Breaking the Mold of the
Traditional Services Sale Model

How teams outperform individuals

The problem: Traditional services sales models rely heavily on outside product sales representatives to manage the life of an opportunity throughout the sales process and cycle. Slow professional services sales and weak business growth usually occur because product sales representatives are occupied with uncovering product sales and sifting through unqualified prospects first rather than moving qualified opportunities through the services sales cycle.

This problem is compounded when the pre-sales services group is not involved in the pre-process. No amount of money invested in hiring “high-priced” sales talent will provide the structure needed for a faster sales cycle, unless a specific services sales strategy has been developed and market tested.

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To draw an analogy, the relay teams in track always outdistance individual racers over the same distances. When it comes to speed and efficiency, a well-practiced business development team will consistently outperform an individual salesperson.

For sales organizations, the same rule holds true. Typically, traditional sales models require outside sales representatives to run most of the race alone without the services organization involved in a team-selling structure. Unfortunately, when a single person is responsible for so many steps, the sales process slows down considerably, and many opportunities fade away.

Also, this model poses a problem for management because it is increasingly difficult to identify, hire and train the most talented people in the business, who not only have professional services sales experience, but understand how to sell large, complex services engagements.

The solution: A more efficient approach is the insertion of a “business development team” made up of a professional services representative, business development expert, researcher, subject matter specialist and a rain-maker, to run the middle portion of the race between marketing and sales. In the same way that a relay team leverages the speed and power of the lead and anchor runners to win a race, business development continues the momentum begun in marketing and provides the outside sales team the freedom to focus on closing business in record time.

Typically, traditional sales approaches have two models

Traditional sales models have slow sales cycles because they rely on the single person to carry the bulk of the sales cycle responsibility.

Model 1: Marketing and outside sales components

This model has a couple of distinct disadvantages. First, this approach, having marketing work with outside salespersons, is too simple to be effective for complex value-based propositions. Secondly, while this approach usually requires fewer employees, it is expensive to find, train and compensate the caliber of sales people required to reliably perform all of the steps necessary to consummate a complex services engagement. The many sales cycle steps act like hurdles in a race, breaking the momentum of the sale cycle so that the overall process takes longer to complete.

Outside sales representatives are expected to do almost all of the groundwork. Initially, marketing generates interest in a product or service via various media forms, trade shows, etc. Sales people then make cold calls to these leads at random until they identify a “good fit” and bring a prospect through the sales process. In this scenario, the lead-to-closure ratio is terrible because so many hurdles stand in the way of the outside sales people; therefore, the bulk of leads fall by the wayside. These hurdles include:

• Poor qualification. Most sales organizations do not have a methodology for identifying services sales opportunities worth pursuing. In effect, their sales people have no profile or information about a prospective company, much less qualifying information about the prospect's buying intentions.

• Too many steps. After making several unsuccessful cold calls, working through a long list of contact names at a prospective target company becomes inefficient and tedious. Researching such a large number of contacts and companies is next to impossible in addition to the everyday tasks required of a sales representative. What’s ironic is the common complaint by sales leaders that their sales people aren’t adding more opportunities to their pipelines.

• No message relevancy. Sales people often don’t know enough about a company when they make an introductory call in order to make a compelling argument for why their product or service answers a prospect’s need. Messaging varies from call to call, and best practices can’t be monitored. This problem is compounded when the sales representative has little or no credential portfolio to showcase or ROI examples to share with a prospect. At least six showcase accounts with specific ROIs are recommended to be developed in conjunction with your marketing organization.

• No relationship building. Often, there is no forethought or sales cycle sequence in call patterns. Prospects are sorted into one of two categories: those who are ready to buy now and everyone else. Countless prospects who could have developed into opportunities are lost because sales representatives must focus time on closing deals rather than building rapport and trust with a prospect.

  Creating trust and relationships is critical Relationship building is critical for a services sale. Many companies have begun to realize that “consultative and trust-based” selling approaches are much more effective, as clients are asking for specific solutions for complex problems from people they trust. In many situations, this trust is established by a technical expert who they have worked with on-site for many months, as well as from the consultants assigned to their project. Of course, traditional product sales representatives can also apply “trust-building” concepts to their sales approach. The results can be quite positive, as prospects soon realize that “I’m not just getting a sales pitch” but working with someone who listens, shares my concerns, expresses empathy, communicates effectively and explores my concerns, issues and challenges before pushing me to some expensive solution!

Model 2: Marketing, inside sales and outside sales components

This model attempts, often unsuccessfully, to rectify the problems from the first model by inserting an inside sales team (tele-mkt-sales) between marketing and outside sales. The inside sales team manages introductory cold calls and then turns leads over to an outside sales rep. While this approach may finish ahead of the traditional sales model, it sacrifices quality for speed, resulting in even more hurdles:

• Inexperienced callers. Most inside sales representatives have little or no experience in the target industries and are unprepared to engage in a meaningful introductory conversation with a decision-maker. Thus, they are limited to a generalized, scripted pitch, which won’t resonate with the decision-maker over the phone.

• Most of us have experienced personally the evening calls from (tele-mkt-sales) representatives who know nothing at all about their offering or are struck silent when you ask them a question. Telemarketing often works fine for product sales, but due to the complexity in services marketing, consider other approaches (white paper development and delivery, Webinars, e-newsletters, books, etc.) to establish credentials and generate qualified leads. Hurdles include:

• Poor qualification. Often, the conversations that take place during most inside sales “cold calls” tend to be very high level and don't really determine whether the prospect fits an ideal client profile. Thus, a potentially qualified prospect (good fit) who is not ready to buy will be thrown out with unqualified prospects.

• No opportunity management. Once inside sales (tele-sales-mkt) makes the handoff, it is often taken out of the picture. This puts immense pressure on sales teams to juggle the needs of “hot” opportunities with the needs of slower moving opportunities, threatening the time previously invested.

The alternative business development sales model: Marketing, business development and outside sales components

Transitioning inside sales people to a business development team methodology and process is a significant refinement of the traditional sales model. This derives much greater leverage from your organizational investment by dramatic acceleration of pipeline development.

Build the inside sales team

In this model, you create a structured sales methodology that invokes ownership of the prospect from womb to tomb, transforming raw services marketing material into actionable opportunities and consummated sales. In effect, this team develops and maintains long-term relationships with prospects from lead generation through closure and beyond for follow-on opportunities.

Adopting this model provides immediate advantages. The business development activities outlined below are proven to produce the most qualified opportunities for complex value propositions.

• Profile and qualify. Profile an “ideal” client and locate market segments with the right prospect characteristics. Research prospective companies and gather enough information to warrant pursuing the decision-makers at each company with a relevant message.

• Segment audiences. Once a profile begins to develop about a prospect, segment the prospect by group or industry need so that a specific approach to each segment can be refined and retargeted.

Segment your marking opportunities

Not only does this model clear the hurdles compared to traditional sales models, but having a business development team completely leverages the efforts of the marketing and sales teams to accelerate the overall sales cycle. Segmenting your marketing opportunities through the following activities makes this possible.

• Establish relevance. Make your message relevant by directly connecting the offering with a prospect/industry need. Closely track and review feedback from introductory calls, refine value propositions, and develop valid responses to common objections.

• Build relationships. Beyond initial contact, continue to communicate with those prospects that fit the profile, even if they aren’t prepared to buy immediately. Persistence, coupled with relevant messaging, collateral and a professional approach, will keep your offering top-of-mind for these prospects.

• Demonstrate credentials. People with experience in a wide range of business areas should make up the business development team. Their professional background and ability to communicate a relevant message will make a strong and consistent impression on decision-makers. This combination of qualities enables them to qualify more expertly and create better opportunities that go into the sales funnel.

• Manage opportunities. When a prospect agrees to a meeting with an outside sales representative, inside business development people should facilitate introductions and leverage the relationship built thus far. This makes it easier to feed a prospect back to the business development phase for nurturing if the prospect is not ready to buy.

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Because the prospecting and nurturing component of the business development team is not under direct pressure to “make the numbers,” team members can focus on the quality as well as quantity of actionable opportunities to deliver in the sales funnel. In record time, the sales pipeline fills with qualified, interested prospects to fuel outside sales activities at an accelerated pace. To facilitate this, the following three areas must work in tandem:

• Service marketing leads the sales cycle by compiling a list of companies it has touched during a marketing campaign. However, unlike a traditional sales model, marketing sets metrics and receives feedback about the quality of each prospect. This is accomplished via building prospect profiles and tracking each marketing campaign and/or sales interaction. This allows for the measurement of marketing ROI, hence the opportunity to improve the direction and success of future campaigns.

• Business development initiates the research, continually refines the prospect profile and manages the initial and follow-on communication with each prospect/customer. In effect, this team establishes the continuity from lead generation through closing and then add-on sales.

• Outside product sales representatives invest their time in closing deals and expanding business with existing customers, thereby creating sustainable trust. They are tied at the hip with business development to understand the profiles, review progress and coordinate messages and sales steps. Due to accelerated sales cycles, they only enter the sales cycle when the prospect has shown buying signals. At this juncture, usually a reasonable amount of information is known about the prospect so that the sales representatives can now devote their time to positioning and closing deals. A winning combination!

Final thoughts: What you can do to be successful!

When it comes to speed, a balanced sales methodology and team will always beat traditional sales models because they share the risk in sales cycle completion. The team approach consistently reaches the finish line faster because team members have the depth and breadth of skills and horsepower to remove existing hurdles and leverage the efforts of marketing and outside sales to win the race. Strengthening the core of sales cycles with the business development team component transforms a sales and marketing organization from a bunch of exhausted middle-of-the-pack runners into a winning relay team.

Second place is not for winners!

To learn more about how you can build an effective services sales and marketing environment, contact Mark Hordes at 713-781-0251, email him at mark@alexanderconsultingsbiz.com or bring your sales and marketing team to our public workshop Strategies and Tactics to Grow Profitable Services: How to Create the Services Business You Desire and the Success You Deserve! The workshop is scheduled for October 24 through 25, in Chicago.

About the Authors

	Mark Hordes is a partner with Alexander Consulting. Mark is a well-recognized global professional services business consultant, business author and advisor to senior executives. Over the past 25 years, he has consulted with organizations worldwide, been profiled in business journals and newspapers, and interviewed on radio and television.
	Bryan Becker has expertise is in business development strategies for professional services firms. Becker’s previous experience spans multiple professional services roles, including IT strategy, outsourcing and business development, for Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), Computer Sciences Corporation and IBM.