The dream client slides the draft of the proposal back to a sales professional in disappointment. As the potential client considers this new relationship, he cannot help thinking that the recommendations are light on details, surface level at best. After all the work that went into the sales professional creating this first opportunity, the dream client is feeling left with disappointment. The proposal hit the highlights of previous conversations and reiterations of what can be done for the client, but what it lacked was several crucial areas beyond the initial request. Finally, in frustration the dream client exclaims what he had been thinking for the last 30 minutes, “I am not supposed to be the smartest person in the room!”
Most professional service firms are trying hard to differentiate their sales professionals from their competitors. Whether they are an accountant, engineers, architects, or bankers, these companies are desperately trying to separate from their competitors and not compete just on price. These firms are desperately trying to provide value to a potential client, but most are unsure how. What is changing in today’s environment is the importance of value creation within high impact conversations around the board-room table.
What has been happing for years is for sales professionals tend to focus their business development conversations on the products and services that they offer and the strong reputation of their companies. In short, they are conducting a conversation to prospective clients that sounds remarkably like what their competitors complete.
This lack of differentiation boils down to one of many major flaws in their business development process: Focusing too much on what they do for a client, rather than what they know. The business development process can sometimes get bogged down in the checklist mentality of what a firm offers, their capabilities and reputation, and what problems they solve. This is especially important in the customers process but does not create true differentiation from their competitors when trying to land a new client. What elite service firms are focusing on is developing a process that allows sales professionals to show what they know, not what they sell.
Adding context to a selling situation in the professional services is one of the most powerful tactics that a firm can focus on. Adding context starts with empathy, which in is the ability to see the person on their side of the table and respect their viewpoint. There are three powerful pillars that can add context and empathy to developing and winning the clients of your dreams.
First, be curious. At first glance this might seem obvious, but what decision-makers want is to know that a sales professionals thinking has gone past the initial request. They can tell by the types of questions they are being asked but being able to show knowledgeable context is extremely powerful in this process. When a decision-maker is asked to elaborate further to take a conversation to a deeper level, confidence is being built. In the end, decision-makers want to feel like they are understood, even if their situation may not be unique. One of the most powerful yet simple questions that can be asked of a decision-maker is, “Going a bit further, let us talk about how this might impact your business further. I have some ideas!” or “Based on my experience in your industry, I have seen a few things in this project that you may have to deal with down the road, let’s talk now!” Remember, decision-makers want to know what they do not know and giving them this information ahead of time, is powerful.
Second is to listen. I can see the eye rolls with the blinding flash of obvious here. I find that years of old sales training and business development concepts have hurt sales professionals in this regard. For the last 30 years, consultative selling has dominated the business development training landscape and it has taught us great value in asking powerful questions. Issues can start to surface in one’s business development process when the focus is on perfecting the questions rather than really hearing and following the prompts of a great mutual conversation. Sales professionals can fall into the trap of becoming more checklist oriented in their questioning and not hearing what is really being said. It is great to have a ‘map’ of where you want to take a conversation with a potential client but taking time to slow down on the process of understanding a client is powerful. In most cases, it is what we do not hear that can be more important than what we hear.
Lastly, it is the sales intelligence that a sales professional brings to the table. This trend is going to continue to grow as dream clients have become more informed and sophisticated. We must move past relying solely on great questions and turn our sales focus into deep insights delivered to our prospects. Ample research shows that today’s decision-maker wants insights and will only deal with sales professionals that can deliver this higher level of value. There are countless ways to research a potential client and their industry obtain a higher level of knowledge that creates an unparalleled conversation with a dream client. Our goal on any interaction with a client is to have a conversation of such great value, they would almost want to pay you for the time.
A cornerstone of today’s business development process should center around the acquisition of knowledge that a sales professional can bring to a client. Moving past what they can do for a client in terms of scope and task of a project and bringing fresh perspective is a huge advantage. Sales professionals that are being paid for what they know should be confident in the answer to the question after each sales conversation, “Did I give my dream client a perspective that they did not think of before?”
Larry Young is the owner of Boiling Frog Development, a business development strategy and leadership development firm that helps organizations find the sound of their dream clients’ voice. He helps them to focus their business development right in the center of that target market by aligning strategy and sales. Larry Young is an author of Walk the Sales Plank, a professional speaker to conferences and corporate events, and regular guest on tv, radio, and national podcast.
