The Mistake Bank has just posted two podcasts with me. The first is a story that taught me there can be pitfalls in sharing the good side and bad side of things with a reporter.
The second is on the profound teachings I received from a prospect who simply wouldn’t call me back.
You can find them both on this Shoptalk post.
Here are some rhetorical questions about selling. Everyone in sales has asked themselves at least some of these questions at one time or another. Unanswered these questions can be demotivating. It may be helpful to have a place where you can find the answer.
I’ll answer the next six questions in my next blog post.
1> Why bother making long-term relationship development calls when the probability that any one of them will result in new work rounds to zero?
Why? Because, if you make enough of them, the cumulative probability that someone you talk to will hire you is high.
2> Why bother calling an old client when our contact there knows what we do and where to find us?
Why? Because if we don’t, he may give his business to someone who talks to him from time to time and shows an interest in him and reminds this busy and sometimes distracted client of what her firm does.
3> Why bother going to an association meeting when I hate doing it and am no good at small talk?
Why? Because it is a highly efficient way to meet and catch up with many market contacts. Also, because networkers know that there is no such thing as small talk; there is only business talk and relationship talk. And finally, because you don’t have to be good at small talk. You need to listen to other people, so that you learn about them.
4> Why bother inviting more than a couple of people to the firm open house, when most people don’t want to come and when no one decides to buy our kinds of services based on having attended a party?
Why? Because if they don’t want to come, they will decline, and then you can ask how they are doing, and who knows what you will learn? Also because more people probably want to come than you imagine, but they can’t come unless invited. And finally, because some will hire us if they know us and like us and trust us which will result from many small steps, such as this invitation.
5> Why bother building a relationship beyond our current assignment with people my age in a client organization, when they don’t decide what firm to hire?
Why? Because they will move up the organizational ladder over time, just as you hope to, and if you stay in touch with them with even one call a year, you will have a much better chance of doing business with than if you drop them for ten years and only show interest in them again when they have become important.
6> Why bother calling former clients when we have so much work already that we couldn’t deal with another matter if one of them wanted us to. Or, why bother calling former clients when we know that none of them will have any work for us until the economy improves?
Why? Because when the economy turns down you will have a better chance of getting what little business there is, if you have shown an interest in them in good times. Because we need to be first in line when they do have work to offer.
You have just delivered a speech on the effect of the new tax law on employment expenses that packed the emotional wallop of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I Had a Dream speech.
The association audience rose to clap, whistle and cheer, calling you back for an encore. You gave them some quick insights into increasing deductions for charitable donations, which was followed by over five minutes of heartfelt applause, forcing you to the podium three times to wave and bow.
Later, after the high from presenting had worn off, you asked one of the conference organizers for a list of people who had attended your session. She told you that the organization didn’t keep track of attendance at the smaller breakout sessions. During the following week you hoped for calls from members of the audience, but they never came.
You never knew it, but three of the attendees intended to call you, but didn’t get around to it. Six months later, a fourth thought of calling after arguing with her tax advisor, but couldn’t remember your name. The other sixteen people who attended the breakout session never thought of you again.
Though the audience was smaller than you remembered it, had you actually talked with the four people who thought about calling you, you would have achieved an impressive twenty percent follow-up rate.
After giving a speech, if you don’t follow up with attendees, your chances of converting any of them into clients drops to low single digits. But, you can’t follow up with them unless you know who they are. That means you have to get their names and contact information and often, as in our example, the organizers of the event can’t tell you who was there.
Withhold Slides – Not Always a Good Idea
Speakers have developed a number of ways to get the information they need. Many withhold copies of their slides before and at the event and then offer to send them to anyone in the audience who provides a business card.
Though easy and obvious, this approach has several drawbacks. First, it frustrates those attendees who want to take notes on hard copy of your materials. This clearly runs counter to your goals, and, lest you forget, the goals of the conference organizers who have given you this opportunity. It will also be ineffective, if you allow the sponsoring organization to post your slides on its website, providing the attendees an alternative access. Denying your hosts the use of your materials will frustrate them a second time.
Offer Additional Materials
You can avoid these problems by providing copies of your slides at the event and then offering additional materials, such as a whitepaper, to anyone who leaves a business card. Of course, someone will have to develop the whitepaper—a big increase in the work required to prepare. Most firms post such documents on their websites for all to see, anyway.
Pass out an Attendance Sheet
More artful speakers prepare an attendance sheet, with columns for each attendee’s name, company, email address and phone number. A few minutes before the session is scheduled to start, the speaker or her colleague gives the sheet on a clipboard to someone in the front row and asks him to sign in and pass it on. At the end of the session, she collects the sheet from wherever it has been left in the back of the room. If you ask, the sponsors of the event may discourage this tactic. It doesn’t work well for large audiences.
Pass out a Survey
During my days as a location consultant; helping companies select places for factories, offices, and research labs; I gave a presentation to a group of human resource officers on labor markets. It was at the peak of an economic boom with labor shortages in many areas. At the beginning of the presentation, I passed out a ten question survey of how companies were dealing with tight labor markets. There was a place at the bottom for participants to provide contact information to which I could send the survey results. That information was what I was after.
Better still, Question #3 asked how the respondents’ companies would address the labor shortage. They were asked to mark all the things they would do from a list that included raising wages, lowering hiring standards, advertising more heavily and other tactics. Among the tactics was move operations to a new location. Everyone who indicated that her firm was planning to use that tactic was a potential user of our services. I still feel a bit smug about that one.
Q: In earlier postings you have described formulas professionals can use to write an article efficiently. Are there any others?
A: An interview format can be effective.
Q: But don’t you have to wait around for a journalist to find and then interview you or convince some journalist to? And even then don’t you sacrifice a lot of control over the piece?
A: Not necessarily. In my experience, though the journalist sometimes seeks out the expert, as likely as not it was the subject of the interview who sought out the journal. Three times I have interviewed colleagues and once wrote out a series of questions and silently interviewed myself, typing my answers into my laptop. All four interviews were published in reputable journals.
Q: Is there an ethical issue here?
A: I don’t think so. As long as the answers are honest, I’m not sure it matters who asked the questions. The publications didn’t name someone else as the interviewer. The format does imply that you have some authority on a subject—a good thing—but so does a bylined article. And most likely, you do have some authority on the subject of the interview
Q: Are there advantages to the interview format?
A: It’s engages the reader who can scan the questions and dip in to read the answers that interest her. Its loose structure allows you to wander across an array of topics not possible within the development of a theme required in bylined pieces. The questions can change the direction of the piece more abruptly than is possible in an article.
Q: What about the time commitment?
A: It usually takes less time to write than a traditional article.
Q: How does one go about writing one?
A: It’s quite simple. You sit down alone or with colleagues and develop a list of questions. Include both those the clients frequently ask and some of those you wish they would ask. Sort them by subject. Winnow them down and then write down your answers.
Q: Are there any disadvantages?
A: Yes. Many journals won’t accept a piece in this format. Those that do are amazingly diverse, from blogs to trade journals to large circulation publications.
Q: Do you have an example of another blog posting or other electronic media use of this format?
A: Yes. Take a look at my posting, He Talks Too Much. Suzanne Lowe uses this format in her newsletter The Marketplace Master™. Michael McLaughlin does, too in Management Consulting News. It’s a flexible format enhances your reputation, and that allows you to put something together fast. What more could you ask for?
For more advice like this, please see Ford Hardings’ new book: Rain Making, Attract New Clients No Matter What Your Field, 2nd Edition
“Rain Making, in its new edition demonstrates its position as the single most sensible, accessible guide to building a professional practice…”
David Maister, author of Strategy and the Fat Smoker and co-author of The Trusted Advisor (with Charles Green and Robert Galford)
Many thanks for two people who reviewed the new edition of Rain Making.
First, to Emily Granstaff-Rice of the Young Architects Forum , which is organized to address issues of particular importance to recently licensed architects (licensed 10 years or fewer). You may read her review here, and learn more about the Young Architect’s Forum here.
And second, thanks to Tim Klabunde, whose review is in this recent issue of the Society for Marketing Professional Services of DC book club. Tim also posted the review in his blog, cofebuz.com.
Most rainmakers work large networks. The size of the networks varies with the profession—executive recruiters who sell a lot of searches in a year need more contacts than do actuaries with their evergreen services—but networks over of 1,000 are common enough.
With that many contacts, most of the relationships by necessity are . . . well . . . shallow.
Shallow when modifying relationships has distinctly negative connotations. Yet, we all have relationships that, though not deep, are good and sustaining in their own way. This is not to deny the importance of deep relationships. Rather, I bring this up, because I sometimes work with professionals who are so focused on deep relationships that they forget the value they can give and receive from ones that will never be deep.
The characteristics of a good, though not-deep relationship include mutual respect as people and as professionals and commitment to help each other, if in limited ways. They do not need to include shared interests beyond the narrow field in which the two people network together.
At this level the born-again Christian and the atheist give to each other and get back. The sports nut and the ballet buff work to make each others’ lives better. People whose countrymen are at each others’ throats look out for each others’ welfare.
This is not a utopian vision. It exists in many heavily networked markets. It is not a formula for world peace, but can make our lives more interesting and rewarding.
Remember one more thing about these less than profound relationships: Anyone who has been out of work or had a personal crisis learns that it is not always the people you expected to who help you the most. Sometimes the deep relationships are not as deep as we had thought and some of the shallow ones aren’t so shallow.
I recently had a conversation with John Caddell of Shop Talk, a blog on marketing strategy and management.
Among the things we discussed was the fact that most professional services people are hired for their native intelligence, critical thinking skills, etc., and not for their sales competence. This results in an often painful transition when these folks are asked to start selling.
Listen to the podcast at Shop Talk.
“I find the business development and sales process a mystery. I don’t have a handle on it. I don’t feel like I can control the outcome.”
These are the words of a human resources consultant whom I will call Charlie. A smart and talented man of about 40 with an MBA, he had successfully changed careers and been selected to help turn a successful regional practice into a national one. This marked him as a candidate for rapid advancement at the firm.
He is well aware that advancement along this fast track will hinge on his ability to bring in business and, at his own expense, has taken a well-reputed sales course that is open to the public. He learned useful things there, but clearly something is missing.
Our firm works with many professionals in similar straits. These are full-time deliverers of their firms’ services, who must learn to sell, often at levels equivalent to or higher than is expected of dedicated salespeople in non-professional firms. It is the making or breaking of many careers.
So what’s missing? If Charlie is to gain control of his professional life, he must first identify the factors that will determine his success at business development. Being clear about his goals will allow him to focus his scarce business development hours on the right things. That is why Harding & Company coaches spend so much time on goal clarity at the beginning of an assignment.
For Charlie, as it is for many others, it comes down to:
This is a lot to learn, but well within the range of the possible. Now that we have a clear picture of what he needs, we can set about helping him regain a sense of control of his professional destiny. The first step in becoming a rainmaker is a clear diagnosis of what you need to learn.
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Order your copy of Ford Harding’s new and revised edition of Rain Making, called ”…an essential guide for anyone responsible for business development in the professional services industry…” - Mark Mactas, Chairman and CEO Towers Perrin
Ford Harding is the founder and President of Harding & Company, helping management consultants, public relations specialists, accountants, architects, attorneys, executive recruiters and engineers win new clients. The author of a number of books, he often writes for publications such as the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, and Consulting to Management. More on Ford Harding.
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