For many years, Harding & Company has studied rainmakers to learn what it takes for professionals to make the transition from doing and managing client work to selling it. One of the biggest reasons that some fail to make this transition is giving up too soon. There are many causes of this problem; one of the most significant is inadequate performance standards.

We define performance standards as measures by which you can determine:

• The degree to which you are succeeding or failing,
• The degree to which you are on track to succeeding or failing,
• How your performance compares to others, and
• Where you should devote your attention to improving your performance, either by doing more or less of an activity or by doing something else.

Of course, performance standards exist in countless fields. We use them when we evaluate our academic performance (grades, class rank, difficulty ratings of courses taken), play a sport, such as golf (putts per hole, making pars) or when we judge the suitability of something, like a car, for our needs (fuel consumption, acceleration, safety ratings).

We know from those fields that identifying and assessing performance against the right standards is critical to success. We know, for example, what we should be reviewing our child at home if she gets generally high grades in math, but fails a test on fractions.

We often forget that we have absorbed these standards from an early age. When faced with a new kind of activity that we don’t fully understand, there is always a risk of applying the wrong performance standards, usually adapted from some other area with which we are more familiar, to our detriment.

One of the authors remembers his first good hit in golf and recalls how satisfying it felt to see the ball sail straight through air right to the place he was aiming for. Without realizing, he applied standards he had learned in other activities, like riding a bicycle, where once you learn how do it you have learned it forever. He thought that he would make one good stroke after another. But golf doesn’t work that way. In golf, one good stoke is just that: one good stroke. It takes a lot of practice to do it consistently. He had to reset his standards for the new game.

The need to change expectations, like this, so that you can judge your own progress is certainly true for those learning to sell professional services. A big part of building the persistence and other habits, needed to succeed at rain making, is the development of the right standards.

In a future post, we will review some common rain making performance, such as time to result, routine ratios and reliability measures.

Post by Ford Harding & Gary Pines

Technical professionals chose college majors that are highly analytical and shied away from more customer-facing fields such as business or marketing oftentimes because they never wanted to sell anything.  In life, being perverse, these professionals are then confronted with their greatest fear as they approach their peak earning years.  They are told by firm leaders that they must sell to advance to the ranks of Partner.  The thought of selling gives many seasoned professionals significant angst.  This angst is a result of their association with sales being opportunistic, pushy and deceptive.  Reframing this association with selling to be more synonymous with helping is the first step towards building acceptance of the tasks required to be effective at business development.  The earlier in a professionals development that you can reframe a negative sales perception, the sooner the professional will begin exhibiting effective business development behaviors.  In the next two blog posts we will share some ways to do this but also wanted to solicit our readers to share their experiences with this too.

Many consultants are uncomfortable asking for the sale.  They have a fear of rejection or say it feels pushy to ask and courteous to wait.  By waiting, what they don’t realize is that they could lose the sale! 

Asking for the sale is a consultant’s right.  You have spent time and energy crafting and presenting a solution to address a client’s need.  You have also flushed out and succinctly addressed specific client concerns.  Your question to the client, “Do you have any other questions?” is answered by the client with, ‘No.”  Now is the time to ask.

You’re on, so here are some approaches for your LAST question: 

·             Needs based: “Since you have agreed that our capabilities and approach meet your needs, can we work with you on this project? 

·             Relationship based: “Since we have worked well on past projects together, are you comfortable proceeding with us for this project?

·             Fee based: “If we drop our fees 15% do we have a deal?” 

·             Assumption based (Assumes that you are starting the project) “Can we schedule the first round of leadership interviews next week?” 

·            Next Steps: “Where do we go from here? “

After you ask for the business, you must follow these two sales rules to get a successful outcome:

1. When giving concessions, each additional concession should be smaller so that the client can see the end of the negotiation is near. 

2.      After you ask for the business be quiet and listen. Do not say a single word until the client responds – even if it feels like eternity! 

Silence can be golden!

Author:  Gary Pines   (gpines@hardingco.com)

After you “tweet”, “friend”, “link”, email, or mass mail to gently ease into reconnecting with an old client having some canned conversation initiators can make Step 2 – “The Call” much easier.  Here are five tried and true approaches that have worked for the reluctant caller.  When it’s time to pick up the phone and talk to your contact try these words.  Don’t fake it, find one that’s true to you. 

1.        “I was pleased to reconnect with you via LinkedIn; it made me realize that we haven’t talked in a while.  How are you?”  (My earlier blog post titled “Bag LinkedIn. . .” may have been a bit harsh because it certainly has a place like here to break the ice with old contacts!) – - if they accepted your invitation to join your network, they are now anticipating your call.  Don’t let them down!

2.        “I just reconnected with (person’s name that you both know) and realized that we haven’t talked in a while.  How are things going for you? “– this is a great reason to call lots of contacts from a past client organization who all worked together at one time!

3.       “I just read an article on your firm in (publication) and thought of you.  (Elaborate a bit on the article). . . Just wanted to touch base to say hello and see how you were doing.” – if you read the business press, you know you have thought about individuals from your past when you read articles about their companies, so it’s something you’ve kept to yourself but now you can share!

4.       “I’m going to the (organization) conference in May and was wondering if you planned on attending.  I thought it might be nice to reconnect with you there for dinner.  Do you plan on going?”- This is one of the best because you are being considerate, thoughtful and may end up with an excuse to avoid the rubber chicken dinner! 

5.       “I’m considering writing an article on (topic) and thought of you because I knew you would be a great person to give me a valuable perspective on it.  Could I trouble you to arrange a call to get your point of view on (topic)?” For those of you who have thought about publishing an article, this approach is gold because people are flattered that you think of them to give you advice.  You can collect your research, get valuable market insights and reconnect with an old client!

In these trying economic times most professionals have had to increase their number of prospects to win a piece of business.  This means digging deeper into your contact lists and calling more people that you haven’t talked to in a while such as old clients and past prospects.  The thought of calling someone just to reconnect with the hopes of generating an opportunity gives angst to many.  The phone handset begins to feel like a 100 pound elephant.  But all is not lost with the new social media.  We have things like LinkedIn that facilitates this act for us.  All we have to do is initiate a standard note and wait to see if they accept our request to join our LinkedIn network!  We ponder if receipt of our LinkedIn request will prompt our old acquaintances to call us if they have a business need. 

It arrives!  Your contact has accepted your LinkedIn request!  Time passes and they still haven’t called you.  After a few months go by with lightning speed you feel like you are right back where you started with the angst of calling to reconnect.  In this example LinkedIn served the same purpose as the introduction cover letter so many professionals use as a crutch to help them warm up a call.  In the end, you still have to make the call.  Similar to the intro cover letter, if you wait too long to follow up with a personal call, any benefit you may have received from the “link” diminishes.  An easy example to illustrate how this plays out in human nature is in dating.  If you meet someone, connect and get their number, what is the likelihood of forming a long term relationship if you wait to call that person for six months after you met them? 

Most contacts will tell you that if they agree to join your LinkedIn network, they would be pleased to hear from you from time to time.  So if you find yourself feeling good about the number of contacts who agreed to join your LinkedIn network, but feeling frustrated by the lack of leads received from your initiated effort, consider following up the contact acceptance more promptly with a personal call or simply bag the LinkedIn intro note and just pick up the phone. 

If you are not going to follow up with contacts from a conference, don’t go.  You would miss the whole purpose for attending the event!  Upon completion of a presentation a speaker’s goal is to continue the conversation and build stronger relationships.  Speakers can continue the dialog with attendees, clients, prospects and network contacts by: 

1.       Following up with attendees who asked specific questions before, during or after their presentation.  (This requires judicious quick note taking on the back of business cards for future reference.)

2.       Contacting clients who attended their presentation to get their thoughts or for a critique on how you did. 

3.       Asking clients and prospects who attended if they had any additional questions regarding the content.

4.       Reaching out to clients or prospects who did NOT attend with relevant materials or information you obtained at a conference that may be of interest. 

5.       Calling and meeting with co-presenters to explore future networking opportunities. 

6.       Publishing the content of your presentation.

All of the activities mentioned in this three part series on “A Speaker Who Knows How to Work It” occur outside of the conference.  The conference becomes a means to an end, not the end. 

Speakers gain celebrity status at conferences.  Attendees enjoy conversing with the speakers for their knowledge and point of view.  A consulting client shared with me a successful approach his firm uses to maximize the client development opportunities for their conference speakers.  As soon as they are informed that they are a speaker they begin planning a well choreographed dinner!  First they make a reservation for 8 to 12 people at one of the top restaurants at the conference city.  Secondly, they invite a few close clients who love them and who they know will highly recommend their work.  Then they invite another speaker or two whose topics are popular in the market but whose work does not compete with theirs.  Next, they invite some non-competing prospects who can be considered peers to their clients, appreciating that clients love to exchange war stories with their peers.  And lastly, they make sure that the number of people from their office is not overwhelming to the rest of the group, four people maximum.  You can imagine with this make up for dinner that all attendees have a great time  - – - especially their prospects who are now impressed.  Perfect! 

As Spring approaches and more promotional materials for upcoming conferences begin arriving in the mail, I’ve heard many clients are assessing if conference attendance is worth the cost – - which today can be significant.  We are a big advocate of preplanning to get the most bang for your buck.  If you are a speaker at the conference you have lots of relationship development opportunities with both clients and prospects that don’t even occur at the conference!   

1. You can call clients or prospects for their advice and input on your presentation topic. 
2. You can invite contacts to be panel members for your presentation.
3. You can personally invite clients and prospects to your presentation, preferably by phone to continue a conversation flow. 
4. You can ask your contacts if there are other individuals in their organization who would benefit from attending your presentation and invite them too. 

These pre-conference conversations can result in the following benefits:   

-  It’s a great reason to call lots of your contacts to touch base and up your visibility in the marketplace.

-  You reinforce your credibility and industry expertise based on the presentation content. 

-  It reminds people of you and your services oftentimes prompting statements such as, “I’m so glad you called. . . we were thinking about  . . .”

-  Contacts are flattered that you seek their advice and feel good about giving it to you. (nurturing a relationship)

-  You can prepare a better presentation for your audience with greater knowledge as to leading industry challenges.

-  The conversation can validate your presentation conclusions leading to increased confidence in your offering.

-  You expand your network by client referrals to invite others within their organization. 

-  You may learn more about your client’s or prospect’s specific corporate challenges by asking the age-old question at the end of your conversation, “So how are things with you?” and listening.   

All of the activities described in this three part series on “A Speaker Who Knows How to Work It” occur outside of the actual conference.  The conference becomes a means to an end, not the end. 

Marketing meetings have become more frequent now due to work slow down.  Senior management at professional firms are spending more time meeting with each other to discuss clients, prospects and pursuits in an effort to capture the limited project opportunities in the marketplace.  At many firms, marketing meetings have become as frequent as weekly.  Participants at most marketing meetings include senior practice leaders and managers.  What most firms don’t realize is that these meetings come with a significant cost to their firms and oftentimes don’t provide a return on their investment. 

Marketing meetings are expensive!  Typical marketing meetings include 5 to 15 participants.  If they meet every other week for one hour, the total number of hours spent in marketing meetings per year is 130 to 390 hours.  As an example, at an average billing rate of $300 per hour, the cost is $39,000 to $117,000 per year.  Assuming gross margin of 12%, these meeting must generate roughly $325,000 to $975,000 to break even.    Larger firms with several group marketing meetings could be looking at a cost of several million dollars.  Depending on the firm and project size, these fees are a tall order in this economy. 

After years of working with consulting firms, I’ve seen all kinds of marketing meetings.  I thought I would share with you the Top Five Traits for the Worst Marketing Meetings with some tips on how to improve them.

1. Have participants report only leads and activity.  Lengthy information reporting becomes boring to most participants.  Don’t make the marketing meeting only a reporting session.  Adhere to succinct reporting of only relevant information.  Gather and distribute relevant data in advance of the meeting.  
2. Minimize idea exchange among participants.  Two way reporting conversations between each participant and the meeting leader squelches peer dialog and team problem solving.  Facilitate group problem solving and brainstorming for client development initiatives and challenges.  
3. Meet regularly without specific objectives.  Having regular meetings may feel like there is a focus on getting more work, but to make things happen you must establish action-oriented objectives for each meeting.  
4. Assume that your people are helping each other.  It’s a nice thought, but in reality, many individuals in different practice areas need specific action requests and follow up to cross sell.  Relationships are made one person at a time and that includes with colleagues within the same company.  Bringing people together with specific goals and action steps help facilitate development of stronger relationships among themselves and with their clients.
5. Invite everyone to marketing meeting to hear what’s going on.  Evaluate the number of regular meeting participants.  All participants should have specific action items to accomplish.  If they are not a player don’t take them offline for every meeting, invite them to only periodic meetings and learning sessions. 

Hopefully this doesn’t sound too familiar.  If it does, planning more effective marketing meetings is an easy fix which takes a bit of extra planning, but with focus can yield significantly more results and more regular attendance!

I would like to collect some stories about professionals artfully righting a sales effort that fallen in a ditch.  Here is one, for starters:

An executive recruiter accidentally called the client by the wrong name during a sales pitch.  Who hasn’t at least once in a career?  He apologized, but it was not his day, and he did it again.  The third time  he did it, he caught himself and without saying another word, picked put on his coat and started putting away his things.  The client asked what he was doing, to which he responded cheerily, “I would never hire somone who got my name wrong three times at an important meeting.  I suspect you wouldn’t either, so I don’t want to waste more of your time.  Thank you so much for the opportunity.  I wish you all success with the search.”  He had read his client correctly; the man laughed and told the recruiter to take his coat of, because he wanted to continue the discussion.  The recruiter got the search.

Do any of you have good stories about artfully turning around a difficult sales situation?