RainToday's Sales Tips & Techniques Podcast: Recent Episodes
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There’s a problem among sales managers that’s reaching a critical level. They have forgotten the primary job and responsibilities of the sales manager. As a result, the sales culture is a mess and performance is steadily dropping. Listen as Mike Weinberg, author of Sales Management. Simplfied., discusses how sales managers can stop this trend and create a high-performing sales team.
The secret to successful improv comedy is the same strategy that keeps sales conversations moving forward. It’s all about saying “yes and.” Listen as Michael Port, author of the book Steal the Show, explains how sellers can use that tactic, why you must rehearse in order to be spontaneous, and the best way to close a deal.
Sales experts have said the phone is the best sales tool. It can be even more effective, however, when used along with email—when you use email to familiarize prospects with your product and company. By essentially pre-selling, they will be 80% sold when you talk with them on the phone, says email specialist Ben Settle.
If you think professional services firms are exempt from using artificial intelligence to automate services, you are in for a big awakening. As new technology is developed and buyers’ needs shift, firms are changing delivery models and their sales models. And those that don’t change will be in peril, says John Dillard, author of Microslices: The Death of Consulting and What It Means for Executives.
Doing great work for a client is no longer enough to ensure the client will buy from you again when the need arises. Great work is expected and doesn’t set you apart from the growing competition. To keep clients buying from you, RAIN Group's Ago Cluytens suggest you do four things.
Online tools such as email were once considered the best prospecting tools. That is no longer the case. The phone has reclaimed the title as the number one prospecting tool for sales teams. Listen as inside sales expert Trish Bertuzzi explains why the phone is the top tool and what to say during conversations to get buyers to want to learn more.
Having a CRM to enable your sales team is just table stakes. Today, sellers need advanced tools to help with their sales efforts—tools such as predictive analytics software, cloud-based document software, and esignature software. Listen as Monte Wilson, Vice President, Head of Americas Field Operations for Digital Media at Adobe Systems, discusses how those types of tools help companies win sales—and close them faster—and develop longtime relationships with customers.
In sales situations, 59% of the executives who make buying decisions don’t want to meet with a salesperson. That doesn’t mean salespeople aren’t needed. It means their role has changed. They’ve become guides in what’s become a very processed-driven selling system. Listen as Tom Searcy, author of Life After the Death of Selling, explains sellers’ new roles and what sales leaders must do to ensure their teams perform well.
When 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers, it’s critical to retain and grow those accounts. The best way to manage those key accounts is through a Selling Center, a permanent team committed to the account that maintains and increases the value of the relationship over time. Listen as Carl Herman and Joël Le Bon, authors of Key Account Management, explain how to improve your key account management.
People have strong beliefs. Those beliefs may not be correct, but you will never win those buyers over by telling them their belief system is wrong or flawed. To earn people’s business, you must accept their beliefs for what they are and learn how to communicate in a way that validates what they believe is correct, says Jay Samit, author of Disrupt You!
Buyers want personalized messages and conversations with salespeople. Generic selling just won't do. To have those conversations, companies must enable their sales teams, says Aberdeen Group's Peter Ostrow. They must give sellers the tools, content, and support that allow them to speak to a specific persona, vertical, or even company.
You probably know everything required to sell more. The problem is you don't implement those tactics because you worry you are bothering your clients or you think you don't have time to do them. Both of those are misconceptions you need to get past. Listen as Alex Goldfayn, author of The Revenue Growth Habit, three unimposing things you can do now to increase revenue.
The average B2B salesperson uses only about a third of their time to actively sell. That means there's much more they can do to be more efficient, complete more sales activities, and win more deals. Listen as Matt Heinz discusses what salespeople can do right now to be more productive and sell more.
In sales, you have to move your prospects where you want them to go. You do that by using power language that gets them to agree to a series of small things. Listen as Mark Rodgers, author of Persuasion Equation, discusses how to use power language, and the Principle of Nudge to persuade customers to buy from you.
If you're trying to sell something, don't try to sell to people using logic. It's a waste of time. You need to connect with buyers on a subconscious and emotional level, says Erik Luhrs, aka The Bruce Lee of Sales and Lead Generation. If you can do that, you will increase sales volume and decrease sales cycle length.
Products and services are more complex. We use different media to communicate. And we communicate less face to face. As a result, our communication is often boring and superficial. It does not include intuitive information or the experiential aspect of what we're trying to say. Storytelling can fix that, says Annette Simmons, author of Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins.
Hostage takers and your customers have different wants, but how you communicate with them to get to your desired result is the same. The goal is to keep the person talking. In this podcast, Mark Goulston, author of Just Listen, explains how to keep customers talking until they sell themselves on your solution.
Referrals are a salesperson's biggest competitive differentiator. The produce the highest quality leads and can shorten the sale cycle. The problem is many people don't ask for referrals or they don't know how to ask for them. Listen as Joanne Black, author of No More Cold Calling and a leading authority on referral selling, discusses how to ask, as well as how to get started creating a referral system.
Buyers are frustrated. Often sales reps are unprepared for meetings and unable to answer buyers' questions, causing the rep to lose the sale. To remedy that, companies need to gather insight about their buyers, create buyer personas, and use the information to help buyers, says Adele Revella, author of Buyer Personas.
Email is still an effective sales tool—if it's done right. The problem is it's very easy to do wrong. Listen as David Traub, author of The 10 Second Sale, discusses six things you should include in every email that make people want to not just open your email, but reply to it.
Traditionally sales professionals participate in the sales process from start to finish. Some companies, however, have found a different structure works better. Following a model, in which sales professionals specialize in certain aspects of the sales process, they have increased sales closes by 300%. SalesLoft's Sean Kester explains.
Things have become more competitive for sales professionals. More people are vying for sales positions. Plus, selling itself has become more challenging with competing companies targeting the same customers. The best way to become indispensable in either situation is to be recognized as an expert in your field, says Dorie Clark, author of Stand Out.
Each person on a sales team is different. Depending on a person's role and outputs, he has different skills requirements and training needs. That means companies need a training program that addresses each person's unique qualities. A model that has proved successful is a sales university. With it, companies can create a curriculum that addresses core sales skills, as well as skills required for each sales role, says RAIN Group President Mike Schultz.
When it comes to generating referrals, you need a system. It doesn't have to be rigid system, but it must be a process that allows you to influence the referrals you receive. Using Vickie K. Sullivan's three-step system, you can guide your referral sources and ensure you received qualified leads.
Lean Thinking, long used to improve manufacturing and production processes, has found a use in sales. By implementing Lean Selling strategies, companies have been able to reduce sales waste, increase sales closures, and shorten sales cycle times, says Robert Pryor, author of Lean Selling.
LinkedIn is the most powerful social media tool for sales professionals. Most decision makers are members, and you have ungated access to them. The key is to be proactive in your use of it, says Melonie Dodaro, author of The LinkedIn Code. You can't simply create a profile, collect connections, and wait for buyers to come to you.
Sales organizations usually sell to the user-buyer, where all of the talk is about features and benefits. Sellers feel comfortable doing that. But when they only do that, they miss the other type of buyer within the company—the C-suite. To ensure your chances of winning the sale, you need both sides on board, which means you need two value propositions, says Skip Miller, author of Selling Above and Below the Line.
Technology has created a new type of gatekeeper—noise. The constant sales emails, social media requests, and text messages generate so much noise that decision makers often delete or ignore them. Because of that, salespeople need a multi-pronged approach to get appointments with decision makers.
Sales has always been thought of as more of an art than science. That is changing as more data about sales teams is available. Rather than simply trying something and hoping it works, teams can apply data and metrics and predict success.
You have a great product, but these days that isn't enough to keep customers returning. Customers want to be a part of something bigger. They want to connect with a company's story—their message—and they want to be a part of a community, says Noah Fleming, author of Evergreen. To achieve that, companies must have three qualities: character, community, and content.
The "key of all keys" when maximizing sales with existing accounts is expanding the value you offer. It goes further than your value positioning statement, however. Listen as John Doerr explains the other things high-performing firms do to expand the value they offer and grow business with accounts.
When it comes to identifying sales leaders, executives need to look beyond a person's ability to sell. Do they inspire people? Can they establish a clear vision? Can they get priorities of focus driven through an organization and cascaded to the front lines? Specifically, strong sales leaders have five qualities, says Scott Edinger, co-author of The Hidden Leader.
People have long held negative perceptions of sales, making the idea of loving a salesperson laughable. The truth is many customers do love people who sell to them—if those people have certain qualities. Listen as Jack Vincent, author of A Sale Is a Love Affair, explains what it takes to win a customer's love.
Whether you are a salesperson trying to get an executive to buy your product or you are a sales manager trying to approval for a new procedure, the important thing is to understand the executive's perspective. When you know what they want out of meetings, you will lead memorable meetings that prompt them to take action in your favor rather.
In a world where buyers often think competing products are virtually the same, the salesperson is the differentiating factor. It isn't enough for a salesperson to simply explain the features of what he's selling, he must provide value. Listen as Scott Edinger explains how top salespeople provide value and how companies can support them by having a sales-oriented culture.
As firms work to generate new leads, close more business, and charge fees they deserve, one thing can make all of those easier to accomplish: a Visible Expert. Listen as Lee Frederiksen explains the benefits of having Visible Experts on staff and how to develop your own expert.
Most people start their sales presentations by thanking their audience for the time and talking about themselves. If that's your approach, stop. If you want to capture their attention, start by saying something nice about the audience—something they are proud about as a business.
Selling isn't easy, but it is simple. It calls for following these three steps—making every touch count, being absolutely responsive, and clarifying your offer. Those actions are at the very heart of selling, says Andy Paul, author of Amp Up Your Sales. Master those, and the rest will come easily.
Companies have access to an incredible amount of customer and prospect data. With proper tools and analysis they can uncover buyer trends that can help generate high-quality leads and convert more leads into customers, says Russell Glass, co-author of The Big Data-Driven Business.
For many businesses, the danger is that customers make buying decisions based solely on price and they end up in commodity hell. To prevent that from happening, you need to create products that are experiential and cause people to have an emotional reaction to them. You need the secret sauce: empathy, says Jon Kolko, author of Well Designed.
Whether you are a sales leader or customer service manager, all business leaders face four common challenges: innovation, talent management, communication, and globalization. Listen as Alan Cutler, author of Leadership Psychology, explains those challenges, discusses challenges unique for sales managers, and offers advice for motivating employees.
When you know how to use LinkedIn, it becomes a powerful sales and lead generation tool. Listen as social selling Kevin Knebl explains how to use the social media network to prospect for new customers, as well as attract buyers to you.
When you are a widely known expert on a topic, your and your firm's opportunities increase. What was once a passion of yours becomes highly sought-after expertise that people are willing to pay high fees for. To get to that level, though, you have to increase your visibility. Listen as Lee Frederiksen, co-author of The Visible Expert, explains the qualities of visible experts and the process to become a visible expert.
Government contracts: it's great work if you can get it, many contracting firms say. It's the getting it that can be challenging, for often agencies stick with their preferred vendors. Listen as David Frazier, author of A Survival Guide for Government Contractors, discusses how to get initial government contracts and the pros and cons of doing contract work for the government.
Thanks to the Internet, buyers are more informed than ever when they go to make a purchase. It's tempting, therefore, for salespeople to go for the quick sale when customers call. After all, they've already done the research and they're ready to buy. There are repercussions to going after the quick sale, though. Listen as Mark Hunter, co-author of Advisor Selling, explains what they are and why B2B salespeople should consider following an advisory selling approach.
Making sure sales teams receive qualified leads can be a challenge. The problem can be alleviated if marketing teams take these three steps in their online marketing campaigns: focus on measurable objectives, focus on the customer, and monetize engagement with prospects. Listen as Scott Armstrong discusses each of those, as well as explains what to include in an online marketing program.
Salespeople are often taught to offer buyers rational-sounding reasons for them to buy something. The reality is decisions are made on an emotional and unconscious level. And sellers can use language patterns to affect buyers' decisions. Listen as Peter McLaughlin, author of Becoming the Customer, discusses how to use language patterns alongside sales techniques to persuade customers.
Lack of confidence can be a huge detriment when negotiating deals with buyers. But even if you have all of the confidence in the world, you might still make a mistake that negatively affects the outcome. Listen as Mike Schultz discusses the two most common mistake sellers make during negotiations, as well as offers advice to improve your ability to negotiate deals.
People often mistakenly think that by providing a lot of information, buyers will make a decision based on that information. The truth is you could have really impactful information, but if you don't direct people to take action, that information has no influence. Listen as Juliet Huck, author of The Equation of Persuasion, discusses the difference between informing and persuading and explains how to be more persuasive in your presentations and conversations with buyers.
For a business to grow, it must have a strategy and that strategy must be aligned with sales. The problem is often companies don't have a strategy, or if they do, there's a gap between that strategy and what their sales teams are doing. Listen as Frank Cespedes, author of Aligning Strategy and Sales, discusses what make a good strategy, how to reduce the gap between strategy and sales, and how to improve financial performance.
You can't assume because you do good work that clients are going to find you and hire you. You need a marketing system that will work for you seven days a week, consistently generating new leads and nurturing those leads. Listen as Mark Satterfield, author of The One Week Marketing Plan, discusses how to create a system in just five days that does that, as well as builds trust and credibility.
People incorrectly assume content, thanks to the prevalent use of the term "content marketing," is the marketing department's sole responsibility. What they don't realize is salespeople can use content at every stage of the sales cycle to help buyers through the sales journey and ultimately buy. If salespeople share content that adds value and helps prospects do their jobs better, they'll speed up sales process and increase conversions.
Many firms experience boom/bust sales cycle. They go through periods of high sales followed by no sales. But those cycles don't have to exist. They are completely self-inflicted, and companies can easily get themselves out of them, says Colleen Francis, author of Nonstop Sales Boom. Listen as Francis explains what companies can do to break those cycles and ensure consistent sales.
You know the benefits companies achieve from doing content marketing—viral videos, jumps in website traffic, increased number of leads. None of those can be achieved, however, if you don’t follow a few basic rules of content marketing. Listen as Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, explains what those are, as well as discusses content marketing trends you should be aware of.
If you're involved in sales, getting a meeting with a prospect is one of the hardest things to do. And if it involves cold calling, people hate it so much they will do what they can to get out of having to do it. Fortunately, there are ways to turn cold calls into warm calls and improve your chances of getting a meeting. Listen as Tim Hurson, co-author of Never Be Closing, explains what you can do.
Traditional marketing and sales approaches that focus on pushing out a campaign or pushing a particular service no longer work. Instead you need a more direct approach in which you educate prospects, have interesting conversations with them, and solve problems. Robert Rosenthal, author of Optimarketing: Marketing Optimization to Electrify Your Business, explains why the indirect approach is better and why firms can't be afraid to try imaginative marketing ideas.
Most businesses don't to online lead generation well. Their websites have bounce rates higher than 80%. And sometimes they have response rates lower than 5%. They fail to convert visitors into buyers because the websites don't fulfill their need—they don't help solve the problem that sent them to the search engine in the first place. Listen as Helen Overland discusses what successful lead generation websites do that convert visitors into customers.
You can take classes about business and read about how to succeed in business, but it isn't until you hear from business owners about their experiences that you get the whole picture. Their stories bring to life challenges they're dealing with and provide ideas for how similar businesses can address those same issues. In this podcast, Michael Mazzeo, co-author of Roadside MBA, talks about the 100-plus small businesses he and his co-authors met with as research for the book and shares the stories of B2B service firms dealing with the perennial challenge of getting new clients.
The entire sales process is a series of discomforts, such as prospecting, follow-up, and negotiation. Successful salespeople and professionals involved in business development know how to handle those discomforts, though. When they identify them, prepare for them, and work through them they have much greater success than those who refuse to break out of their comfort zone. Listen as Jeff Shore, author of Be Bold and Win the Sale, discusses how to break your comfort addictions and win more sales.
When the average person hears a "no" from a buyer, their automatic response is to think they're not the buyer isn't interested and to end the conversation. The reality is a no is an opportunity to continue the discussion, uncover the buyer's concerns, and possibly turn the no into a yes. Listen as Tom Hopkins, author of When Buyers Say No, explains how to respond to buyer objections and keep the sale moving forward.
You know all of those conferences, trade shows, and industry events where you're supposed to network and meet potential new clients? You should probably skip those and instead create your own "un-networking" group where you connect clients and become an extension of your clients' business development team. Not only will you help your clients, but you will get more business in return, says Derek Coburn, author of Networking Is Not Working.
Many companies do not sound exciting on the surface. When you think of an accounting or insurance firm, for example, you probably picture something rather boring. Chances are, however, those firms are doing some unique and interesting things. It's those things—told through stories—that will help them stand out from others in their industry and draw buyers to them.
The advent of smartphones and tablets has led to a new type of sales force. New mobile technology gives sales reps fast and easy access to marketing and sales materials, while also enabling them to answer prospects' questions and fulfill requests faster. The end result is more deals are closed faster.
The fortune is in the follow-up, but sometimes it might feel like the follow-up is a waste of time—especially if your prospect goes silent. Don't be put off by that silence, says Nancy Fox. Chances are they're busy or aren't ready to move forward. So, until the person says "stop contacting me," continue to reach out to them.
For the most part, professionals still enter a field expecting to do just client work only to eventually discover they also have to bring in new business. College did not prepare them for how to do it, and the idea of selling scares them. With some guidance and practice, however, they can become successful business developers.
You might think that because buyers have access to so much information about services and providers that they don't want or need sellers to provide insight and ideas. And you would be mistaken. According to research included in Insight Selling, providing insight is the number one thing sales winners do that separates them from second-place finishers. Listen as John Doerr, co-author of the book, explains how providing insight and collaborating with buyers helps you sell more.
We all get so many emails that if the subject line doesn't capture our attention, it's gone. Or if the subject line does interest us but the message fails, it is deleted almost as quickly. There are things you can do to your emails, however, to prevent your prospecting emails from being instantly deleted. Listen as Kendra Lee explains what you should do—and not do—to get prospects to pay attention to your emails.
Stories inspire, are easy to remember, are contagious, and everyone likes to hear them. Because of that, they're excellent tools for capturing buyers' attention and getting them to do something. The key is to tell the story correctly. Listen as Paul Smith, author of Lead with a Story, discusses why storytelling is effective in business, the components of a compelling business story, and how to best use stories in sales and marketing.
Digital tools have helped make the sales process easier, but in some cases they also hurt it by dehumanizing the process. Salespeople should not hid behind those tools because they're hesitant to call prospects or use them as simply transactional items. Instead, they should use them to build connections and develop relationships. Listen as Adrian Davis, author of Human to Human Selling, discusses how to do that and how his five phase strategy for human-to-human selling can help.
When giving a presentation to a prospect or client, the fastest way to turn them away is to talk just about you. You can't stand up and beat your chest and expect people to be impressed. The best way to capture and hold a buyer's attention is to first demonstrate an understanding of them and their situation. Once you do that, then you can talk about how your services can help them, says Sims Wyeth, author of The Essentials of Persuasive Public Speaking.
It used to be marketing was a net cost to a business. You spent, for example, $10,000 on direct marketing piece and got $25,000 back in new business. That has changed. Marketing has now become an asset to a business, as well as a lead generation tool, says Grant Leboff, author Stickier Marketing. Listen as Leboff explains why marketing has become an asset and who your greatest marketers are today.
Best practices can become old hat, resulting in lackluster client solutions that look and sound like everyone else's. To break from that and differentiate, you need to think creatively, says Mark Donnolo, author of The Innovative Sale. The key is to make creativity practical and functional. In this podcast, Donnolo explains four creative habits successful salespeople have that help them develop better client solutions.
When you think about introverts, most people don't think of them as good salespeople, let alone great salespeople. The truth is they have many qualities that help them do better in sales than other personality types. Listen as Alen Mayer, author of the ebook Selling for Introverts, explains the strengths introverts bring to the sales process, how introverts can excel at cold calling, and how to manage introverted salespeople.
Having a relationship with a C-level executive can be a powerful thing. Getting to that point, however, is not easy. The challenge starts with your initial meeting with him. In this podcast, Andrew Sobel explains what to do during that first meeting, as well as how to nurture the relationship after the meeting, so that you become a trusted advisor who is part of the client's solution process instead of someone who simply a bidder in an RFP contest.
Education, wealth, race, and other factors do not determine your success. Who you are is the ultimate factor. Specifically successful people have four attitudes: they are extreme, are disciplined, are giving, and understand the human factor. All of those make you a better person, which in turn makes you a better salesperson, says Dan Waldschmidt, author Edgy Conversations: How Ordinary People Can Achieve Outrageous Success.
You're already working on a small project for a large company, but there's a much larger project coming up in a different division that you'd love to work on. How do you win that deal? Listen as sales growth expert Adrian Davis explains his five-step process for winning that large deal, as well as how salespeople can become trusted advisors to client executives.
Hiring a new salesperson is more than just adding headcount. It's an investment in revenue, and companies must treat it that way, says Lee Salz, author of the new book Hire Right, Higher Profits. If you want salespeople who succeed, you need a hiring process that matches the candidate to the role and an onboarding process that both protects the investment and ensures a high rate of return on it.
The world is full of great products and services. That means quality alone will not set you apart from the competition. In addition to having a great service, you have to consider how buyers feel about your brand and give them emotional satisfaction. Buyers must perceive you to be a firm that provides value, says David Pearson, author of The 20 Ps of Marketing.
If you're involved in sales, you have to be on social media today. That's because it's where your customers are, as well as your competitors, says Shannon Belew, author of The Art of Social Selling. Your buyers are using social media well before they're ready to buy to find information about your services and your company, and you need to have a presence there. Listen as Belew explains her 10 rules for online social interactions and offers advice for how to best use LinkedIn and Twitter to generate sales.
When you think about some of the older sales approaches where they talk about overcoming a buyer's objections and wrestling them until they say yes, they sound rather combative. Instead Simon Hazeldine, author of Neuro-Sell, says sellers need a brain-friendly sales process, one that makes the customer's brain feel comfortable with you.
Email is easy, and it's tempting to rely on it when you're afraid to address a person directly or are afraid of rejection. But it's the worst possible way to ask for a referral or a testimonial. Listen as marketing expert Alex Goldfayn explains why email is the worst way to ask for a referral and what you should use instead.
If there were one word to describe the future of marketing departments, you might say it's "accountable." Increasingly company executives want to know how marketing will contribute to the firm's top-line revenue growth, and marketers need to start providing answers, says Debbie Qaqish, author of Rise of the Revenue Marketer.
Sales and marketing teams might think they're helping their company grow. What they don't realize, however, is that in many cases, they unknowingly do the opposite. Listen as Guido Quelle, author of Profitable Growth, explains what they do that prevents a company from growing.
Selling B2B professional services can be a long and complex process. It's a dance buyers and sellers do over a period of time that is full of opportunities for sellers to differentiate themselves. Developing trust, however, doesn't have to take a long time. Sometimes you do or say something, and in an instant the buyer lets down his guard. The key is to recognize and act on trust-building opportunities.
No one likes to be told what to do. And that applies to your buyers as well. If you just tell them what you think they should do, you will be met with reluctance and resistance, says John E. Doerr, President of RAIN Group. You will have much greater success if you collaborate with them. In this podcast, Doerr explains why collaboration is important and outlines how to create a collaborative relationship with your buyers.
Providing great products and services is expected in today's competitive environment. You need them just to play in the marketplace. To win, you have to think about your interactions with customers. It isn't about how much you can sell, says Niraj Dawar, author of TILT. It's about what else your customers need.
Content marketing is not new. John Deere has been doing it since 1895 when it started publishing its Furrow magazine. And several B2B firms, such as OpenView Labs, are having huge success using it to attract prospects and grow business. Still there are holdouts. If you, or the executives at your firm, don't think content marketing works, Joe Pulizzi, author of Epic Content Marketing, suggests trying these two methods.
Money might make the world go round, but it isn't enough for salespeople—or the companies they work for—to achieve long-term sales success. In this podcast interview, sales coach and author Lisa McLeod explains how having a noble purpose drives individual sales success and turns average-performing companies into top-tier organizations.
Buyers and sellers don't always see eye to eye. Things buyers consider important sometimes aren't even have sellers' radar. And those gaps can create friction or worse cause a sale to be lost. Listen as Lee Frederiksen, author of Inside the Buyer's Brain, explains the three biggest gaps between buyers and sellers and how to close them.
You might run or work for a B2B service provider, but at the heart of it you are a human dealing with other humans. That means your marketing should reflect that, says Simon Pont, author of Digital State. Don't talk at or to people. Have conversations with them, as well as encourage customers to talk with one another.
Before you can sell anything, you have to know what your buyers want. That means you have to talk with your clients and prospects. It seems logical, but many entrepreneurs and business owners are reluctant to do that, says Drew Williams, co-author of Feed the Startup Beast. Listen as Williams explains his seven-step guide to achieving outrageous sales growth and the success companies are seeing by using it.
If you want prospects to respond to you, you have to speak their language. And those languages include the devices and mediums in which they like to communicate. That means if your prospects prefer to communicate via Twitter, you have to know how to use Twitter. If your prospects prefer to communicate via text messages, you have to communicate with them via text, says Marc Ostrofsky, author of Word of Mouse. And if you don't know how to use those things, hire someone who does.
The professional services world is changing, and it isn't all for the better. Increasingly, clients focus on price, especially when using RFPs, and that can drive down the fees providers receive. To make sure you get project at the fee you deserve, you must start working with the prospect well before the project goes out to bid. Listen as Ori Wiener, author of High Impact Fee Negotiation and Management for Professionals, explain what you should do and how to prevent profitability leaks.
United Airlines is a storyteller; JetBlue is a storydoer. Reebok is a storyteller; Nike is a storydoer. Dr. Pepper is a storyteller; Red Bull is a storydoer. What's the difference? Storydoers tell their story through action rather than exposition. They enact it by creating experiences or products that are so compelling that people want to tell everyone about them, says Ty Montague, author of True Story. In this podcast he explains the benefits of storydoing and how to turn your firm into a storydoer.
Buyers have changed. They don't like taking sales calls, they don't want to be told what to do, and they really don't want to sit through long PowerPoint presentations, says Josiane Feigon, author of Smart Sales Manager. What they want are intelligent salespeople who will pay attention to their needs and educate them.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is often confusing, especially when search engines continually change their algorithms. Strategies that may have worked in the past might no longer work or worse could hurt your website. Listen as Jeff Quipp, Founder and CEO of Search Engine People, explains practices that no longer work and what businesses should do instead.
Everyone loves a good story, and that includes your buyers. A good story triggers an emotion, and if the situation is similar to your buyer's, it makes them feel the problem could also happen to them. If you can show how you or your service helped the subject overcome the conflict, then you're one step closer to winning the sale.
Certain behaviors determine a person's sales effectiveness—such as asking the right questions, uncovering the buyer's true need, and developing rapport with the buyer. What you might not know is selling with purpose, truly wanting to make a difference in clients' lives, can also lead to more sales. In fact, organizations that have a higher sales purpose outperform organizations that are focused on just producing revenue, says Lisa McLeod, author of Selling with Noble Purpose.
The natural tendency is to appeal to all buyers, providing everything and anything people might need. If you do that, however, you will have less business. When you specialize and differentiate, you will be much more successful, says Lee Frederiksen, co-author of Professional Services Marketing, Second Edition.
Buyers are in control of the buying process. In fact, most of the process is complete before they even contact you. They've already done the research: searched the web, read reviews and reports, and talked with their friends. That's why content marketing is so important, says content marketing evangelist Joe Pulizzi. To succeed at content marketing, however, you must have a content marketing strategy.
Ideally when you meet someone at a networking event, you end the conversation by scheduling a time to meet later and continue the conversation. A lot of the time, however, all you leave with is a business card that gets put into the top drawer of your desk with all the other cards you've collected over the years, never to be touched again. To prevent those opportunities from being wasted, Nancy Fox suggest following her 30-minute follow-up process.
A lot of people are afraid to ask for referrals because they think they will appear pushy, needy, or unsuccessful. And some people don’t ask because they’re afraid of rejection. The truth is asking for referrals doesn’t make you look like any of those things. Further, not getting a referral is not a failure, says Bill Cates author of Beyond Referrals. How you ask for a referral does affect your chances of receiving one, however. Listen as Cates explains how you should ask for one.
There's a mania around content marketing like there was around social media marketing a few years ago. Everyone knows they need to do it, but they don't know why and they don't know how to do it well. As a result, there's a lot of junk out there and intense competition for buyer attention. For content marketing to work, the content you produce must be useful and helpful, says Jay Baer, author of Youtility. More than that, you have to produce content that your buyers love.
When someone says your price is too high, you haven't done your job. You didn't build value. You didn't show the person the value you provide is worth more than the price. To help you do that—and make price a non-issue—Kurt Mortensen, author of Maximum Influence, explains three pricing strategies.
Companies know they need a marketing planning system. However, 80% of organizations don't have an integrated and coordinated plan. Many barriers prevent them from implementing one, but the biggest is the lack of line management support, says Mike Meldrum, co-author of The Complete Marketer. Listen as he explains why this is a problem, how to eliminate it, as well as other challenges marketers face in organizations.
Selling to C-level executives is more about making a single sale. It's about building long-term, lifetime relationships. That means you must approach high-level executives differently than other decision makers. Listen as Ago Cluytens, Practice Director EMEA at RAIN Group, discusses the best strategy for selling to C-level executives.
As independent professionals try to market their services and get new clients, many are stumbling and seeing little results for their efforts. A key reason for that is they aren't using their marketing time efficiently, says C.J. Hayden, who recently released the third edition of her book Get Clients Now! Listen as Hayden explains the reason for this inefficiency and how to eliminate it.
Prospects who buy from you get a seven-course meal. But prospects who don't buy from you should also get something—and something of value. David Newman, author of Do It! Marketing, calls it "Happy Meal Marketing. Nobody leaves your website or blog hungry. Listen as Newman explains how Happy Meal Marketing fits into the new sales paradigm for selling professional services: offer value, invite engagement.
Consultative selling on its own has worked for many years for many sellers. But with the incredible amount of information available to buyers before they even talk to a seller, buyers need help sorting it out and making the right decision. They need a collaborator, says Nancy Bleeke, author of the book Conversations that Sell. Through collaboration not only do you uncover needs and demonstrate your expertise, but you work with them to decide on the best possible solution.
After hearing people say relationship-based sales approaches are dead, RAIN Group decided to find out if that were true. After all, people have been using that for many years, and if it were true, their way of doing business would have to change significantly. To its surprise, RAIN Group did not see evidence of relationship selling's death in the research they conducted. Listen as Mike Schultz, co-president of the firm, explains why relationship-based selling is still important and what sales winners do over their second-place finishers.
IT professionals, lawyers, accountants, salespeople—they all have their own language and jargon. While it's fine to speak that language among the same types of people, doing so with people outside your group—and even to potential buyers—can impede business development efforts. In this interview, Babette Ten Hanken, author of Do You Mean Business?, explains why techno-speak creates communication barriers and how to tear down those barriers and improve business development.
Today's marketing efforts are not like past marketing efforts. Indeed marketing is undergoing a paradigm shift as increase importance is placed on quantitative results—chief executives want to know what to expect in return for their marketing spends, says David Scott, author of The New Rules of Lead Generation. Listen as Scott explains the shift, how the shift applies to B2B professional services firms, and his five-step plan for a lead generation campaign.
Not long ago, the rule for the length of prospecting email messages was to limit your text to 165 words. That rule has changed and even become more complicated, says Kendra Lee. Listen as she explains what length is now preferred, how the length varies depending on where your prospects live, how to prevent prospecting email from being marked as spam, and the most common mistake people make when composing prospecting email messages.
"Nobody goes onto LinkedIn to find someone to buy from, but that doesn't mean you can't create sales opportunities via LinkedIn," says Jill Konrath co-author of the new ebook Cracking the LinkedIn Sales Code. In fact, Konrath's research found top sellers excel at creating opportunities via the social network. Listen as she discusses what they do, how to research prospects via LinkedIn, and how to connect with prospects via LinkedIn.
Increasingly marketers are involved in the revenue equation, with many marketing leaders now carrying a sales quota. But because sales departments still hold the greatest influence in organizations, marketing leaders have difficulty being heard. If marketing leaders want salespeople and the executives within their organization to listen to them, they must do three things. Listen as Lisa Nirell explains what those are.
Whether you work for a firm or run your own business, a strong personal brand will help you attract clients and grow your business. That's because when people decide to do business with you, it's based on what you are like as an individual. Listen as Dorie Clark, author of Reinventing You, discusses how to develop a strong personal brand and how to use your brand to attract clients.
It might be hard to believe, but musician Kanye West is correct when he tweeted, "Don't ever try to sell me on anything. Give me ALL the information and I'll make my own decision," says Sonja Jefferson, co-author of the book Valuable Content Marketing. People don't want to be sold to; they want help. Listen as Jefferson explains why content must help customers, as well as the other principles for creating valuable content.
When it comes to selling professional services, top sellers do two things that set them apart from the competition. One of those is educating their buyers with new ideas and perspectives. Listen as John Doerr, Co-President of RAIN Group explains why that is so important to buyers, the second most important factor when selecting a provider, and what to do if you're struggling to win sales.
It used to be businesses could rely on advertising and traditional marketing methods, but things have shifted and those strategies no longer work. Increasingly buyers have lost trust with companies, and only those embrace the new Relationship Era of marketing and care about something bigger than what they sell will succeed, says Doug Levy, co-author of Can't Buy Me Like.
You don't like to be pushed, persuaded, or maneuvered, and neither do your clients. Instead you need to work on being a strong influence—being "influenceable," says John Ullmen, co-author of Real Influence: Persuade without Pushing and Gain without Giving In. Listen as Ullmen discusses the four steps to connecting with and influencing people and how you can apply them to communications with clients.
There are two paths to trust. There's the traditional way where you meet someone in person and get to know them, and there's the online way where buyers learn to trust you based on your online presence. And for many firms, the second path—with the help online marketing—has become extremely effective.
Listen as Lee Frederiksen, co-author of Online Marketing for Professional Services, discusses how to use online marketing to develop trust with buyers and grow your business.
Paul Gillin, co-author of Attack of the Customers, explains how negative online reviews are opportunities to turn unhappy customers into raving fans.
Kendra Lee, author The Sales Magnet, explains the two keys for successful email prospecting: the glimpse factor and the delete barrier.
All of us love stories. That includes your buyers. Stories tap our emotions and compel us to want to do something, and you can use them to motivate your prospects. The key is to tell great stories. To do that you must first understand the buyer's goal. Listen as Adrian Davis discusses why stories are effective in sales, when to use stories, and things to be careful of when telling stories.
Buyer behavior and needs have changed. That means service firms must update their sales process to accommodate those changes. That means they must genuinely put buyers at the heart of all business development activity, says David Tovey, author of Principled Selling. Listen as Tovey explains how concepts of his Principled Selling Approach enable firms to do that.
Thanks to social media, word of mouth has been "massively amplified." Where once talk about favorite restaurants or companies were limited to the few people around the water cooler, now millions of people can hear about an experience you had with a business. That doesn't mean companies have to sit by while this happens. Listen as Rob Fuggetta explains how companies can tap this powerful source and use passionate customer as advocates and "virtual marketers."
When sales and marketing are aligned, you have faster revenue cycles, happier customers, and higher employee morale. Many times, however, that alignment is not there. To get the two groups aligned, Christine Crandell, President of New Business Strategies, suggests following these seven steps.
Getting referrals is all about whom you know, building relationships with those people, and leveraging that to get to the people you really want to talk to—potential clients. As Jeremy Bromberg says, it means following the yellow brick road. Listen as Bromberg talks about how he develops partnerships with other service professionals and how he grows those relationships to generate new business.
Everyone, including your buyers, has their own persona or character code. When you can identify their preferences, you can better interact with them and improve the likelihood of their working with you. Listen as Brandy Mychals, author of How to Read a Client from Across the Room, explains her Character Code System and how to use her system to attract your ideal client.
Your prospect has been in your lead nurturing process for weeks. You think by now they're ready to buy. But are you sure? In this podcast interview, Jeff Ogden discusses how to determine when your prospect is ready to buy, critical factors to consider when launching a lead-nurturing campaign, and the best content to use in a lead-nurturing campaign.
The benefits of cross-selling within client firms seem obvious: it takes less time, money, and effort to sell within client organizations than to new clients. But still many organizations resist doing it. In this podcast RAIN Group Co-President Mike Schultz explains why organizations are reluctant, what it takes to implement a strong cross-selling process, and the financial benefits of having cross-selling process.
The single overwhelming driver when executives select a consultant, not surprisingly, is trust. Can they trust you? To gain that trust, executives look for consultants to have four particular characteristics. Listen as David Fields, author of The Executive's Guide to Consultants, explains what those characteristics are, the right way to approach a project, what you need to do after meeting with an executive, and how to get the fees you deserve.
What do decision makers really want to know from you as a service provider? The question is simple. The answer is also simple, but carrying out the request can be more complicated. According to Darlene Price, author of Well Said! Presentations and Conversations that Get Results, decision makers want to know how you can help them. Listen as she explains the three things they're specifically looking for, as well as how to persuade decision makers and how to conduct "powerful conversations."
The best way to close more deals and develop close relationships with clients might not match what you think it is. The fact is suggesting a competitor, as contradictory as that might seem, is the best way to build loyalty and win that buyer's business. Listen as Andrea Howe explains why that works, as well as barriers that prevent service professionals from succeeding with sale
When looking at the characteristics and actions of various CEOs, it's clear that the most successful executives do things differently than their counterparts. Listen as William N. Thorndike, author of The Outsiders, explains the characteristics of the eight CEOs he profiled in his book and how their actions helped their companies achieve huge success.
Just like buyers have a fight or flight response when confronted with an aggressive sales approach, salespeople also have that response when dealing with challenging buyers. And that often causes them to say or do the wrong things during a sales call. In this interview, Colleen Stanley, author of Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success, discusses how to control that response and the importance of emotional intelligence in the sales process.
Many people get excited about the latest and greatest social media platforms, thinking they have to use whatever new pops up. The truth is you must assess each one to determine if it's right for you. And you have to do it regularly, as the networks are continually changing as are buyer preferences. Listen as Michelle Golden, author of Social Media Strategies for Professionals and their Firms, discusses strategy for deciding which social networks to use and how firms use them to nurture client relationships and grow business.
The key to maintaining a continual flow of clients is focus, says Mike Weinberg, author of New Sales. Simplified. Focus on new business development. More than that, however, you need a strategy to make it happen. That's where Weinberg's simple sales framework comes in. Listen as he explains the three steps to drive new sales, as well as your most effective sales weapon.
A value proposition is crucial to conveying to potential clients what you do and why they should do business with you. Yet many people have problems communicating that value. Their statements don’t resonate with buyers, and they don’t differentiate them from competitors. Listen as RAIN Group Co-President discusses how to best explain the value you offer so that people want to work with you.
Everyone wants more clients, and higher-paying clients. But only those who claim a niche and know how to tell their story will succeed. That's because people want specialists to help them, not generalists. Listen as Nancy Juetten, contributor to the recently release book Speak More: Marketing Strategies to Get More Speaking Business, discusses the importance of specializing in an area and how to craft messages, including your profile, that attract your ideal client.
If you have a B2B service firm or are a service professional, LinkedIn is the place to be. It allows you tremendous opportunities to connect with prospective clients and generate new business. But you have to have to have a strategy for using it, says social media strategist Neal Schaffer, and it all starts with your LinkedIn profile. Listen as Schaffer discusses how to use your profile as a sales and marketing tool, as well as how to use groups to develop new business.
If you're at a networking event and you see the perfect prospect across the room, do you know what you would say? You need to be prepared to not just introduce yourself but get the person interested in a meeting with you. Listen as Terri Sjodin, author of Small Message, Big Impact, explains how to craft a powerful elevator speech, the three components of an effective elevator speech, and The Elevator Speech Effect.
If you're like most service professionals, you have a hard time asking for referrals. There are ways, however, to get referrals without asking for them outright, says Emile Paradis, a franchise owner of The Referral Institute. Listen as he discusses how to prepare clients so that they naturally refer you to your ideal prospects.
It's a given that you have to ask prospects questions so you can uncover their needs and develop a solution to help them. How you ask those questions, however, determines if they open up to you or if they shut down and dismiss everything you say. Listen as RAIN Group President John Doerr discusses when to ask questions, questions that build trust, and how to develop rapport with a prospect over the phone.
When done right, branding helps get everybody in your firm—from receptionist to the business development team to technical staff—on the same page and everybody speaking the same language. If that isn't the case in your firm, if people have differing views about what your firm does, then you need to consider rebranding. Listen as Josh Miles, author of Bold Brand, discusses clues that rebranding is needed, misperceptions of branding, and how to get started rebranding your firm.
Want to advance your business? Take your competitors to lunch. That right, take them to lunch, says Michael Dalton Johnson, author Rules of the Hunt. If you do, you will view each other as human beings and disarm the situation. And that can lead to collegial relationships where you help each other.
Search engines, once the number one tool buyers used to help find service providers, have lost their appeal. Buyers have changed their behavior and now turn to friends and social network communities to help them decide who to hire. Sellers and marketers need to acknowledge this or risk losing their business, says Kristin Zhivago, author of Roadmap to Revenue: How to Sell the Way Your Customers Want to Buy.
Content marketing can help you grow your business, but only if you produce remarkable, high-quality content. Anything less, and you're wasting your time. So, before you put pen to paper—or hands on keyboard—make sure you know what your customers want and have the resources and structure to produce amazing content, says content marketing evangelist Joe Pulizzi. Doing so will increase your online footprint and pull more buyers to you.
You won't make a direct sale from a tweet or Facebook post, but you absolutely can use social media networks to develop relationships that lead to new business. Social media is, says marketing expert Todd Schnick, the "new networking." Listen as Schnick discusses why B2B firms should use social media, how they should use social media, and mistakes to avoid.
The most powerful form of advertising isn't pay-per-click campaigns or ads on popular social networks. It is word of mouth. It's having clients and employees—all employees—acting as ambassadors who communicate wherever possible the benefits of your service. It means having a "conversation company," says Steven Van Belleghem, author of The Conversation Company. Listen as Van Belleghem discusses how being conversation company improves word of mouth and how to transform your firm into a conversation company.
When you were in third grade, you probably didn't say you wanted to be a salesperson. In fact 95% of people in sales say they never planned on being involved in sales. Yet so many, especially service professionals, are charged with bringing in new business. The good news is you can learn how to sell. To be a great salesperson, however, you must have a certain quality, says Chris Lytle, author of The Accidental Salesperson. Listen as Lytle explains what that quality is, as well as his roadmap to sales success.
Ask any email marketer when is the best time to send marketing email, and chances are they will say it depends. It depends on your business, and it depends on your ideal customers. However, company email tests have shown that certain buyers are more likely to read and respond to your email on particular days. Listen as marketing expert Matt Heinz discusses what day usually works best for contacting C-level executives, how to prevent email from being labeled as spam, and how to grow your email list.
Companies are sitting on a tremendous source of untapped growth—their customers. Most focus only on getting customers to buy—and keep buying, but that's only a fraction of the value firms can harvest from them, says Bill Lee, author of The Hidden Wealth of Customers. They can grow significantly more if they can turn customers into advocates—or rock stars—who will market and sell for you.
Traditional sales techniques no longer work. You also can't create one script and expect it to have the same effect on everyone. If you want to influence the buyer, you must approach him the way he prefers to be approached. Listen as Dan Seidman, author of The Secret Language of Influence, explains how to determine what type of buyer you're dealing with and how to customize the conversation based on that.
Most people struggle with cold calls because they just can't get prospects to give them their time. People are pounded by so much information that they block things out. They've become particularly adept at tuning out salespeople. In this podcast, Jim Keenan, author of the ebook All You Need for a Successful Cold Call, explains how to get around that coping mechanism, capture prospects' attention, and get them to talk with you.
Think you can't compete with the larger firms in your industry? Think again. Content marketing is the great leveling field that allows you to not just compete but win that battle. Listen as content marketing evangelist Joe Pulizzi discusses a simple content marketing strategy that can put small B2B service firms ahead of large competitors.
Studies show that 60% of companies don't follow up with leads. They may not trust the leads, or they may not have a process for following up with leads. Whatever the reason is, that lack of follow-up causes businesses to lose money, says Andy Paul, author of Zero-Time Selling. In this interview, Paul discusses how one firm achieved 100% follow-up on leads and as a result saw sales increase25% to 35%.
You know how to use automated email to generate leads and nurture leads. But have you thought about using transactional email, such as order confirmations or even out-of-office messages, to engage with buyers? If not, you're missing out on an opportunity to provide value-added content that can lead to sales. Listen as Matt Heinz discusses how to how to get better use out of transactional emails, mistakes that cause email campaigns to fail, and tactics to capture prospects' attention.
No matter how good a salesperson looks on paper, you can't drop that person into a new company and expect him to start generating revenue immediately. You need an onboarding program that helps new-hire salespeople fully understand the value the company offers and how to sell that value, says sales management strategist Lee Salz. Without one, you lose money on salesperson turnover or if they stay, they make less-than-optimal sales.
Often companies make mistakes with their websites that cause them to leave money on the table. Potential buyers visit their site but don't take any actionable steps or they leave immediately. And the website owners have no idea that it's happening or why. Listen as Philippa Gamse, author of 42 Rules for a Web Presence that Wins, discusses the biggest website mistakes that cause companies to lose leads and how to improve your website so that you generate more leads and more revenue.
The online world is continually evolving. Buyers' behaviors change, which means your lead generation and marketing strategies must also evolve. To help you, several tools are available to identify leads, target your messaging toward them, and develop relationships with them. Listen as Jeff Quipp, CEO of Search Engine People, discusses some of those tools, as well as online marketing strategies firms must focus on.
For most service professionals, finding time to both sell and provide their services is an issue. That's why it's important that they qualify their prospects to make sure the potential buyer is worth giving their time to. You don't want to waste time on prospects who will never buy from you. Listen as RAIN Group Co-President John Doerr explains the best way to qualify prospects when it's a complex sale.
When you receive a generic prospecting email, what's your first reaction? To delete it? Your buyers feel the same way. If you want them to respond, you must personalize it. Listen as prospecting and lead generation expert Kendra Lee explains how to personalize prospecting emails—even when your list has hundreds of prospects, two things you must never include in prospecting emails, and the importance of follow-up email.
Thanks to the Internet, it's never been easier to build relationships with reporters and get quoted in their publications. Journalists from all types of media outlets, including The New York Times, are always looking for sources for their articles. And if you can capture their attention, they will turn to you. Listen as Dan Janal, author of Reporters Are Looking for You! Get the Publicity You Need to Build Your Business, explains how to get on journalists' radar and respond to their queries so that they use your quotes in articles.
The road to becoming a trusted advisor to clients is paved with good intentions. However, when service professionals head out with all the best goals often things trip them up. In this podcast, Andrea Howe, co-author of The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook, explains what those stumbling blocks are and how to develop your trust skills so that you have trustworthy client relationships.
When you make cold calls or send prospecting emails, should you try to sell the person on the value of your services—of what you have to offer? If you answered yes, you are wrong. Listen as RAIN Group Co-President John Doerr explains what you should do, as well as how to sell your services based on value so that you generate new business at higher prices.
One of the best ways to run yourself out of business is to discount your price. For once you do that, a discounting mindset takes hold and you will start to offer discounts to everyone and will end up not making any profit. Listen as Mark Hunter, author of High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale without Compromising on Price, explains how to win sales based on the value you offer—not the lowest price—and what to do when a buyer says your price is too high.
In the B2B world, 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients. In fact, for some companies a few hundred clients generate millions of dollars in revenue. And they do so because they have a strong loyalty to that firm. Listen as Karen Posey, a senior consultant at Geehan Group, explains how to develop client loyalty that not only sustains your business but enables it to grow more than you thought possible.
The time has come for marketing teams to transition to revenue marketing—to play an active role in helping to generate revenue for their companies. To successfully do that, organizations need a revenue marketing team that has seven essential skills. Listen as Debbie Qaqish explains what those skills are, why they're important, and the results B2B organizations are seeing from having such a team.
If sales training fails, chances are three key steps were omitted. Listen as John Doerr explains what those steps are, why they're essential, and how to make sure you include them in future sales training.
Clients can't stand it when your meeting with them turns into you talking at them for 15 or 20 minutes. PowerPoint presentations are just as bad. What they want is to have a conversation with you where you uncover and discuss their situation and how you can help. You initiate that by asking "power questions," says client relationship strategist Andrew Sobel.
If you want a CEO to consider you a trusted advisor, you have to approach the sale differently. You can't be simply a salesperson looking to sell something. You must instead work with the CEO to understand what's going on within the organization, explore the benefits and risks of a solution, and develop a change management plan, according to sales expert Adrian Davis.
There's a myth that you can hire a great salesperson and on day one they'll be able to bring in millions of dollars of revenue. The truth is companies need a process to bring new-hire salespeople up to speed so that they can begin generating revenue. Listen as sales management strategist Lee Salz explains how to get started with an onboarding program and the benefits companies can achieve as a result of having one.
You can have all of the passion and enthusiasm in the world, but unless you really listen to your prospects and clients, selling will be a challenge. Pay attention to verbal and non-verbal cues to make sure you pursue appropriate prospects and that you know definitely what drives those buyers, sales sales strategist Dan Waldschmidt.
A difficult economy can mean the downfall for many businesses. But if your firm enters that atmosphere with a plan and a process, it can not only survive but succeed. Listen as performance management expert Sandy Blaha explains what such a plan looks like and the process she created to help businesses grow no matter what the economic climate.
Publishing a book is a challenging process, but the increased business and opportunities you get as a result are worth the effort. Listen as Stephanie Chandler, author of Booked Up! How to Write, Publish, and Promote a Book to Grow Your Business, discusses how publishing a book generates business revenue and how to get started writing your first book.
The market for automated marketing and sales tools is expanding, and their costs are dropping. It's easier than ever to take advantage of them to generate and nurture leads. And companies that use those tools will have a significant advantage over—and will grow more than—firms that do not. Listen as Mike Schultz, co-author of Rainmaking Conversations, discusses sales and marketing trends firms should be aware of and how to adjust to them and grow revenue in 2012.
Professional services firms face plenty of challenges these days. Unfortunately, however, many are so busy working in their business to work on their business, according to a new survey conducted by Lisa Nirell at EnergizeGrowth. Not only that, but 66% of the people who say that also say they're unwilling to invest in or don't know where to invest to resolve the problem. Listen as Lisa Nirell discusses the top three challenges facing B2B firms and what they should do to address them.
Trade shows today are more than handing out brochures and hoping someone stops by your booth so you can get their email address. If that's your strategy, you're setting yourself up for failure. These days you have to make a concerted effort to connect with people who have a true interest in what you offer. Listen as Todd Schnick, founder of marketing and consulting firm The Intrepid Group, discusses how to improve your trade show strategy and develop quality leads.
When it comes to sales success, attitude is everything. But as you achieve success, you have to be careful not to let arrogance creep in, for it will ultimately be your undoing, says Harvey Mackay, author of The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World and Swim with the Sharks without Being Eaten Alive. Listen as Mackay discusses how arrogance can cause salespeople to fail, the need to humanize the sales process, and how social media has become the new mega center for sales.
Before you give a presentation—before you even think about launching PowerPoint—you must know three essential things: audience, result, and message (ARM). Listen as communications coach Tom Kennedy explains those elements, as well as the biggest mistakes people make when giving presentations.
Aaron Shapiro, author of Users Not Customers: Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business, discusses how B2B services firms are growing their business via a user-focused approach in the digital online space.
If you think marketing professional services is challenging, consider what it was like more than 30 years ago when firms were just learning to do it. Partners in firms didn't know how to do it, and they fought against ideas marketers presented to them. But marketers persevered, and the methods they came up with are alive and thriving. Listen as Bruce Marcus, author of Professional Services Marketing 3.0, discusses the evolution of professional services marketing and what firms must do today in order to succeed.
You know you have to understand your client's needs in order to give them the best solution to their problem. But are you digging deep enough to uncover the real issues? When you do that, you can present your solution in the context of what you discover, create urgency, and increase the likelihood of their buying from you. Listen as John Doerr, co-president of RAIN Group, explains how to use needs discovery techniques to get to the root of your client's problems.
Have you ever found yourself exhausted at the end of the day, but you haven't made a dent in your work? You aren't alone. Every day we are bombarded with distractions and pulled away from the important things we should do. In this interview Peter Bregman, author of 18 Minutes, discusses the biggest distraction that prevents us from being productive and what you can do to ensure you stay focused on the things that matter most.
Ninety percent of sales training fails. When you consider how much a company spends per person on sales training, a company can lose as much as $500,000 a year on failed sales training. Those are frightening figures, but companies can improve them, says John Doerr, Co-President of RAIN Group and co-author of the new report Why Sales Training Fails. Listen as Doerr discusses why sales training fails for so many companies and what they can do to fix that and start generating more money, not lose it.
Want to get prospects to pay attention to you and trust you? Then you need to create marketing that isn't perceived as marketing. You need to create content that helps people solve a problem, says Michael Stelzner, author of Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition. Listen as Stelzner discusses why content marketing is the better strategy and what you can do—no matter how large your firm—to create content and grow your business.
Generating leads online can be challenging, especially when SEO rules frequently change. But if you know who your idea client is, know what websites and blogs they visit, and produce content that they want and need, you can better target them and drive traffic to your site. Listen as Duct Tape Marketing's John Jantsch discusses how B2B firms can best use online advertising, SEO, SEM, and social media to increase lead generation
Being likeable helped Sally Field win an Oscar ("You like me! You Really Like me!"), and it can help you win more sales. That's because people buy from people and businesses they like. You might provide the best service, but unless prospects and clients connect with you, you will not win their business. Listen as Michelle Tillis Lederman, author of The 11 Laws of Likability, explains how to increase your likability, strong client relationships, and win more sales.
For many, including service professionals, thoughts about sales conjure up an image of the typical bad salesperson. That combined with self-limiting thoughts such as "I hate sales" can severely hinder your sales efforts. As much as you like doing your services work, you need to like doing sales. Listen as John Doerr explains how to get over your reluctance to selling, as well as best practices that generate new business.
Do you ever think, "All prospects are skeptical," "I'm afraid I'll be rejected" or simply "This day is going to suck." If you do, you have what Randy Gage calls a mind virus—a bad one that can destroy your sales efforts. The good news is you can eliminate such bad viruses and create good ones. Listen as Gage, a prosperity expert, explains how, as well as discusses how to remain positive when prospects reject you and how to grow your firm into a prosperous business.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no one way to sell. In fact, the best way to sell professional services is your way. Use your individual strengths and talents to succeed, says Tony Rutigliano, co-author of Strengths Based Selling. Listen as Rutigliano explains how people with different talents, including those not considered strong sales traits, are succeeding in sales.
Often salespeople think they have to convince prospect to buy their services, and they won't let up until they finally say yes and they get their money. That is not how you develop longtime clients that sustain your business over the years. You want to influence them: ask questions, make recommendations, and take them on an emotional journey where they see how their lives will be better if they work with you, says RAIN Group co-president John Doerr.
When it comes to networking with buyers, service professionals make two common mistakes. They either talk only about themselves while trying to get things from other people or they do the opposite and are afraid to toot their own horn. What they need to do is teach people about themselves and listen generously so they can give to other people, says Lynne Waymon, co-author of Make Your Contacts Count.
Sales are not made financially; they're made emotionally. So, if you win the heart of the CEO, his emotional investment can temper any pessimistic financial opinions that might be brought to the table. The key is to be perceived as a peer to the chief executive and provide valuable guidance and advice, says Adrian Davis, CEO of Whetstone, Inc.
The kiss of death when asking a referral or a testimonial is to ask an open-ended question. Asking, "Do you have any referrals for me?" or "Who else do you know?" will only make the client resent you. It will not lead to an introduction to a quality prospect because you're asking the client to do too much work. Listen as Colleen Francis explains the best way to ask for a referral.
Telling customers you do something better than your competitor will only fall on deaf ears. They don't want to hear it. What they do want to hear is how you can make life better for them, says Ron Karr, author of Lead, Sell, or Get Out of the Way. And that means creating new alternatives that are going to produce better results for your customers.
When you ask about how to get referrals, most people say all it takes is good work and a willingness to ask. But that's not enough. Your client is doing more than giving you a name and number. They're putting their reputation on the line, and they need to feel comfortable with you before they give you any information about a potential client. You cannot put them on the spot, and expect them to come up with a high-quality prospect for you, says Paul McCord, a leading authority on lead generation.
Over the past few years a perfect storm of customer service has formed. Customers are given self-service features that frustrate them, they are demanding value in ways they've never done before, and they have incredible reach and power via social media. Buyers are "wired and dangerous," and professional services firms need to keep them satisfied. Listen as Chip Bell and John Patterson, authors of the new book Wired and Dangerous, discuss how B2B customers have changed and how firms should handle this "perfect storm."
When it comes to marketing, most service professionals shy away from it unclear how to create a system. But without a clear marketing strategy and system, you limit your firm's growth. Flitting from one marketing tactic to the next simply won't work. You need a strategy that gets buyers to "know, like, and trust" you and to then "try, buy, repeat, and refer" your services. Listen as John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine, discusses how to get started creating a marketing strategy and system that drives sales and produces long-lasting results.
Many companies are struggling to get their messages heard and to grow, and that's because they're using outdated marketing techniques. Instead of promoting their services, they need to build a following. And you do that through content marketing says, Michael Stelzner, author of the new book Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition. Listen as Stelzner explains how content marketing benefits businesses and his formula for rapid growth.
Anyone can become an executive at their firm, but to be a true leader—one that motivates and inspires staff—you need more. You need executive presence, says Sally Williamson, author of the forthcoming book The Hidden Factor: Executive Presence … How to Find It, Keep It and Leverage It. Listen as Williamson explains what executive presence is and how it contributes to one's personal success, as well as a business's success.
When firms are equally competent in the services they provide, two things compel a buyer to choose one firm over another: comfort and passion. When someone feels comfortable with you and sees you are passionate about what you do, they will want to work with you. Listen as Harry Beckwith, author of Selling the Invisible and Unthinking: The Surprising Forces Behind What We Buy, discusses how firms can use those forces to increase sales.
Don't make the mistake of thinking all buyers are the same. Each has their own buying preferences. But if you take the time to understand their persona and adjust your sales process so that they're comfortable, they'll be more inclined to buy from you, says Mike Schultz, co-author of Rainmaking Conversations.
Look at a company that's struggling to make sales, and chances are three things are holding it back. One of those things is selfishness. Focus less on what you can get from buyers and more on what you can do for them, and success is inevitable, says sales trainer Dan Waldschmidt.
Oren Klaff, author of Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal, explains the six rules for communicating with buyers' crocodile brains, how to take control of sales meetings, and how to attract buyers to you.
Chasing after prospects is hard work, not to mention miserable as you try to get through their gatekeepers. But when you produce podcasts, interviewing people in your target market, something changes—prospects come to you. Listen as Todd Schnick, founder of The Intrepid Group, discusses how businesses of any size can—and should—use podcasts to develop new business.
You might have all the skills needed to develop new business for your firm—excellent conversational skills, fantastic follow-up strategies, and the right way to do proposals–but unless you apply those skills your pipeline will remain dry. Applying those skills is just one thing rainmakers do that set them apart. Listen as John Doerr, co-author of Rainmaking Conversations, explains what you must do to be a top rainmaker.
Many service professionals have an abundance of value to offer, yet often their conversations with buyers prevent them from ever achieving great success. Listen as Mike Schultz, co-author of Rainmaking Conversations, discusses how to conduct sales conversations so you get more wins and the biggest deals.
With more than 100 million users, LinkedIn is becoming a larger force in marketing B2B services. But using this social network means more than simply putting up your resume or a list of your services and hoping people find you and call you up. Listen as Kristina Jaramillo, founder of GetLinkedInHelp.com, explains what you need to do if you want to get new clients via LinkedIn.
Selling professional services can be tricky. Services are purchased based on emotion and how well a prospect likes and trusts you. Plus, prospects don't always have an immediate need for your services. You need to do something over time that keeps you top of mind AND develops trust and likeability, which means ditching any semblance of a sales pitch. Learn from Michael Port, author of Book Yourself Solid, what to do so that prospects turn to you in their time of need.
When dealing with client objections, there are many dos and don'ts for how to respond. But the biggest mistake that can block a sale is not addressing the objection. The worst thing you could do is leave it on the table and not respond. Listen as Mike Schultz, President of RAIN Group and author of Turning No into Yes: How to Handle the Most Common Client Objections, discusses the importance of unearthing all objections, outlines the five steps for overcoming objections, and gives examples for how to respond to common objections.
If you're a marketer, has your CEO asked you what you're going to do about revenue? If not, get ready for it. Thanks to changing buyer behavior and the new economic climate, CEOs are taking a harder look at marketing's involvement in generating revenue. Traditional marketing is giving way to revenue marketing where marketers play a larger role in bringing in new business—and are able to clearly state how they did so, says Debbie Qaqish, author of the upcoming book The Rise of the Revenue Marketer.
Marketing automation tools are becoming increasingly important to today's lead generation efforts, but firms cannot abandon the human element of working with prospects. It's that human touch that shows prospects you care about them and leads to greater sales success, says Dan McDade, author of the book The Truth About Leads.
Paul Gillin, co-author of Social Marketing to the Business Customer, discusses why content publishing is the key to business success and how firms are benefitting from this approach.
Don't count email out as a marketing tool. In fact, lead generation expert Kendra Lee says email is now the number one tool for prospecting, surpassing cold calling. But email is effective only if it's written with your prospect in mind. Listen as Lee discusses what should go into the body of an email, gives tips for effective email subject lines, and explains how to best manage an email lead nurturing campaign.
You've been promoted to the head of your department. Congratulations—now stop what you were doing that got you the position. Your get-things-done way of thinking needs to shift to how to get your team to do things. It's a whole different mindset, says Kevin Eikenbery, co-author of From Bud to Boss: Secrets to a Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership. Listen as Eikenberry explains the leader's mindset and steps you can take now to become an effective leader.
If you have a meeting with a CEO and think you're going to win him over with your PowerPoint presentation, think again. C-level executives want you to come to them with ideas and new perspectives on the issues they're dealing with, not a presentation of your services. Approach the meeting as a consultant and give them an opportunity to discuss issues important to them, and you'll start to develop the trust necessary to turn that prospect into a client.
All effective voice mail messages have one thing in common: they focus on a potential problem that the prospect might have. Stay away from talking about you, your company, or your services, stresses Kelley Robertson in this excerpt from his webinar Ditch the Sales Pitch: How to Master Sales Conversations and Win More Deals. Listen as Robertson describes what goes into a good voice mail message and offers advice on how to conduct effective sales phone conversations.
A lot of people say marketing gets you clients, but Michael Port, author of Book Yourself Solid, disagrees. Marketing creates awareness of who you are and the products and services you offer, but that isn't enough. You must have a system that builds on that awareness and helps you develop trust. Listen as Port explains how to implement a system that will help you sell more and grow your business.
When you look at successful sales organizations you'll see they all have one thing in common: strong sales management. As Ken Thoreson, author of the Sales Management Guru book series, explains, strong sales management ensures that the right staff is hired, that staff receive the right training, and that there's a strong culture that everyone believes in. Listen as Thoreson explains how sales managers can develop and maintain strong organizations.
Referrals are the preferred strategy for getting new business, and yet many service professionals struggle to get them—and to get new business from them. What are they doing wrong? For many it starts with simply not asking for referrals or for not asking correctly. Listen as Colleen Francis, President of Engage Selling, explains the mistakes people make, what a referral system should consist of, and the success one firm has seen from using a referral system.
The economy is beginning to turn around, but that does not mean consulting firms can go back to what they used to do to get new clients. Referrals and waiting for the phone to ring will not cut it, says RAIN Group President John Doerr. Consultants must follow the new rules of selling services, which includes embracing selling and going after their ideal clients. If they don't, success will be difficult if possible at all.
Leonard A. Schlesinger, President of Babson College and co-author of Action Trumps Everything, talks about how professional services firms should use entrepreneurial thinking, such as "creation," to solve problems.
Every business has to focus on content marketing--publishing articles, white papers, ebooks, podcasts or webinars--to attract new clients and become the go-to provider in their market. But they have to do it right, warns Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman, authors of the new book Content Rules. They need a strategy: plan what to do, share information, solve problems, and be human.
Virtual events, while similar to other online lead generation tactics, differ in one unique way: they allow you to generate and qualify leads early on, speeding up the sales process. Forget about generating a lead and then handing it to sales to qualify, says Dennis Shiao, author of Generate Sales Leads with Virtual Events. People enter your virtual booth, and you interact with them and qualify them on the spot. Listen as Shiao discusses the benefits of virtual events, gives examples of organizations that have succeeded with such events, and explains how to get started using them.
We've all heard the rumor: cold calling is dead and doesn't work anymore. Nonsense, says Wendy Weiss, the Queen of Cold Calling. It's actually the perfect tool for today's economy she says. The problem is most people do it really badly. Listen as Weiss explains some of the myths and misperceptions that cause cold calling efforts to fail.
During tough economic times, you may have to take on less-than-ideal clients to keep the lights on and generate the revenue you need. But you must not make that a habit if you want to attract higher-paying ideal clients and grow your business. Listen as Randy Shattuck, President of The Shattuck Group, explains why pursuing ideal clients should be a top priority and how to get those clients.
We all speak in metaphors: "It's cold as ice," "I don't have the bandwidth to handle that right now," "The room looked like a bomb hit it." It's imperative now that services professionals strategically use them in sales conversations to get prospects to pay attention them. Listen as Anne Miller, author of Make What You Say Pay!, explains how to use metaphors to effectively describe your services, how your services help businesses, how to address client objections, and how to get your foot in the door of a new client.
Every sales call is met with initial resistance. But by following a few key practices, you can weaken that wall and get prospects interested and willing to meet with you. Listen as Kelley Robertson, author of The Secrets of Power Selling, explains what you must do within the first few seconds of a sales conversation to get—and hold on to—prospects' attention.
Learn More: Attend Kelley Robertson's webinar, Ditch the Sales Pitch: How to Master Sales Conversations and Win More Deals, on Nov. 4.
Want to get buyers to notice your website over your competitors'? Then stop making it look like theirs and stop trying to make it all things for everyone. Follow basic marketing advice and uncover the one thing you do different from everyone else, and use your website to clearly explain that one thing, says Ben Hunt, website consultant and designer and author of Save the Pixel: The Art of Simple Web Design. (RainToday.com listeners can save 30% off the cost of the Save the Pixel.)
Chances are 40% of your business is unprofitable, and you aren't even aware of it. Thanks to antiquated accounting systems, this information goes unnoticed. The good news is that it isn't difficult to uncover those trouble areas, and it's easy to solve the problems and significantly increase profitability, says Jonathan Byrnes, author of Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink.
How many times has a prospect objected to your price? How often have you heard people say it isn't a good time to buy your services? Client objections are a way of life, but they aren't the end of a sales conversation. They are, in fact, a good thing because they show there's an interest. Following the strategies RainToday founder describes in this podcast, you can get past client objections and make the sale.
Think your bio isn't important? Think again. It can make the difference between winning clients and watching prospects walk away. With millions of people doing business as independent professionals, you must lead with information that compels people to want to engage. Forget the traditional boilerplat bio. Listen as Nancy Juetten, author of the second edition of Bye-Bye Boring Bio, explains the four essential elements of bios, describes the biggest mistake people make with bios, and gives examples of compelling bios.
Why do people buy from you and not your competitor? Is it a higher level of service? Is it a diversified level of service? Is it a complex niche that you're in that because of your experience or industry will give you a leg up and help your clients? When you can answer that--explain your value proposition--then you can build out your marketing plan, target your ideal clients, and grow your business, says Mike Schultz, President of the RAIN Group. You won't have to compete against price.
As clients and prospects become more difficult to reach, you might be tempted to make your marketing louder. But don't. It will only annoy them, says Adrian Ott, author of the new book, The 24-Hour Customer: New Rules in a Time-Starved, Always-Connected Economy. Instead focus on strategic marketing that fits into the "ebbs and flows" of their time. Listen as Ott outlines how to embed yourself and your services into clients' habits and routines and some of the new rules for marketing services.
The up and down of the economy has many professional services firms concerned about their business and often taking on any client that comes their way. It is possible to grow your business, however, without having to resort to desperate measures. You start by developing a growth plan that allows you to establish the foundation of a strong company. Listen as marketing strategist Lisa Nirell explains the struggles firms are dealing with and what it takes to get your business to grow and thrive.
Effective thought leadership—the kind that attracts prospects that eventually become clients—requires a strong platform that your entire company adopts, not "random acts of content," says Craig Badings, author of Brand Stand: Seven Steps to Thought Leadership. Listen as Badings explains how to develop a strong thought leadership platform and the success organizations can see from implementing it.
Webinars are a great way to build your brand, demonstrate thought leadership, and generate leads. They can also fill the gap when companies are not able to send staff to training. But for them to succeed, whether they're free or paid, you have to have a strategy. Listen as Lee Salz, author of Stop Speaking for Free, explains how to pick a topic that draws viewers, how to create a title that grabs people's attention, and the type of content you must provide if you want people to pay to attend your events.
- Full Disclosure: the link to purchase Stop Selling for Free is an affiliate link. And while the authors offered to pay us a small commission for anyone who purchases the book through us, we wouldn't promote it if we didn't think it was an excellent resource.
You know blogging is a powerful way to establish yourself as a trusted expert and grow business. But it can happen only if you manage your blog properly. If you're not seeing the results you hoped for, chances are you've made one of the many mistakes people fall for. Listen as professional blogger Chris Garrett describes the two biggest mistakes bloggers make, the worst thing you could do with your blog, and how to get people to notice and comment on your blog.
You know body language can affect personal relationships, but have you stopped to consider how it and other non-verbal communication can affect your sales results and your client relationships? People respond on a primal level to how you say and do things, says Sharon Sayler, author of the new book What Your Body Says, so it's important you do things that draw people to you, not push them away. Listen as Sayler describes the two main things that hinder business relationships and what you can do to get people to respond positively toward you.
A sales training program might be just the thing to help your sales team improve their skills and sell more. But how do you know which program and vendor is right for you? To help you figure that out, Dave Stein, CEO and Founder of ES Research Group, discusses some of the findings of the company's Sales Training Vendor Guide.
Sales has change significantly over the years, particularly for B2B services firms. These days everyone plays a role in helping to grow the business, and firms must have a client-centric approach, says Matt Heinz, author of Successful Selling. Listen as Heinz explains mistakes firms make with lead generation, how firms can win complex sales, and how to avoid becoming a commodity.
Thought leadership might be considered a buzz word in the world of professional services sales, but it's an absolute necessity if you want to attract prospects and convert them into buyers. Listen as Scott Ginsberg, aka The Nametag Guy, talks about key aspects of thought leadership, mistakes people make, and how to overcome the biggest challenge of attracting prospects willing to pay for your services.
Learn More:
Attend Scott Ginsberg's Webinar How to Build a Thought Leadership Platform So Clients Come to You with Money on Thursday, July 29
Problem solving requires creative thinking, but too often people get stuck coming up with the same tired solutions. How can you break out of that rut and think of ideas that solve your business problems? Mark Levy suggests using a process called freewriting, which allows you to explore ideas you might never come up with using traditional methods.
Want to sell more? Stop talking about you and your services. Prospects, who are busier than ever, don't want to hear it. Jill Konrath, author of the new book SNAP Selling, says to instead focus on your prospects and their challenges, demonstrate your value, and tell them something that will grab their attention and hold it throughout the decision process.
Marketing technology services effectively requires a systematic approach. Unfortunately, however, many companies go about it in an erratic and tactical way that doesn't allow them to demonstrate the value of their services. And as a result, few buy their services. Listen as Laurie Young, author of Marketing Technology as a Service: Proven Techniques that Create Value, explains what successful companies have done to market their services and mistakes to avoid.
Happiness as a business model--you might doubt its effectiveness, but Zappos is proving that it helps drive profit and growth. Listen as Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos and author of Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, talks about how a strong company culture that centers on employee happiness leads to better customer and client service, which leads to more sales.
If you've ever been trapped in the cycle of having a lot of client work and then having none, more than likely, it's because your marketing efforts weren't continuous. You have one marketing push followed by all-out work only to lift your head at the end and discover you don't have any leads. You can avoid such trials of feast or famine when you make marketing part of your everyday life. Never stop marketing, and you'll never have to worry about filling your sales pipeline.
Even when you have a sales organization that has the right processes and does things perfectly, you can still get low returns. That's because core leadership principles within a company can have a negative effect. Listen as Danita Bye, author of Leadership Shift: Paradoxical Wisdom for Transformational Leaders in These Times of Change, discusses leadership paradoxes that can significantly impact sales force effectiveness and should be evaluated if sales efforts are lagging.
In the past all you needed was a pulse and few clients and your firm could survive. With the "new normal," however, that isn't enough. The CEO can no longer be the sole rainmaker and top sales person, and you must have a plan for running your firm. Fail to change your approach and you limit how much your firm can grow and run the risk of watching it fail.
Often service professionals kill any trust that might be developed with prospects with their sales and marketing tactics--and not even know that they're doing it.
Often firms spend a lot time and money wooing perfect strangers to become clients only to stop paying attention to them after the project is complete. But it is through existing clients that firms can generate more business, says Joseph Jaffe, author of Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones. Instead of following the traditional marketing funnel, flip it so that you build on existing client relationships and use those to draw new clients to you.
If referrals are the best way to generate leads and grow business, then why don't more firms do this well? It all starts with being referable and trustworthy, says John Jantsch, author of the new book The Referral Engine. When you establish trust and provide a great client experience, you set the stage for building a powerful referral system that generates leads and often eliminates the sales cycle.
With all of the marketing tactics available for professional services, five have risen to the top in terms of preference, including email marketing and thought leadership, according to recent studies by The Shattuck Group. Listen as Randy Shattuck, senior marketing executive and founder of The Shattuck Group, reveals some of the findings of those reports and give a preview of his upcoming webinar.
If you're not doing social media, you need to rethink that. Not only are millions of people using social media networks, but using those networks to market your firm can create greater awareness and generate more web traffic faster than SEO tactics, says Michael Stelzner, founder of SocialMediaExaminer.com.
Mike Schultz, President of Wellesley Hills Group, talks about the state of the professional services market and what leaders must do to navigate their firms through the recovering economy.
Teresa Poggenpohl, Executive Director of Advertising and Brand Management at Accenture, explains how Accenture built its strong brand, how it handled the Tiger Woods incident, and what firms of all sizes must do to build a strong brand.
If your firm isn't performing at high levels, it may need an alignment. Start with your vision and then determine if your culture matches your vision, if your strategies advance your vision, and if your client experience advance those strategies. Only when all of those are working in concert will your firm achieve high performance levels, says Joe Calloway in this interview with RainToday Publisher Mike Schultz.
Believe it or not, it's often a good thing when a client or prospect voices objections. It gives you an opportunity to ask questions and understand what the true issue is. Then you can explain and perhaps offer another solution and get them to say yes. As John Doerr, founder of RainToday.com, explains in this interview, no doesn't have to mean no.
Acquiring new clients doesn't necessarily lead to profitability. Often it's better to sell new services to existing clients than it is to sell existing services to new clients. But getting clients to buy additional services means signing on ideal clients who believe you offer great value. Listen as Randy Shattuck, senior marketing executive and founder of The Shattuck Group, explains the importance of building your value proposition and your brand and what you must do to attract ideal clients.
Because a client bought from you once, it doesn't mean they will continue to buy from you. You must nurture that relationship and build trust. Listen as Colleen Francis, President of Engage Selling Solutions, explains the two essential pieces of a client retention strategy, the most common reason why clients leave, and the best thing you can do right now to start successful relationships with clients.
Listen as Tom Davenport, 13-time author of books such as Thinking for a Living and What's the Big Idea and Babson College professor, talks about the benefits of thought leadership, what it takes to become a leading expert, and how to set yourself apart from others trying to do the same thing.
For professional services firms, blog websites work better than traditional websites for cultivating client relationships and selling services, says Ian Brodie, owner of The Rainmaker Academy.
The competition for clients is fierce—even more so these days as a growing number of firms vie for fewer budget dollars. You need to differentiate yourself and give prospects a reason to choose you. How can you do that? With competitive analysis, say Sean Campbell and Scott Swigart, principals at Cascade Insights.
Case studies are fantastic tools to facilitate professional services sales, as well as share with the world client success stories. But like anything, their success requires following certain best practices. In this week's podcast, Casey Hibbard, founder and president of Compelling Cases and author of Stories that Sell, reveals some of the best practices of creating case studies and how to use them to build trust with prospects and win clients.
Professional services firms traditionally have done business by developing relationships and networking. While that's still an important part of how you develop business, more and more people are turning to the Internet to find and research service providers. And firms that know how to take advantage of the power of the Internet and search engine marketing definitely have a leg up on the competition. Mike Cooch, founder and CEO of Everon Technology Services, explains in this week's podcast.
You may not think it, but when you deal with your public—your prospects and clients—you're doing PR. You are developing relationships with them via traditional and social media. That's why it's important to include a PR strategy in your marketing campaign. Listen as Drew Gerber, CEO and founder of Publicity Results, discusses the types of media outlets professional services firms should reach out to, what's required for a good PR campaign, and the success firms can see as a result.
If traditional marketing methods no longer get clients' attention, then it's time to consider content marketing. You want to think like a publisher and create compelling information that's educational, not sales-related. Listen as Joe Pulizzi, founder and chief content officer of Junta42 and co-author of Get Content Get Customers, explains what content marketing is, describes how to develop a content marketing strategy, talks about how to measure content marketing efforts, and gives an example of a firm that is doing content marketing right.
When selling professional services, you're bound to make a mistake at some point in your career. The biggest mistake, however, is selecting or going after poor prospects, says Dan Seidman, sales coach and author of Sales Autopsy. Listen as Dan talks about how to find the perfect client, explains the importance of the "dairy queen", and shares some sales horror stories.
It doesn't matter if you're giving a keynote, talking in a meeting, proposing ideas to a client, or talking one-on-one with someone, you must have good presentation skills. Listen as Tim Wackel, founder and president of The Wackel Group, explains how good presentation skills help prospects and clients trust you, outlines the two-step process for giving good presentations, and reveals the worst thing he's seen happen as the result of a bad client presentation.
Professional services firms must break down marketing and business development silos if they want to be effective and productive. They must shift from doing a craft to running a business, and that requires making cultural and structural changes. Listen as Suzanne Lowe, author of The Integration Imperative: Erasing Marketing and Business Development Silos – Once and For All – in Professional Service Firms, explains what executives must do to break down barriers and grow their firms.
Traditional outbound marketing methods are becoming less and less effective. Society is tired of being marketed to, and people are better at blocking such things as email and cold calls. So, what's a marketer to do? Pull people toward you with inbound marketing tactics, says Brian Halligan, co-author of Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. Take advantage of the modern way in which people learn and shop.
Demonstrating your thought leadership is one of the best marketing techniques for service professionals, and Twitter has quickly become one of the tops platforms for doing so. It's a great way to do lightweight marketing, says Sarah Milstein, author of The Twitter Book, as well as to network with prospects and clients. Listen as Sarah reviews how to get started using Twitter, what you must do to get people following you, and the business benefit of using Twitter.
You can throw a sale off track is by starting an inappropriate conversation with a client. Prevent such conversations by keeping records on clients and prospects in a CRM system. Listen as David Taber, author of Salesforce.com Secrets of Success: Best Practices for Growth and Profitability, explains the benefits of various CRM systems, how to implement such systems, and tricks to getting people to use the systems.
The B2B buying process has changed, and that means your marketing and sales tactics must also change. No longer can you simply say you're the leading provider. Buyers want you to prove it. Listen as Ardath Albee, author of eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, explains why traditional sales prospecting and marketing methods no longer work and discusses tactics firms must use instead.
Acquiring new clients is a top priority among services firms, but you want to make sure you acquire ideal clients. Do not take every and any client no matter how difficult things for your firm might be, says Randy Shattuck, President of The Shattuck Group. Determine who your ideal client is and then decide the best pull marketing strategy to attract them. Firms that do so will see greater revenue and profits.
Selling your services involves more than getting prospects to like what you have to offer. It also involves the buyer getting agreement from all parties and agreeing to change. To overcome this roadblock, Sharon Drew Morgan, author of the new book Dirty Little Secrets, says salespeople need to learn how to facilitate the buying decision. Do so and you can dramatically shorten the sales cycle.
Professional services firms that have strong unique value propositions (UVP) grow faster, produce higher margins, and sell at higher prices. One way to offer such a strong UVP is to include performance benchmarking, says Paul Collins, founder and managing partner of Equiteq LLP. Listen as Collins explains how a value proposition that includes performance benchmarking helps you stand out among competitors and leads to greater sales.
Cold calling--the phrase strikes fear in many sales professionals. It is challenging, but it isn't impossible. With these tips from Colleen Francis, Founder and President of Engage Selling Solutions, you'll learn how to prepare for cold calls, as well as techniques to engage prospects and get them wanting to hear more.
The moment someone picks up a pen to illustrate a point, the people around him pay attention. So, why not use pictures to solve problems and engage clients? Listen as Dan Roam, author of The Back of the Napkin, explains how services professionals can do just that.
By using Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, and other forms of social media, you can build your credibility and have people, including journalists in traditional media, seek you out for your expertise, says Dan Janal, Founder and President of PR Leads Expert Resource Network..
Want people to notice your firm? Make sure your marketing not only informs but also provides a memorable experience. That's what the authors of Guerrilla Marketing for Dummies say. Jonathan Margolis and Patrick Garrigan, who also work at The Michael Alan Group, say you want to educate and entertain people. Do things that get you noticed—and get people talking.
When people buy professional services, their purchasing decisions are made at an emotional level. Something in a firm's presentation or values strikes them on a subconscious level. That is why it's imperative that services firms not only present themselves well with their websites and marketing materials, but they also differentiate themselves from others in the field.
In this podcast Martin Lindstrom, CEO and Chairman of LINDSTROM Company, Chairman of Buyology Inc., and author of Buyology—Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, talks with RainToday.com Publisher Mike Schultz about his research into people's buying decisions, how service firms must make good first impressions on potential clients, and how service firms must set themselves apart from their competitors.
If you've been speaking at local events and getting rave reviews from attendees, you might be thinking about joining the circuit of big-name speakers. Before you take your speaking material to that level, however, listen to what Vickie Sullivan has to say. Speaking in the big leagues is very different, and you need to step up your game.
In this podcast, Sullivan, President of Sullivan Speaker Services, explains the important aspects of a speaker's platform—and what should be included in that platform, talks about how publishing a book can lead to big league speaking engagements, and discusses the pros and cons of speaking at trade shows.
Social media networks are excellent tools for marketing your services, but it isn't enough to simply sign up to use those tools. It takes work. You can't confuse the tool with doing something meaningful with the tool, stresses Paul Gillin, writer and content marketing specialist and author of the book Secrets of Social Media Marketing. You have to have something interesting to say, and you have to be willing to respond to people who want to comment on what you say.
Listen as Gillin advises beginners on how to get started using social media, explains some of the advanced things people are doing with social media, and discusses how you can incorporate social media marketing into your traditional marketing plan to create a symbiotic relationship between the two.
Too often professional services firms practice "random acts of marketing." They don't have a real strategy for marketing the firm or for generating leads, and as a result leads get lost or are discarded. To successfully generate leads, service firms have to do three things: identify the companies they should be working with, identify the right people within the companies, and nurture an ongoing dialogue with them and build trust.
Before you can do that, however, you need to identify what is a good lead. Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch and author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, talks with Mike Schultz, Publisher of RainToday.com, about the importance of having a Universal Lead Definition. Build a profile of the ideal client, then marketing can use it to identify quality people and certify when someone is ready to talk to a partner, and sales management can use it to nurture a dialogue.
(Time: 17:06)
In this day and age, when the Do-Not-Call list is so often put into action, you might think phone sales are things of the past. Not so, says Colleen Francis, Founder and President of Engage Selling Solutions. In fact, she says the phone is still the most effective sales tool.
To succeed at cold calling, however, you need to have a different mindset and you need to follow certain best practices. Think about cold calling as new business development or opening a relationship. Listen as Francis offers advice for leading successful conversations and points out statements that will kill relationships before they even have a chance to get started.
(Time: 11:56)
Providing sales proposals for prospective clients can be challenging. You want to win the client, but it's often a lot of work with low chance of success. And sometimes things can happen that can turn the process into a horror story. These tips from Michael McLaughlin, a Principal with MindShare Consulting, LLC and coauthor of Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants, can help prevent that from happening.
Listen as Mike discusses whether you should charge for a diagnostic, methods for establishing trust with a prospective client, steps for following up after the proposal has been submitted, and what to do when you're denied access to the decision makers.
(Time: 15:58)
If your referrals run dry, chances are you're going to have to turn to cold calling to bring in new business. That may seem daunting, and you might consider hiring an agency to make the calls for you, but it's better if you do it yourself. John Doerr, Founder of RainToday.com and President of the Wellesley Hills Group, offers tips to ease the cold-calling process and help you establish good practices that will lead to sales.
Advice John offers:
• Whether presidents of companies should make cold calls
• How to conduct a cold call
• If a prospect agrees to meet with you, how to prepare for that meeting
• What to do if a prospect says he isn't interested
(Time: 12:54)
Services professionals know everything they need to sell their services. It's how they organize that information and how they approach prospective clients that determine whether or not they make the sale. Michael McLaughlin, author of Winning the Professional Services Sale, talks about how services professionals can convert a sales lead into a paying client.
With more people turning to the Internet for information, you have a great opportunity to turn your marketing ideas into Internet sensations and create what David Meerman Scott calls World Wide Raves. It's all about creating good content that gets people blogging about it, Tweeting about it, and downloading it. Get people doing that, and you'll generate sales.
Scott, author of World Wide Rave, talks with Mike Schultz, Publisher of RainToday.com and President of Wellesley Hills Group, about what you need to do to create a World Wide Rave around your marketing ideas, how to treat this type of marketing effort, and how to measure results.
(Time: 15:04)
Chances are you've had difficult client relationships. Communication stops, the client doesn't give you what you need, and you don't get the results you want. Before you throw in the towel, you should make every effort to resolve the problems and get the relationship back on track.
In this podcast, Andrea Howe, founder of BossaNova Consulting Group, talks with Mike Schultz, President of Wellesley Hills Group and Publisher of RainToday.com, about how to identify a relationship that's falling off track and what you can do to set things right.
(Time: 13:24)
Now is the perfect time to expand your consulting services into global markets, according to famed consultants Alan Weiss and Omar Khan. Opportunities are abundant, as there are many industries that are doing well despite the depressed economy, and technology makes it so that you don't need a physical presence.
Weiss and Khan, authors of The Global Consultant: How to Make Seven Figures Across Borders, talk with Mike Schultz, President of Wellesley Hills Group and Publisher of RainToday.com, about how to get started working internationally, how to make inroads in developing markets, and how to build critical mass and establish yourself in overseas markets.
(Time: 14:52)
Changes to a prospect's internal or external business environment could be just the thing to get you in their door and gain their business. Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, explains the importance of tracking such triggering events, how to use them to engage prospects in conversation, and techniques for contacting prospects.
Questions Jill answers:
How much time should you spend researching companies and trigger events?
How can you use trigger events to move a sale along?
How often should you contact people after a trigger event?
What language should you use when you talk to someone after a trigger event?
(Time: 12:04)
Service firms oftentimes have no problem creating marketing plans. They have problems implementing them. John Doerr explains what it takes to get things done.
Service firms oftentimes have no problem creating marketing plans. They have problems implementing them. And, even when they do implement them, they often stop prematurely, before the results have a chance to materialize, and declare, "Marketing doesn't work!"
John Doerr, president of Wellesley Hills Group, founder of RainToday.com, and co-author of Professional Service Marketing, explains what it takes for firms to implement a strategy, wait until the returns arrive and more.
(Time: 11:26)
Every consultant wants to form solid business partnerships with their clients, but many things can get in the way. Andrew Sobel, author of All for One: 10 Strategies for Building Trusted Client Partnerships, explains how to address some common challenges consultants face when trying to partner with their clients.
Questions he addresses include:
- How do you relate to clients as trusted advisors when you're an expert in your own business and not theirs?
- How do you move past the function executive to the executive who makes the buying decisions?
- How do you increase your skills at forming partnerships as well as the chance that you will?
(Time: 11:26)
Many professional services firms see their competition winning new business by blogging, connecting on social networks, and launching podcasts and online videos. And they want to know, "How can I do the same?"
Dana VanDen Heuvel, founder of the Marketing Savant Group, explains how firms can create a social media marketing strategy. Topics he addresses include what questions firms need to ask themselves and how firms should integrate a CRM system into their plans.
(Time: 10:54)
Interested in hearing more? Watch the full presentation with Dana.
Millions of business professionals have a LinkedIn profile. So how does a marketer tactfully and effectively use this resource?
Jason Alba, author of I'm on LinkedIn -- Now What, explains the finer points of netiquette (Internet etiquette), the best way to build a list from your connections, and what your personal profile should look like
(Time 08:32)
Interested in hearing more? Watch Jason Alba's on-demand webinar.
The strategies for marketing and selling for professional services firms aren't that complicated. But getting the leaders together and choosing a strategy often is.
In this podcast we look at what leaders can do to make change happen at their firms with Dr. John Kotter, professor of leadership at Harvard Business School and author of New York Times bestsellers A Sense of Urgency and My Iceberg Is Melting, as well as the world's most influential book on organization change, Leading Change.
He says people fail to successfully make change not because they lack capability and intelligence, but because they simply haven't been through a lot of big changes. The good news is you can learn it. You can do it. You can make some remarkable things happen. You just have to think in a different way.
(Time: 11:58)
In this episode, Andrew Sobel, author of the book All For One: 10 Strategies for Building Trusted Client Partnerships, reveals approaches to building long-term trusted partnerships with flagship clients—those key clients that provide a disproportionate share of revenue and profits.
Andrew provides research-based strategies for individuals and institutions to develop these trusted partnerships and shares examples from his book.
(Time: 14:29)
Interest in Hearing More?: Reserve a seat a Andrew's upcoming RainToday.com webinar, From Vendor to Trusted Partner: Breakthrough Strategies for Developing Clients for Life.
In this episode, we talk about how your firm can transition from basing its fees on hourly rates to basing its fees on the value your firm delivers. Alan Weiss, author of the seminar book, "Value-Based Fees: How to Charge and Get What You're Worth," explains why firms should use value-based fees, how firms can start adopting them, and how to respond to client objections.
(Time: 09:30)
Interested in hearing more? Sign up for Alan's upcoming teleseminar, Getting Paid What You're Worth: How to Use Value-Based Fees at Your Firm, on Thursday, May 21.
Most people automatically say, "So, what do you do?" at networking events, but don't care what the answer is. Scott Ginsberg, "the authority on approachability," explains how to create a "soundbite" that will have people actually take interest in what you do. Listen as he offers tips to opening a whole new world of business opportunities, in this excerpt from Scott's recent webinar with Raintoday.com.
(Time: 8:07 )
Hear the rest of Scott's advice by visiting the RainToday store and watching Scotts webinar Networking for New Business: 7 Ways for Becoming More Referable.
Everyone needs two or three people who will tell them the truth, who will push and encourage them, and who will hold them accountable. Everyone needs two or three people who are committed to their success. Yet, most people, when ask, "Who's got your back," aren't sure that anyone does, particularly in a professional context.
Listen to this podcast with Keith Ferrazzi, bestselling author of Never Eat Alone and the forthcoming book Who's Got Your Back?, as he explains the keys to forming these vital relationships.
(Time: 14:21)
Interested in hearing more? Reserve your online seat for Keith Ferrazzi's May 7 webinar, Through Thick and Thin: How to Build Relationships with People Committed to Your Success.
In this podcast interview with Scott Ginsberg, the authority on approachability, Scott discusses how to become more approachable, how to connect with people about their passion, and how to break through the barriers which stop us from initiating conversations.
Becoming a more personable professional is vital. Clients choose service providers they like, and rarely those who only serve their needs.
(Time: 13:31)
Interested in hearing more? Register for Scott's upcoming webinar, Networking for New Business: 7 Ways to Become More Referable.
Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn, and Facebook have marketers abuzz. The tools can generate exposure for their firms, increase website traffic, and result in new business partnerships, but marketers still don't know how to best use them.
Michael Stelzner, who just published the Social Media Marketing Industry Report, discusses how marketers can tell if social media is paying off, what they should think about before diving in, how much time they should invest in it, and much more.
(Time: 11:09)
In an economic downturn many service firm leaders turn to marketing, and specifically brand building efforts, as the first place to cut. When in fact, your brand building activities (when done right) are the ones that can help generate leads, relationships, and trust—all key ingredients to winning new clients both in boom and in gloom.
Listen as we talk about building up your brand in a downturn with Mike Schultz, the publisher of RainToday.com, president of Wellesley Hills Group, and co-author of the forthcoming book Professional Services Marketing. Specifically, we're going to revisit a Q&A session I had with Mike in a recent RainToday.com webinar.
(11:40)
Want to hear more? Become a RainToday.com member to watch our archive of on-demand webinar and one year of live events.
Where does a professional services practitioner, marketer, or salesperson start with all the social media out there? The choices can be overwhelming and many people choose to ignore the social media landscape altogether.
We talk with Paul Dunay, author of the forthcoming book FaceBook Marketing for Dummies, and discuss what social networking is worthwhile and how to have a blog and content that is relevant.
(Time: 08:53)
In professional services firms, the experiences we create for our clients plays a huge role in our ability to satisfy them, generate the return on investment they are looking for, and ensure they stay loyal clients. Listen to this episode as Peter Merholz, author of "Subject to Change" and president of Adaptive Path, explains what service firms can do to deliver valuable experiences to clients.
(Time 13:49)
Most services firms want short-term leads, leads that are ready to buy now. In contrast, the best service firms focus on the 75% of leads that are long-term opportunities that take six months to two years to develop. It's not easy to do, but successful marketers do just that.
In this podcast we talk with Dan McDade. Dan helps B-to-B companies fill their forecasts with qualified revenue opportunities as President of PointClear. Specifically, we revisit a questions-and-answer session we had with Dan in a recent webinar with Raintoday.com.
(Time: 9:09)
If you're trying to sell a 1960s automobile in the next century, you have a very limited market. The same goes for firms trying to sell services which haven't adjusted to the realities of the current recession.
Listen as Paul Collins, managing partner of Equiteq LLP, explains how to build a value proposition that sells in a recession, drawing from his vast experience helping consultancy owners improve their profit performance and realize equity value in their businesses.
A lot of people think "trust in business" is a little soft, a little oxymoronic, and a little odd. But it's not. It is an essential component of successful client relationships and a key element in winning over prospects.
In this podcast, Charles H. Green, founder and CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates, breaks down how trust works in professional services, what the components of trust are, and how trusted advisors can reconcile that role with their responsibility to develop new business.
Lead nurturing is a highly-relevent topic nowadays with most firms struggling to win business in the current recession. Why? Roughly 75-percent of all leads are long-term opportunities that need nurturing.
Listen as Dan McDade, founder and president of Point Clear, explains how the best firms focus on these opportunities by using meaningful, thoughtful, and enjoyable communications.
Interested in hearing more? Attend Dan's upcoming RainToday.com webinar, Best Practices: 10 Actions to Immediately Improve Your Lead Nurturing Program.
If you're looking to create a culture of business development at your firm, you'll want to follow all six factors in the window into business development performance. Miss one of the factors for any reason and you'll severely limit your success.
In part two of this two-part podcast, Mike Schultz, publisher of RainToday.com and president of Wellesley Hills Group, outlines factors #4-6 for creating a culture of successful business development performance. Be one of the rare service firms that focuses on all six factors and you'll need more people to get all of the new client billable work done.
(Time: 7:30)
Lately, business development has been on the minds of service firm leaders, and for good reason: The recession has made firm leaders work extra hard to keep their firms' revenue flowing.
So, how do you get the best business development results? Mike Schultz, president of Wellesley Hills Group and publisher of RainToday.com, believes there are six key factors. In the first part of this two-part podcast, Mike explains the first three of those factors: Expectations & Feedback, Tool & Resources, and Consequences & Incentives.
(Length: 10:01)
This recession has spawned innumerable how-to-survive-a-down-economy pieces of advice: Focus only on the things that get you ROI and leads; focus on Internet marketing and cold calling; focus on relationships and networking; focus on your client base; build your brand. The list goes on. But, as Mike Schultz, publisher of RainToday.com and president of Wellesley Hills Group, explains, the one key insight you need to remember is that what has fundamentally changed isn't what you should do, it's what is happening inside the heads of firm leaders.
(Time: 08:09)
When it comes to growing revenue and growing market share, professional services firms must effectively integrate marketing and selling into everyone's job.
In this podcast, we listen to Suzanne Lowe, president of Expertise Marketing and author of the forthcoming book, The Integration Imperative, as she answers some important questions about how firms can do just that:
• How can firms involve new-hires in marketing and sales?
• How can business developers help with their firm's marketing?
• How can firms motivate practitioners to bring in new business?
(Length: 09:28)
Interested in hearing more? Get access to the full "How to Create a Culture of Growth" RainToday webinar with Suzanne Lowe.
Every professional service provider tries to make themselves distinct in the eyes of buyers: We seek to show our expertise, to respond to their needs, to listen, to articulate things well. Yet, in sales conversations, according to the buyers, we often don't do these things, making ourselves distinct in a very different way.
Listen to this podcaset with John Doerr, founder of RainToday.com and president of Wellesley Hills Group, as he discusses the top five mistakes service providers make when engaging in sales conversations with potential buyers:
(Length: 08:38)
In this episode, we look at the whether buyers of professional services plan to increase or decrease their spending. The data from our How Client Buy: 2009 research report shows the news isn't good for nearly every kind of firm out there.
Our research does show an upside though. As Mike Schultz, president of Wellesley Hills Group and publisher of RainToday.com, explains, the majority of professional services buyers are not loyal to their current firm and are willing to switch providers.
Listen to learn what spending looks like in your industry and what you can do to begin making your competitors' clients your own:
(Length: 08:05)
Interested in learning more? Click here to see the details of our How Client's Buy: 2009 research report.
In this episode, we share results from our How Clients Buy: 2009 research report. Specifically, we talk about the top five ways buyers identify and find their professional service providers.
Mike Schultz, publisher of RainToday.com and president of Wellesley Hills Group, also delves into ways four and five—speaking engagements—and discusses what you should do to lead your own and speak at conferences.
(Length: 08:59)
Interested in learning more? Click here to see the details of our How Clients Buy: 2009 research report.
In this podcast, we talk about becoming a global consultant: Who's it available to? What does it take? How can consultants begin on this quest?
Alan Weiss, an internationally-acclaimed consultant and co-author of the new book The Global Consultant: How to Make Seven Figures across Borders, answers these and other questions.
(Length 10:39)
If you enjoy this podcast and are interested in hearing more, you can click here to sign up for Alan's upcoming teleseminar, with co-author Omar Khan. You can also visit RainToday.com for more information about marketing and selling professional services.