relationship is important to the services sale is like saying humans need oxygen to survive. Everyone knows that it’s more comfortable, and often more beneficial, to buy from someone you know and trust. But it’s easy to overestimate the power of those relationships, especially when it comes to selling services. The days of clients automatically handing work to their favorites went the way of the threemartini lunch. Even a multiyear client relationship doesn’t earn you a free pass, and it shouldn’t.
Overestimating the influence of a client relationship can lead to complacency and a lack of the pure hustle you used to start that relationship. Maybe the client returns your calls immediately and gives you an audience whenever you like. But that level of access should encourage you to work even harder to make an impact. Some service providers check in with their top clients and use the time for informal conversations about the client’s issues. If you’re not ready to give your client two or three items of value for everything they share with you, that relationship will eventually lose steam.
Think about the first three meetings you had with your best client. Chances are that you prepared with intensity and looked for ways to bring original ideas your client could use. That’s the behavior that got your relationship moving, and that’s what will nurture it. Remember, the value of the relationship to the client lies in your ability to integrate your past experiences and your creativity to generate insightful guidance. Assume that the client holds you to a higher standard of performance than a new competitor, and you’ll keep the relationship vibrant. Building relationships of mutual respect with clients gives any service provider an edge—if you take care of the relationship. But relationships take you only so far. They may open doors for you, but don’t assume that past client relationships will also close sales.
Sanity Check: Maybe the Client Doesn’t Want a “Relationship”
The conventional wisdom is that you should pursue trust-based relationships with every client. While that’s generally good advice, some clients don’t want or need a relationship with you. They are perfectly happy with mutually productive transactions with you and have zero interest in taking it further. Don’t be offended if a client doesn’t want to pursue a long-term relationship, and don’t assume that the client is not right for your business for that reason alone.

Sales Reality #3: The Client Buying Experience Trumps Sales Techniques

Think about the last time you bought a small electronic product like a calculator, watch, or a data storage device. Chances are the product was encased in thick, molded plastic packaging, with no visible way to free the product—except maybe a hacksaw. That packaging makes the seller’s life easier, not the customer’s. Such experiences influence buyers’ opinions. Some people swear they’ll never buy again from a company that makes it so difficult to use their products.
In that sense, the sale of a service is no different. Your client’s experience in working with you has enormous impact on the buying decision. You want that experience to be the opposite of trying to pry open that hard plastic product casing. Your job is to create a buying process that works for your client, not just for you.
The concept isn’t exactly radical: You and the client codesign a buying process together, which allows the client to learn, analyze, and decide how and when to buy. Instead of focusing on how to sell to the client, you work to identify and create the conditions under which the client is comfortable buying. How do you design a client buying experience? Ask questions.
For instance, don’t assume that a client wants to see a presentation, call references, and then read a proposal. Offer alternatives for the client to learn about you. Maybe your client wants a series of small group briefings, an interview with the service delivery team, and a call of support from your boss. The possibilities are endless, but you won’t know how clients want to buy unless you ask. And you’ll get kudos for bringing up the subject.
Some sellers take this codesigned buying concept a step further by offering to help their clients solve some aspect of the current problem as part of the sales process. Maybe the client has questions about managing the prospective change or about how to decide which seller to choose. It’s becoming more common for sellers to lend their expertise in these matters to make the client’s life simpler and to create a positive buying experience.
No matter how your client wants to buy, you’ll still undertake traditional sales activities such as identifying decision makers, positioning your services in a favorable way, and communicating why you are the best choice. You’ll pursue the precise activities, though, in collaboration with the client, not according to some predefined sales process.

Sales Reality #4: Likability Is Overrated

Sales experts tell us that people buy from people they like, so we should get out there and get on the buyer’s good side. Some claim that people never buy from someone they don’t like. The unfortunate result of this perspective is that salespeople get caught up in trying to win a popularity contest. Naturally, you don’t want clients to find you repulsive, and no one wants to hire a jerk. But trying to get a buyer to like you is the epitome of seller-centric behavior, and clients instinctively recognize it as such. When you try to steer attention your way, it diverts everyone’s attention from the problem at hand, and that’s not good for you, the client, or the sale. Robert Cialdini, author of the classic book, Influence, has this take on likability:
In every sales training program, the first rule is that you have to get the buyer to like you. I think that’s wrong. The first rule of sales is for you to come to like the buyer.
When you feel sincere affinity and concern for someone, that person usually senses those feelings, and barriers go down. That’s because you are much more likely to protect that person’s interests, and so both sides win. Besides, you can’t control what the person across the table feels about you, but you can control what you feel toward that person.3
If you are skeptical, ask any politician whether this works and you’ll get eager nods. They know that they must convince voters that they are looking out for the voters’ interests or they won’t win the next election. The reality is that a client may like you, and may even enjoy having you over for dinner, but unless you like your client and behave in ways that demonstrate that, you may be unable to reach a level of trust that encourages that person to buy from you.
Sanity Check: Dump “Business Development” from Your Card
When you begin a sales meeting with the ritual business card swap, what message does the title on your business card send? Many sellers use the title, “Business Development Manager,” “Account Representative,” or something similar. Think about how clients view that seemingly innocuous title. It says that you are there to build your business. Look for a more client-focused title, or leave the title off your card entirely. Your client knows that you’re there to sell. No need to make it any more explicit or create barriers before you even hear the client’s first word.

Sales Reality #5: Your People Are Not Number One for the Buyer

Services sellers often claim that the key to winning is the people they propose to do the work. Some go so far as to say that their company’s talented people are the ultimate differentiator. There’s little doubt that individuals can sway a sale, but to suggest that it’s the primary decision point ignores a simple reality of the sales process: Clients care first about the impact of your services on them; then they think about your people.
Your team does have to make a good impression, and perceived competence is central in selling services. But the people on your team are probably not your buyer’s foremost concern. Consider, for example, the architect who blithely describes the process of demolition and reconstruction of a client’s office space, or the lawyer who suggests that litigation is the best alternative to resolve a dispute. Reconstruction projects or protracted litigation may be just another day at the office for the architect or lawyer. But either can be a jarring prospect for clients, whose mental wheels are no doubt spinning about the impact of those activities on their businesses.
Your challenge is to view the problem as though it’s the first time you have confronted it and the possible solutions. Then, discuss the problem from that perspective. Just because you know that a wall must come down, don’t assume that anyone agrees with you. Take your client through the thought progression and reach the conclusion together. The conversation may take a little longer, but you will have differentiated your services and yourself. Once your client sees that, then the people you propose to deliver the service can make the difference between a win and a loss.

Sales Reality #6: Value Is in the Eye of the Beholder

No matter what you believe about the value of your services, it’s the client who ultimately decides the sources of value. Some sellers are so sure of their own perceptions that they miss what’s really important to the client.
That’s what happened to Chris. His company helps clients tighten up security for their information systems. His message, that clients can achieve highly secured information systems at a reasonable cost, helped him generate enviable sales momentum. Chris was winning in the marketplace with his message. But when he proposed his services to a longtime client, he lost the sale to a lesser-known, higher-priced competitor.
The loss was perplexing. Chris’s sales proposal was flawless, including his detailed assessment of the threat his client faced, a creative strategy for mitigating that threat, and the six-figure estimate of value the program would deliver. He reviewed his hand-delivered proposal with his client sponsor and it was well received. Chris thought everything was in place—a high-value proposal, a trusted client sponsor, and the track record to make it all happen.
Why did he lose this seemingly sure bet? Chris got beat on his analysis of value. He made a compelling case for the overall financial value, but he missed the importance of one deal-breaking detail. The client was intent on training his own staff in conducting information security reviews, but Chris’s proposal made only a passing reference to that priority. His competitor made the client’s view on that point the centerpiece of the proposal and walked away with the deal.
You may think that Chris didn’t listen to his client and that’s why he lost. But Chris demonstrated that he heard the client by making reference to enabling the client’s team to become self-reliant. Unfortunately, he didn’t emphasize that enough; he stressed what he thought was more valuable, not what really mattered to the client.