Like many other firms, a client of mine is having trouble getting those employees just below the partner level to sell. The firm serves the healthcare provider industry and works for major medical centers. It has grown rapidly over the past fifteen years by dint of hard work, high quality service and good management. Five years ago the executive committee made a decision which contributed to the firm’s growth and profitability: They decided to work only for the largest medical complexes. They also set a lower limit on the size of fee the firm would accept, resulting in their turning away a lot of small projects from small clients. Though there was much grousing about this decision, the committee held it’s ground, and the wisdom of the decision was soon apparent. Firm revenue increased by 35% the following year. A significant share was attributed to replacing small clients and assignments with large ones.

But cutting away the small clients caused a problem that hadn’t been expected. Young professionals had learned to sell by pursuing work that senior partners weren’t interested in. In other words they practiced on the small client, where it was safe. When a small client gave the work to a competitor, the consequences were minor. The same partners were unwilling to let their young colleagues pursue the big accounts where so much money was at risk. When I interviewed several of the firm’s rainmakers, they told me that they, too, had learned how to develop business by going after small prospective clients. In the earlier part of the careers, the firm had been much smaller and there were fewer large medical centers to sell to, so selling to small clients made more sense.

And just where are the future leaders of the firm to hone their selling skills now? Can they be licensed to sell a limited number of cases to small clients? Will the senior partners commit to mentoring them more diligently than in the past, allowing them to learn while pursuing work at larger accounts? No one has the answer yet. Unless, of course, you look beyond the narrow field of selling professional services.

Over the past quarter century, General Electric has been consistently among the best developers of executive talent. As GE and its business units grew the company ran into an analogous problem to the one we are contemplating here. The businesses were just too big and the stakes too high to be left to green managers. So, where were new managers to learn to manage? GE’s answer was the lemonade stand. The term was company argot for small businesses, often acquired as part of bigger businesses. Instead of selling these assets off as unneeded, some would be kept as training schools for new managers. If a new manager screwed up, it didn’t matter much. After all, it was just a lemonade stand.

I believe in setting lower limits to project and client size. It’s a great way to increase revenues and profits. But let young professionals learn to sell where its safe. Let them practice selling two or three pieces of business at small accounts before you ask them to sell something big to a huge one. If they lose such a sale, it doesn’t matter much; it’s only a lemonade stand!

Maurie Fulton, a rainmaker who gave me my first job in consulting, knew his field cold and, just as important, knew his clients.  Through years of negotiating fees, he was familiar with every ploy that clients would use to get our fees down and had effective counter ploys for all of them.  Whenever a prospective client would try a ploy, he would real off his standard response with such grace and confidence that the clients would usually move on to another subject without further comment.  Here are a few client ploys and Maurie’s counters:
 

Client Ploy: Someone Else is Cheaper
Counter Ploy: The Butter Story
 

On hearing our fee, the client would say that they were talking with one of our competitors who would do the work for less.  “So, why don’t you use them?” Maurie would ask, sensing this was just a ploy.  Not expecting this question, the client would say that the competitor couldn’t start as quickly or didn’t have quite as much experience as we did, and Maurie would respond with his butter story.  “It reminds me of the woman who told the grocer that the store down the street sold butter for half his price.  ‘So, why not by it from them?’ countered the grocer.  ‘Because he’s out of butter,’ said the woman. To which the grocer responded, ‘Lady, when I’m out of butter I sell it for half off, too.’”
 

Client Ploy: This Could be the Beginning of a Long   Relationship
Counter Ploy: That’s What I’m Afraid Of
 

The client would suggest that this would be the first of many projects he would give us, if we just gave him a break on our price.  And with a twinkle in his eye, Maurie would respond, “You mean that this could be the beginning of a long relationship? Yes, a long and unprofitable one.”

Client Ploy: Existing Data Makes You Cheap
Counter: Let Me Help You Find Someone Else  

On seeing our impressive array of proprietary information, the client would say that with all that data on file, the cost of our service would be low.  Maurie would smile and respond, “If you wish I can introduce you to several people who are much less expensive than we are, who don’t have any of this data.”

These kinds of statements by clients should be taken for what they are, offhanded attempts to wheedle your prices down.  Remain calm and try one of Maurie’s responses.  They almost always work.

Readers,do any of you have effective responses to common negotiating ploys by clients.  If so, would you share one?

Professional:  I was wondering if you could help me.  I’ve been told that I talk too much at sales meetings.  And I know it’s true.  I’ve tried to stop, but I always seem to be the one who’s doing most the talking?  Is this the kind of thing you can help with?
 

Coach:  Tell me more.
 

Professional:  Well, I always go into a sales meeting with the best intentions, but somehow I always end up talking and the prospective client ends up asking the questions.  I don’t know how it happens.  I feel I have to answer his questions and that means I have to talk.  I’ve been doing this work for many years, so I can size up most issues that a client is concerned about pretty quick.  That’s a part of the problem.  In some ways I know their problems better than they do, I’ve seen them so many times before.
 

Coach:  Can you give me an example?
 

Professional:  Sure.  Last week I met with an old client.  I asked him if he might need our help over the next few months, and he mentioned an issue his department was struggling with and asked if we had ever done any work in that area.  I only knew about one matter of that kind that we had ever worked on, so I described it. I could tell I had scored some points, because his level of interest picked up a lot, and before I knew it the hour was up, and I had done all the talking, and it was time for me to go.  He acted as if he was ready to hire us.
 

Coach:  Really?
 

Professional:  Oh yes.  We even talked about getting started next week.  He wants the work done fast, and he was particularly interested in how we had delivered on such a tight schedule for the other client. That hour went by in a blink. He was so interested in the example I gave, I thought for sure we had won.  But I was wrong.  He called this morning and told me he had hired someone else.  When I asked him why, he said that the other firm understood their problem better. It’s the third time in two months that I’ve had my head handed to me this way.  Have you seen this kind of problem before?
 

Coach:  Yes, but I have a few more questions.  Can you elaborate on what happened during the first part of the meeting?
 

Professional:  You mean right from the beginning? . . . .  Let’s see. . . . He met me in the lobby and we went into a small conference room.  I asked how things were going, and he talked for a bit.  I don’t remember exactly what he said.  But somehow he brought up their new operation in Minnesota.  That’s when he asked if we had done anything similar.  I guess that’s when I started talking.  But I’m not sure what choice I had.
 

Coach:  You sound pretty frustrated.
 

Professional:  I sure am.  I just don’t see how I can avoid talking so much.  I mean, when a prospective client asks you a question, you have to answer him, don’t you?
 

Coach:  What else?
 

Professional:  I’ve sometimes been criticized for talking too fast, too.  I always . . .  

*  *  *  *  *

In a sales meeting do you act more like the professional in the preceding dialog or like the coach?  There are many short phrases that will keep a client talking:
 

Tell me more
Can you give me an example?
Really?
Can you elaborate?
You sound frustrated or That can’t be easy
What else?
I’m not sure I understand
And then?
And so?

Experienced rainmakers can have little patience for a rainmaker-in-the-making. They are a driven group and sometimes see the newcomer’s fumbling attempts as a series of lost opportunities.

Too many years ago, a professional in his mid thirties was put in charge of a practice when the former head moved up to take over an office. He was smart and decent and at least once I had heard him described as a Superman-look-alike. I will call him Clark. His boss had been a rainmaker of monsoon proportions and had built up a practice made up of professionals who looked to the practice head to flood them with work.

And Clark tried to. The practice had an enviable reputation, resulting in many unsolicited requests for proposal. It also had a first-rate business developer, who ferreted out opportunities. Clark would pursue these leads vigorously. Returning from each client meeting, he would say how good it had been. Every presentation, he would say, had been a whopping success. Then the client would call to tell him that they had picked someone else. Clark would go to the next meeting and again report on a near win. But it wasn’t. Not once. For almost a year.

“He just doesn’t get it,” asserted one of the best rainmakers in the firm, and he certainly seemed not to. The description stuck to him; he just didn’t get it. The end of some long-term projects was in sight, increasing the pressure on him to find more work for his team.
He hung in there for pitch after pitch remaining upbeat, always sure he would win the next one. And eventually, he did get one. And then he got another and over four or five years became a rainmaker himself and eventually the president of the firm.
There were several reasons for his ultimate success; I will make a point of one here. What saved Clark was his boundless optimism. His ability to rebound from every loss was unlike anything I had seen. He may not have gotten it (whatever “it” was), but if he had he might have become discouraged. Most people would have. I would have.

Ever since then, when looking for rainmaker material, I have looked for optimism. And when I have been asked to help young professionals learn to sell, I have sought to help them be more optimistic. And in doing so, I have become more optimistic, myself.
You should have been with me this morning on the sales call. It was fantastic!

One of the groups of recruiters I coach wanted to discuss how to improve their chances of winning a search in an area where they had no experience.  Several members of the group had lost opportunities when the prospective clients had asked what searches they had done for similar positions.  In each case, on hearing none for the answer, the clients’ interest in the recruiters had evaporated.  At our firm we call this the what-lucky-client-gets-to-go-first problem.  And it’s a stinker.
 

It’s a stinker because, no matter what you do, a large percentage of the clients will opt for the more experienced professional over the neophyte.  The best way to deal with that fact is to accept it and to recognize that you will have to lose a few until you find the client willing to take a flyer on the new kid.  There’s no point in beating yourself up over such a loss.
 

But there are things you can do to improve your odds of winning.  First, preempt the discussion by bringing it up first,early in the sales meeting.  You might say, “I want to tell you up front that we have never done a search (or project or case or matter, if you are not a recruiter) for your specific industry.  For a number of reasons, we don’t think that’s a problem.  But if you see it as a knockout please say so, because we don’t want to waste your time or ours.”  If the prospective client responds that it is not a knockout, she has moved herself a little closer to that being true.  And bringing the subject up, you will sound less defensive than if you are asked.   Sounding defensive is deadly in this situation. You will get marks for honesty.
 

Then, explain how important the project will be to you, because it would be your first.  Make it clear how hard you would work on it, to establish yourself in the new area, implying that the matter would be treated more routinely by more experienced firms.  The old Avis tag line, We Try Harder, still packs a punch.
 

Finally, demonstrate your enthusiasm and responsiveness in your demeanor and in the way you respond to the client’s requests.  Give them a sense of what it would be like to work with someone who really wants the assignment.
 

Sooner or later a client will say, “I really like those guys.  I think they will do everything they can to make this a big success.  I think we’ll give them a chance.”

These are good times for professionals, many having more work than they can handle.  This glut of client opportunities gives firms a rare chance to upgrade the size and quality of their clientele.  To do so they will need to raise rates and turn away small clients and low margin work.  Many find that hard to do.  Why?
 

A client and friend who is a PhD, economist and a rainmaker at a litigation support firm argues that if you aren’t losing two out of three competitive pitches, your fees are too low.  You may not agree with his ratio, but his logic is impeccable.  It’s both good and essential to lose to competitorson price—sometimes. 
 

Operationally, that is a hard message to grasp, because it goes against all of our prior training.  What sport did you ever play where you sought to lose two thirds of the time?  When were you encouraged to go for D’s or F’s in school?  Was being passed over for promotion ever a good thing?  Whenever someone says, I’m glad I lost, it sounds like sour grapes.  Maybe a PhD economist can feel good about losing, but the rest of us don’t.
 

So, we go on competing intensely to win work only to find that we have set ourselves up to lose an opportunity to win a bigger, more strategically important client, because we can’t start soon enough or because we sent the B team to the sales presentation, or because taking the work from the small client created an insurmountable conflict.
 

Firms that overcome this problem usually do so by setting minimums in the size of assignment they take on.  One firm I know of doubled its average project size after enforcing a controversial minimum-sized-project policy.  Revenues ballooned the following year.

I know of another firm that raised its rates 20 percent in one year and didn’t reduce its conversion rate on proposals by even one percent.  But it took guts to hold to such a big price increase.

I think I’ll try a different approach.  The next time someone in the firm loses a pitch on price, I’m going to throw a wine and cheese party for the office in celebration.