Starting a new relationship with someone who you have no explicit reason for contacting is one of the most difficult steps in selling professional services.  Almost as hard is advancing a relationship with someone you know hardly at all.  This isn’t just for of the professions; it is characteristic of business in general.

I just got off the phone with someone seeking to become my financial advisor.  At the beginning of the call, I told him that I was not interested in a sales call at this time.  He assured me that it wasn’t his purpose to sell me anything.  But, of course, at the end of the call, he couldn’t resist trying to do so with a we-can-help-you-with-that offer at the end.  This offer had, also of course, been the sole purpose of the 10 minutes of gobbledygook which preceded it.  In short, he was trying to begin relationship by lying to me about the purpose of this call and wasted my time in the process.   Did he think that I would turn over my money to someone who tried to deceive me the very first time he spoke with me?

It amazes me how common this is and how many forms it comes in.  Those mass mailings that come with what looks like a handwritten note, sometimes on a yellow sticky, saying “you should see this” or something similar, are another example.  They try to trick you into believing that the document was forwarded to you by a business colleague or friend.

When employing tactics to meet someone or to warm up a tepid relationship, the professionals must do nothing of this kind.  I suspect that even the word, tactics, will make some readers blanch, so let me give an example.   Asking for advice is one frequently recommended way to get in front of someone you don’t know well to warm up a relationship.  This can be effective with two cautions.  First, only do this with someone whose advice you would value on the subject in question.  If the advice asking is used simply as a ploy, there is a good chance that the contact will catch on and shun you thereafter.   Second, never, never try to turn the advice-seeking conversation into a sales call.  You should only talk about how your services can help the contact, if he explicitly asks you to do so, and even then with some reluctance.  (I didn’t come here today to sell you anything, but if you want we can talk a little about . . .).

You never want the contact to come away from a meeting with the feeling that you left it thinking, “Gotcha!”

I frequently get asked how often one should call a former client or other valuable business contact.  Professionals are deeply concerned that calling too often will annoy the contact.  Some err on the side of caution by not calling contacts at all, except they need to talk about specific business at hand.  Others call more frequently.

Like most people, professionals have contacts whom they can call at any time.  However, virtually all of us want to avoid bothering a busy client or contact with a drifting catchup conversation.  Some contacts are likely to drop you, if you abuse the friendship with too many pointless calls or calls transparently for the purpose of asking for more work.

How frequently to call someone is a highly personal decision, and heavily situational.  Still, I think that most of  us have some  rules we apply to making that choice.  What are yours?

(This is another of our Rainmaking Problems, which I post from time to time, because I am not totally satisfied with the answers I give, when questioned on the subject. In other cases, readers send me questions that they would like to get answers to from people with different perspectives.  If you have such a question, please send it to me at fharding@HardingCo.com.)

I must thank Steve Shu for passing on this Chinese proverb.  For some reason I don’t fully understand, we learn more from our failures than from successes.  Does anyone know why?

Whatever the reason, we can learn lot more by putting some effort into it, asking others who were involved in the sale, both clients and colleagues what happened.  Here are just a few of the things I have learned over the years from lost sales:

• That how you look and what you do in a sales meeting is often more important than what you say.  Specifically, the client informed me that our carefully selected team may have said that they worked well together, but sent a different nonverbal message.  For the next sale we carefully programmed their appearance and actions, so that they exemplified teamwork, and we won.
• That a competitor was beating us by delivering a specific message more effectively than the firm I was with.  Because I then knew what to look for, a month later, when I saw the competitor present at a conference I was able to identify a specific slide that delivered the message.  Knowing what he was saying and how he was saying it allowed us to neutralize this advantage.
• That my little firm could compete with big ones.  A near win and a follow-up debriefing with the client showed me that we could compete with firms much bigger and better established than ours.  This helped me set my sights higher.  Six months later, I had a big win with a big client, a sale which transformed the firm.
• How to interpret body language better.  Early in my career, I came away from a meeting feeling it had been a big success.  My boss, who had participated largely as an observer, told me that we would never hear from this client again and why.  He was right.  He had read the body language better than I had.
• That specific marketing materials were ineffective.  They needed an update, which we quickly gave them . . . and then started to win more work.
• That debriefings after a loss may not always provide much insight, but doing them is worth it anyway.  Perhaps one in five post mortem interviews with clients provided real insight, but that one gave me so much insight that was worth all time spent on those that didn’t.
• That a client expected things that we could not ethically provide and so we could walk away from the loss with our heads held high.
• That the client would like us to bid again on future work.  The client had really liked us and wanted to find a way to work with us.  We just weren’t right for the current assignment.

For more on this subject see my post, Learning from Loss. What have you learned by debriefing a client after a loss?

(This is another of the rainmaking problems I post from time to time, seeking reader opinions.  If you have a problem you would like help with from this blog’s readers, send me an email describing it at fharding@HardingCo.com.)

The first time two professionals from a firm team with each other on a sales call, it can be tough, especially if they are peers. They don’t know each other’s style in a sales meeting. They don’t share the same expectations about what will happen and the easy sharing back and forth that comes from having gone on a few calls together. What should professionals planning to go on a sales call together for the first time do to ensure that their efforts are coordinated and that the meeting goes well?

Two new books of interest to aspiring rainmakers and managers of profession service firms came out this summer.

The first is The Integration Imperative by Suzanne C. Lowe [Professional Services Books, 1990].   It deals with what I believe will be the single biggest issue in business development at professional services firms in coming years, the integration of sales and marketing.  Professional service firms are well behind traditional product firms in this area.  This results, I suspect, from two major causes.    First, selling was a forbidden word in the professions for many years and still is at a few firms.  If you can’t talk about it, you can’t manage it.

Second, marketing has been a poorly defined term in the professions, in part, because it was often used as a euphemism for selling.  When not referring to selling, marketing has been used vaguely to refer to a collection of activities, including public relations, advertising, running seminars and the like.   This is a far cry from the sophisticated understanding of marketing found at product companies where the term refers to the selection and positioning of products in carefully selected markets and the way a company goes about taking those products to the  markets.

Professional firms which successfully integrate sales and marketing will have a big advantage.  Some already do.  Lowe has sought out a number of these firms and studied what they have done.

The book is divided into three parts.  The first covers why integration of marketing and sales is important and the second provides guidance on how to do it.  These are both well worth reading and studying.  Still, it is the third part that I found most interesting.  I am a sucker for case studies, and Lowe has outdone herself in this section by providing detailed studies of eleven firms across the professions.

The second book, Winning the Professional Services Sale by Michael W. McLaughlin [Wiley, 2009], neatly complements the first by providing an in-depth look at how professionals should handle a sales meeting.  It covers both the strategy and tactics of face-to-face selling from how to prepare, draw out the client’s needs, deal with surprises, prepare proposals, present, negotiate and set up the second sale.  McLaughlin also addresses critical subjects that are infrequently written about, such as when to walk away from a sale.

McLaughlin provides practical advice that is clearly based on a lot of personal experience.  For example, early in the first chapter he states that in a sales meeting every client has three burning questions of a professional:

•    Do you really understand what we need?
•    Can you do what you claim?
•    Will you work well with us?

Anyone who has sold professional services knows that these are the fundamental questions.

Though I may not agree with everything McLaughlin says, his arguments are well worth reading and a valuable check on opinions that all of us hold about selling.  This book is a good choice for anyone learning to sell professionals services and also for those interested in refreshing and sharpening established skills.

In an excellent recent post, Jeffery James writes of the mistakes experts make when teaming with a salesperson to sell a complex technical product.  They are all too true; so true that they make me cringe.  I could cite a few more.

In fairness, though, there are also mistakes that clueless salespeople make when teaming with a management consultant, accountant, engineer or other professional to sell a professional service.  These include:

• Believing that a good salesperson can sell anything and trying to sell a complex service as if it were a widget.  Some salespeople are good at selling professional services and some aren’t, however good they are at selling something else.
• Not respecting the expert’s expertise.  I have seen more than one salesperson try to structure a service without the expert or ignoring the expert’s advice.  This most often happens when the salesperson tries to negotiate a reduction in scope for a client that wants a price decrease without the expert’s input.  They may make the sale, but the results are seldom pretty.
• Not recognizing when it is inappropriate to sell.  Professionals are in an advisory role and there are times when it just isn’t appropriate to try to sell something.  A consultant whose firm was acquired by a technology company arranged a meeting with the skeptical CIO at one of his clients to explain how the change in ownership would improve his firm’s service.  Not recognizing that this was an educational meeting and probably never having met with a C-Suite executive before, the salesperson tried to sell the CIO something.  The CIO felt tricked into a sales meeting which was not what he had agreed to or expected.  I could cite several analogous cases.  This kind of behavior can cost the firm a client.
• Not respecting the expert’s relationship with the client.  The expert has a qualitatively different relationship with the client than most business developers will ever have.  Not necessarily better, but different, because it is based on the client’s respect for the professional’s knowledge and advice.  Some salespeople act as if the relationship between the professional and the client didn’t exist, even though the client and professional have known each other for years.  I have known cases where the client told the professional that he didn’t want to see the salesperson again.
• Not keeping the expert informed.  Business developers will sometimes run with an opportunity without keeping the expert informed, even when the expert is working at the client and turned up the lead.

Of course, many business developers don’t make these mistakes.  To avoid these problems with those who might, a professional firm should:

• Hire the right kind of salesperson:  Those who would sell professional services have to be smart, curious and eager to learn about the nuances of the service in question, and respectful of the professional’s expertise.  They should also be tactful on-the-job sales trainers.  When possible recruit some of your business developers from your professional team, using a few years in full-time sales positions, as a part of their career development.
• Set ground rules for every meeting.  Make clear what the client’s expectations are for any meeting and what behaviors are appropriate and what are not.
• Set ground rules for every pursuit.  The same can be said for every opportunity pursued.
• Assign primary and secondary relationship responsibilities for key members of a client organization.  Both business developers and firm professional staff members should have such responsibilities.

When a sales-savvy professional is teamed with a professions-savvy salesperson, they can work wonders.  It’s a combination worth striving for.

One of the best rainmakers I have met in recent years called me the other day, because clients had stopped hiring him.  Naturally, he found this disturbing.   Who wouldn’t?  He wanted to talk about the cause and what to do about it.

Demand had dropped because of events in his primary market with which he had had nothing to do and which were beyond his control.  Until recently, his practice had been growing at over 20 percent per year for several years.  His efforts in new markets weren’t producing sufficient results yet to stop the dive.  For the first time in his career, he found himself unable to land sufficient new clients.

It is a credit to his awesome rainmaking abilities that this hadn’t happened earlier in his life.   I know from personal experiences and those of many professionals whom I have worked with that the first time this happens, it can bludgeon a person’s self confidence.  This is especially so, if one is emotionally insecure, as many rainmakers are.

If this happens to you, I suggest the following:

• Remind yourself that everyone has streaks and slumps.  This is partially a matter of luck.  If you flip a coin enough times, it will eventually come up tails ten times in a row.  That it does is a function of probabilities and luck rather than of your flipping skill.  You probably haven’t lost your touch; your luck has just turned.  Of course, this also means you weren’t quite as good as you thought you were when the luck was running your way and you had a streak of wins.  That humbling bit of logic is good to keep in mind when you are winning a lot.
• The probabilities of a certain run of wins or loses changes over time with market conditions and other factors.  Just as a field-goal kicker will score less often in a season with lots of gusty crosswinds, so you will win less often when the business crosswinds work against you.
• The probabilities of winning go down, if you have to enter a new or under-developed market, and go down substantially.  This if for factors I have described elsewhere (See my book, Creating Rainmakers, Chapter 2, “What Rainmakers Know or the Mathematics of Selling”).
• Of course, you should review what you have been doing that might have reduced your rainmaking effectiveness.  There is always something that we can do better.  There are always areas where we have become a bit lax with success.  Fix these problems.
• Refocus on the markets where you can get the most traction fast and have at them.

This all leads to my main point:  Beating yourself up over a slump won’t help you.  First, for the reasons I have described, it is probably inappropriate for you to do so.  Slumps occur for even the best rainmakers, and the rainmakers’ errors are usually a relatively small part of the cause.  So, question what you have been doing, but don’t question yourself.  Wallowing in self recriminations or the (false) realization that you have been a fraud, not a rainmaker, all these years, is counterproductive.

If my friend, the rainmaker, was guilty of anything, it was of not diversifying his market rapidly enough.  He had made sincere efforts to do so, but those efforts had been stalled due to the high demand in his core market which consumed his energies and time.  If that is a mistake, it is an honest and understandable one.  Indeed, it is one that most of us would make.  All this doesn’t resolve one’s revenue shortfall, but it does put one in a better mind-frame for doing something about it.

(As in previous years, I will only be posting once a week in July and August.)

The word etiquette has a dated, your-great-Aunt-Martha sound.  Not that etiquette, itself, is out of date; the need for it is greater than ever.  But the word is seldom used today, replaced by the planer manners, or by some circumlocution.  Etiquette is no longer taught in school, though behavior or conflict management sometimes is, and a good hunk of that subject turns out to be etiquette, barely disguised.

So, I was surprised to find speaker, Rachel Wagner, listing herself as an etiquette coach on the agenda of a meeting of the SMPS Oklahoma Chapter.  Can one actually make a living using those words to describe yourself, I wondered.  I also reflected on the importance of etiquette in selling professional services.  When  you are selling professional services, at the very least it:

•    Ensures you show all you deal with appropriate respect,
•    Helps you get through potentially awkward situations,
•    Shows you to be a socially adept, considerate person.

This made me want to talk with Ms. Wagner, even more.  (I would normally have called her simply Wagner at this point, but because I am writing about an etiquette, I decided to err on the polite side and include the Ms.)  In this post, I will share our initial interview.  In a second, to appear in about a month, I will present her with several potentially awkward selling situations to see how she would react with no time to prepare.  After all, an etiquette expert should be able to deal with unexpected, tetchy situations with aplomb.  She, good sport, has accepted the challenge.

Q: How did you get interested in etiquette and become an expert in it?

Wagner: Etiquette has always been a topic of great interest—my office bookshelves are proof! So, after a successful teaching career, I traded my 8th grade classroom for the corporate training room.   My ultimate goal was to attend the Protocol School of Washington (PSOW) in Washington, D.C. which I did in 2006 and received certification as a Corporate Etiquette and International Protocol Consultant. I consider myself a continual learner in all areas of business etiquette, and I work hard at keeping up with the most contemporary, universally-accepted business etiquette, especially in fast-changing areas like on-line communications.

Q: How does etiquette differ from manners?

Wagner: Manners is really all about “being mindful” of others and making them feel respected and valued. Etiquette is more or less the “how to” of manners—knowing what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. To illustrate, let me give you several examples. We all know it’s “good manners” to make business introductions. The “etiquette” is to say the name and firm of the most senior person first. It’s good manners to give a handshake. The etiquette is to extend your hand with the fingers out and thumb up and connect web to web with two firm pumps (no limp fish handshakes!). It’s good manners to entertain a prospect for lunch. Proper etiquette includes seating your guest correctly (to the right of the host), navigating the place setting (start with the outer silverware and work in), making menu suggestions to discreetly show the limits of your hospitality, and insuring that your guest’s order is taken first.

Good etiquette skills are vital for any firm to be competitive—to get new sales and to enjoy strong repeat business. These are the skills that set professionals apart and firms apart from their competition, no matter what service they offer.

Q: Do the terms professional etiquette and sales etiquette have any special meaning to you and to what extent does each differ from regular old etiquette?

Wagner: Professional etiquette and sales etiquette are both subsets of business etiquette. Especially in today’s economic climate, it’s vital that every member and associate of a firm have a fully equipped tool box of business etiquette knowledge.  “Professional etiquette” refers to ways you deal with others in your profession, such as the way an accountant, whom a client has replaced with another firm, provides information on the account to his replacements.  “Sales etiquette” refers to how you manage sales interactions, such as how you talk with a prospective client whom you meet at a social gathering and who is not looking for a sales pitch. “Regular old etiquette” is vital for a polished image, and includes sending appropriate thank you notes, standing for a handshake, and knowing when and how to offer your business card.

Q: Can you cite an example where etiquette made a difference in the sale of a professional service?

Wagner: I chose not to use a certain financial planning firm after my initial phone inquiry did not result in a timely call back with the information requested. Not only that, another associate of the firm was repeatedly unresponsive to my emails. In fact, I finally had to call and ask if my email questions had been received.  Of course, this is poor service, but it is also inconsiderate.  Even if a professional isn’t interested in a person’s business, proper etiquette dictates that the person receive a prompt and polite response.  Poor “tech etiquette” resulted in a poor first impression of this firm. I’m sure they would have done a fine job of managing my portfolio, but that initial first impression kept them from having the opportunity to prove themselves, because few of us will knowingly select an inconsiderate person to do costly and sensitive professional work.  Little things, such as timely tech-communication skills, do matter in giving a positive image of a firm!

Q: Do you think professionals are held to a higher standard of etiquette than other business people?

Wagner: I think it’s assumed that anyone wearing a suit has a high etiquette IQ—and most do. Because professionals are highly educated, expected to be intelligent, and are perceived to hold high status positions, lapses in etiquette can be seen as arrogance or patronization.  You don’t want to get labeled as a stereotypical arrogant, elitist, self-absorbed professional.

Not everyone who climbs the professional career ladder in a firm is necessarily equipped with the etiquette and social skills to match their new level of influence and leadership. For example, at a Chamber of Commerce event, I observed professional higher-ups with less than impeccable table manners. These same professionals also rudely pecked away on their BlackBerry during the meeting and in a face-to-face conversation with someone.

Q: What rules of etiquette would you most want a professional about to attend an association event to remember?

Wagner: Research shows that approximately 75 percent of us have anxiety about attending an event in which we must meet and greet and make small talk with others. These four rules of etiquette can help make association events less stressful and can enhance your visibility, credibility, and profitability.

1. Remind yourself that you go to the event as a representative of your firm, a walking, talking demonstration of what it might be like to work with.  Yes, greet your peers, but don’t hang out with them all evening.   Remind yourself that it is your responsibility to make sure the people you talk with come away feeling good about you and the firm.  This is usually more a function of asking them questions about something they are interested in, addressing them by name, making sure that everyone in a group has a chance to be heard, than saying something profound yourself.
2. Prepare for the event.  There is proper etiquette for introducing yourself and others, for starting conversations, for breaking into groups, for taking your leave from a conversation, and for dinner table conversation, as examples.  Look into how to handle these things if you are unsure.  My e-newsletter, The Savvy Professional (which you can sign up for at www.EtiquetteTrainer.com), covers many such topics and there are a number of good books on the subject.
3. Don’t head straight to the food and beverage area when you arrive. First mix and mingle. The food is secondary. And when you do go through the food line, never pile your plate. It’s better to eat something before you go than to appear too hungry. An additional tip is to hold your food or beverage in your left hand so that your right hand is always free for a handshake when you meet or greet others.
4. Afterwards drop quick notes to people you met, showing that you remember something special about them.

Q: How do you determine appropriate etiquette in fast changing areas like the internet and social networking?

Wagner: You have to observe, read and research.  (A good book on the subject is The Hamster Revolution: How to Manage Your Email Before It Manages You by Mike Song, Tim Burress and Vicki Halsey.)  I have three suggestions that will help you steer a course even in this rapidly changing area:

1. Don’t be misled by the reputation that email and other forms of electronic communication have for informality.  They are rapidly gaining formality, at least in business circles. When in doubt, err on the side of more formality for a positive image of your firm’s brand–in your emails and on professional networking sites such as LinkedIn.
2. Recognize which of two kinds of exchange you are engaged in, either a conversation with a lot of rapid back-and-forthing or a more deliberate correspondence.  The latter requires more formality. But, good writing style is mandatory in all business emails, including proper spelling (that includes no texting language), grammar, and punctuation.
3. Don’t mistake informality with lack of personal consideration.  Always begin an email with a salutation, if only the person’s first name.  As a best practice, include “dear” or “hello” before the person’s name, especially to business associates, prospective clients, and clients. Except in rapid exchanges, such as when you are back-and-forthing over a meeting date, always include at least a brief personal note, such as It’s good to hear you are doing well or Congratulations on the … or Give so-and-so my best or the like.  Always close with your name.  There are many more tech etiquette rules and the number of those rules is expanding rapidly.

(As in prior years, I will posting only once a week in July and August>)

A client of mine is faced with a problem that all of us engaged in selling professional services encounter sooner or later.  She was approached by one of her clients who asked if she could get him a job at her firm.  He had been a good client for several years, and she didn’t want to alienate him as a client or a friend.  Still, hiring someone away from a current account poses ethical problems and she didn’t feel that he was a particularly good fit for the firm, in any event.  How should she handle this delicate situation?

(As in prior years, I am  only posting once a week in July and August.)

Harding & Company services are built using information gleaned from interviewing rainmakers and those who have observed them.  The database now includes information on over 300 rainmakers in management consulting, accounting, executive search, architecture, engineering, law and other professional services.  These interviews run for at least an hour and often longer.  We add to the database as we gain information on additional rainmakers or more information on those already in it.  It has been a major source of differentiation for our firm.  We know what rainmakers do.

So, it was fun to learn from Enforce: The Insurance Policy Enforcement Journal (Volume 7, Issue 1, published semi-annually by Anderson Kill Wood & Bender, LLP) that lawyer Eugene Anderson, one of the first rainmakers I interviewed long ago, built his practice on a database foundation.  As described in Enforce:

. . . an enthusiasm that kept him working 12 hours a day, seven days per week drove Mr. Anderson to delve deeper into insurance industry “lore” than anyone had before—that is, to unearth and contrast what insurance industry executives had told regulators and policy holders about policy language while getting it approved and selling policies, with what they told courts when denying coverage years later.  He pioneered building databases of such information—before personal computers were ubiquitous.

Armed with his “can,” Mr. Anderson kept winning business, to the point where he was billing $35 million per year.

Databases as differentiators is an old concept.  Shortly after World War I, Felix Fantus (yes, his real name) selected a site for a new office furniture  factory.  Firm lore has it that his wife, a former geography student, helped him by recording information on towns they considered on index cards.  That database became the foundation of The Fantus Factory Locating Service, one of the earliest management consulting firms, which later became The Fantus Company (now a part of Deloitte), where I began my consulting career.

But it is worth reminding ourselves of databases’ strategic value from time to time, so that we recognize the opportunity to create one, when we come across it.  Opportunities to create them arise in all of the professions.  Two weeks ago, an architect brought me a new business idea that lent itself to the creation of a database, and I was reminded of how two other architects had built successful practices off of databases.

Of course, competitors can create databases of their own, but it will take time and money to do so.  There is usually a first mover’s advantage, and, at the very least, a head start of one to three years.  Databases are one of the best differentiators when selling professional services.