How Design Professionals Learn to Sell Services

Do you know any architects who grew up wishing they could be used car salesmen?  How about any engineers or lawyers with a similar wish? As a rule, one reason people are drawn to professional services is because of their desire to be as far away from sales as possible.

As I was thinking about this dilemma in professional services, I remembered how Monster.com approached this subject. I was amused by their television commercial that showed children stating what they wanted to be when they grew up. It was a change from normal responses and included children who stated they wanted to become “Yes men and women,” “forced into early retirement”, and “avoid risk at all costs” to mention a few. The ad pointed out the reality of career choice decisions that often don’t turn out the way we planned.

I have delivered messages to people living in a homeless shelter that talk about how nobody ever thinks they will grow up to be an addict, homeless, or broken. When we are young, we aspire for greater things, noble professions, and careers with substance. Then life happens and we are forced to expand our comfort zone.

People who aspire to be engineers, architects, lawyers or CPAs have passion for the profession and talent for honing the skills that are required to succeed. Selling, however, is not one of the attributes on top of the minds of people seeking a career in professional services. Can you name a school of architeture that has an elective course on selling professional services? Many firms won’t even use the word “sales”. They prefer to use business development or marketing, as if these two disciplines were interchangeable. Management understands the need to maintain comfort zones, if the professionals are going to excel at what they do best. However, the bottom line and billable hours usually trump these good intentions.

Architecture, engineering, and law schools don’t teach classes in selling professional services or marketing professional services because it is not integral to the services they are teaching. It isn’t because professionals don’t sell. In fact, changes in all of these professions have caused many more professionals to spend time selling. They didn’t sign up for it. Many inherited it. For others it was a management decision because a person was “good with clients.” Selling isn't taught because it is not technically a needed skill to practice the profession.

Today, most firms need their professionals to be proactive in nurturing clients and acquiring new ones. Does your firm have a sales training program like the one I discovered at an architectural firm I was consulting with? It was client-centric. Meaning that management wanted its project managers to get the next job from the clients they were currently working with. It was a goal without tactics or tools to be used by project managers to move the next project forward. Another firm came up with a plan to boost profits by having project managers spend one extra day cold calling potential clients when they were in a town working on a project. In theory, it was fantastic. The people who know the firm’s services the best, including some industry experts, simply call on clients similar to the one who is being visited and the projects will roll in. Unfortunately, the project managers didn’t buy into the idea and no one ever scheduled an extra day to do the cold calling. Management took a lot of heat on that one.

This is an example of “give someone a fish and he eats for a day. Teach the person how to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.” Management thought by empowering project managers to stay an extra day, they were providing incentive for project managers to sell more work. Were they given a template showing how to make contact calls? Were they given instruction on how a cold call differs from a project meeting? Were they taught basic sales techniques and how to handle objections? Were they asked their opinion of the idea? The answers to these questions are no, no, no and are you kidding.

Some people have an advantage over the majority who lack selling skills. Charisma, outgoing personalities and life experiences that included selling make it easier for some professionals to accept a limited role in selling. However, even the project executive who can sell ice cubes to Eskimos and is totally at ease in a selling environment still needs to be given some other tools. When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. After all, the Eskimo who was sold ice cubes might have really needed the refrigerator/freezer.

Charisma, for example can go a long way, but might stall out when these selling issues come into play: psychological, personal, political, business outcomes, risk, reward, credibility and trust. My book, “Everything You Need in Selling Professional Services, You Learned in Youth Sports, describes the basics every professional needs to sell their services.

The economy, global markets, government regulations and increased competition have created a new paradigm for selling professional services. Since the hallowed halls of higher education aren’t teaching courses in these disciplines, where do you go? Trial and error or baptism by fire are two options.

Visit Business Development Professionals (www.businessdevelopmentpros.org ) and see another answer. For many firms it is THE answer because of the custom nature of its training programs. It might be your answer as well. The search is free and only takes a couple minutes of your time.

Marketing Rules You Should Depend On

I believe in the leaky bucket theory and 80/20 marketing rules in selling professional services. Many of the younger professionals believe this is “old school” and not important in today’s digital age.

 
If we lived in an ideal world, all of our clients would be loyal and stay with us forever. In addition, these clients would have new projects for us every year. Unfortunately, the market doesn’t work this way.

Clients leave us for a host of reasons. Sometimes it is our fault in the delivery of services or client’s perception that we should have done more. Competition is another reason. However, most clients don’t have a project for us every year. This dynamic is the basis for the leaky bucket theory.

We must be constantly pouring new clients and projects into the bucket in order to grow the business or at least maintain equilibrium with the clients that flow out through the holes. When we understand this dynamic, we can take a careful look at the 80/20 marketing rule. The bottom line is that we need to find 20% of our business each year in new clients. Since the cost of obtaining a new client is upwards of 6 times the cost of keeping an existing client, we devote 80% of our marketing resources to obtaining new clients. Although the percentages will not be the same for every firm, it is safe to say that there are no firms using a 100/0 marketing rule.

Even in the age of social media and technology these rules are still in play. If you disagree, please let me know. That gets me to the point of marketing process. We all want to work smarter not harder. Every firm needs to make effective client touches in order to be successful in obtaining new business and seeing a return on their marketing investment.

An SMPS LinkedIn group had an interesting discussion centered on the question of how many client touches are enough. One of the members questioned the need for client touches.

He implied they were something like window dressing that wasn’t needed if the client gave you his personal phone number or you asked the right questions. There is a big difference between maintaining continuity with an existing client and building a relationship with a new client. Is a tweet a touch?  How about liking something on a Facebook or LinkedIn page?

A county executive once asked me why I needed to know which local architects were in line for an important project. I represented Walker Parking Consultants at the time and was doing research on which architect we should team with. He said, “ You guys are the best in the country. Teaming with any local architect is like rolling the dice.” I replied, “If we don’t team, we won’t have any dice to roll.”

On one level touches are a lot like rolling the dice. I think the member who downplayed touches only saw them on this level. In practice touches are marketing tools like dice that allow us to stay in the game.

Outside of the context of a strategic marketing plan, a single touch doesn’t seem like an effective way to fill the leaky bucket. Combined with a comprehensive marketing plan, client research and a process, each touch brings you closer to top of mind with the client.

The magic number is simply whatever it takes to win the client’s business. It might be three or it might be 23. As you extend the number of touches there comes a point of diminishing returns. First, firms don’t have unlimited resources so decisions have to be made as to the value of pursuing a particular client. When in doubt, go back to the marketing plan. Don’t forget the residual value touches have on other clients you are chasing. Most client touches impact multiple potential and existing clients.

Second, there has to be a method to the madness of client touches. They aren’t something that sounded good at the time the annual marketing plan was being developed. For example, did you know all of the potential new clients and projects that were going forward prior to completing the annual marketing plan? Probably not. Yet, the plan is flexible enough to accommodate new entries. How many marketing plans changed when the “dot com” bubble burst or the real estate bubble burst? Are you prepared for the next bubble to burst?

In other words, if the mission is to keep the bucket filled, you shouldn’t spend resources chasing projects that aren’t going to happen.

This is why traditional marketing theories and rules are still in play today. Social media is the great connector of people. However, it is still what you do with the connection that counts. More importantly, as far as new business is concerned, it is what you do FOR the connection that makes all the difference in keeping buckets filled, maximizing marketing resources and improving your return on investment.