How do you effectively put into words what you do and how you do it? How do you deliver a concept in a way that makes it tangible for clients and prospects? How do you help your prospect trust that the value you offer is applicable to them?
Hank Stroll, CEO of InternetVIZ, believes these questions are at the heart of why many professional services firms struggle to sell their services under today’s highly skeptical, "I’ll believe it when I see it," market conditions.
The interview with Hank sneaks behind the curtain of smoke and into the heart of what brings clients to the table. He shows us how to get the deal done when it comes to selling services.
PSJournal: What do you see as the common pitfall when selling professional services?
Hank Stroll: Not understanding the mindset of the customer. Customers are used to buying tangible products, things that can be seen, smelled, and touched. Throughout their business lives, they have been trained to go out and kick the tires on a pending purchase. When it comes to buying services, the value is rarely as obvious to the prospect as it is to the sales person.
The trick is for professional service organizations to position their services so that prospects see them as ‘products’ rather than ideas or concepts.
PSJournal: Give us an example of how this scenario plays out in the day-to-day life of the services professional.
Hank: One example is the webinar. Many professional service firms are starting to see the value in webinars, however, getting prospects to commit after the webinar is the challenge.
Recently, we had a client share a common frustration… After hosting a series of well-attended webinars for a targeted audience, people weren’t buying his company's services. This professional service organization sells a total and comprehensive solution with a six-figure price tag. They do a great job in getting the right people to the webinar, and keeping their attention. They hold one-on-one follow-up meetings with prospects to discuss the details of how they can help. Yet, they still cannot close the deal. This scenario plays out repeatedly. Services sales consultants help the prospect get to a certain stage in the sales cycle, but they eventually stall before making a purchase.
Most services marketing professionals try to guide the client through their service process. They are busy selling benefits, when prospects really need help getting their arms around the concept in a tangible way. They want to understand how to measure success, evaluate results, and most importantly, what they get for their six-figure services investment.
PSJournal: What are the symptoms a sales professional should look for when the potential client is seeing smoke? How can you tell when the client isn’t getting it?
Hank: When customers have the ability and the authority to buy, but don’t.
Think back to your last client sales engagement. You’re across the desk from a client. You’ve done a series of well-received presentations. The decision maker has no price objections. He has the budget approved. He has the authority to buy. He understands the value and is nodding as you reiterate the benefits and the projected ROI. And still he doesn’t say yes.
In cases like this, clients may come to you time and again asking for examples and references of the work you’ve done. They assure you with well-placed comments of "sounds interesting," and "yes, I see," but still put off the buying decision.
It isn’t that they are not interested, they just don’t understand how the service fits into their organization.
If today’s services professionals hope to keep pace or stay out in front as the landscape changes, professional service organizations must blow away the smoke and replace it with something tangible. Productization of services is now a necessity, not a luxury.
PSJournal: What advice can you share with readers on how to productize services?
Hank: Here are seven principles to help reorient your services as products:
1. Define the business problem that your service solves.
Go beyond the elevator pitch and value proposition. Get inside the minds of the customer to understand his or her specific business problem and how your service solves it.
2. Determine where your services fit into the client’s process.
It’s common for sales professionals to try to fit the client into their services delivery process. In fact, you need to understand the client’s process first, and look for ways your services will intersect with this process and fit into it.
Many professional service organizations try to change how people do business. They ask the prospect to change their infrastructure and their processes. ‘Build it and they will come’ has a better chance of working if we don’t expect the prospect to radically change what they do today. Focus on selling your service by incorporating it into your prospects’ existing processes.
3. Map your language to what your client uses.
Services companies often try to introduce new concepts and language prospects don’t use in their everyday professional lives. This falls more into branding and education and is a slippery slope to enter during the sales cycle. Introducing a new concept or a new approach takes a lot of money and a lot of patience.
We saw evidence of this during the dot com era as young service startups tried to introduce new concepts by inventing a new lexicon for their service. Prospects were forced to learn a ‘foreign language’ and try to get their head around a new concept.
4. Take a risk.
Productizing services means you have to be willing to take a risk. It’s vital that you decide on a tactical package. This may mean breaking up your total solution into smaller, more manageable modules. In some cases, you may have to comb through your long list of services to find the one or two things that can be packaged simply, and speak to the hearts as well as the minds of your prospects.
5. Define your product before you go to the prospect.
Clients are wise to the practice of performing needs assessments, particularly when they are charged a hefty fee to have them completed. Know what your 'product' is before you meet with a prospect.
If a prospect continues to ask for clarification on what you do, then you haven’t reached 'product' status yet. Continue to refine your package and your presentation.
6. Define your services delivery process.
Once you have defined your product, it’s important to clarify the process behind it. This is the equivalent of building your manufacturing line. Each step in the services delivery process needs to be laid out. The first time you run through the process, you’ve built your template. Document who does what and when they do it. Define each step in the chain, to ensure your product is fully supported by a repeatable and cost-effective process.
7. Market your tangible service as a product.
Make sure that your marketing materials and processes support this new product position. Use words and images that help prospects to hold a picture in mind of what your product and the result of its use will look like.
In the end, businesses buy things that are familiar to them, rather than things that are intriguing. By helping prospects gain a clear understanding of what your 'product' is about, how it fits into their processes, and how they will measure success, you are much closer to closing the sale.
Remember, once they become a client, you will always have new opportunities to offer additional services. Each product sold takes you a step beyond the smoke and mirrors to building a solid relationship and foundation for ongoing fulfillment.
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