hey this is a lot of my clients are
professional services firms management
consulting firm strategy consulting
firms legal tax advisory and a lot of
those professional services firms have a
mix of people who build sell and deliver
consultants now many of those firms
values sales ability very highly if
you're good at selling you'll grow
through the ranks faster you'll promote
you'll get promoted faster you'll get
opportunities the others don't have
you'll basically advanced and develop
your career any much faster way and
there's a good reason for that
the mix of great consulting skills and
great sales skills is not something that
a lot of people possess and that's a
pity now I've been on both sides of the
table I've been a management consultant
myself and I've sold and bought
management consulting strategy
consulting systems integration services
what I wanted to do is I want to give
you a quick overview of some of the key
characteristics that I've seen those who
succeed in marrying being a great
consultant to being a great seller and I
want to give you those characteristics
and tell you my observations around how
I saw them being different from
everybody else so the number one thing
that I see is a difference between those
who are great at selling and consulting
versus those who were great at
consulting but perhaps not so great at
selling is they accept they are in sales
they forget about the hang-ups about
what sales is supposed to be and the
negative image and the negative
connotations and they just accept that
part of what they do is selling and you
might as well be good at it so they have
none of those negative connotations
about being a salesperson or sales being
somehow beneath them or not for them
they really understand that it's part
and parcel of their job description it's
part and parcel of what they do and not
only are they ok with it but they accept
that gladly and with open arms and they
enjoy the selling part of their job as
much as they do the advisory or
consulting part number two they act like
chameleons they're able to vary their
style tone depending on what the
situation calls for now serious
decisions has an interesting typology of
the three roles that professional
services salespeople tend to play
throughout the sales process
great sellers great consultants who are
also great sellers are able to vary and
mix up those three roles the first role
is the domain expert and that's the
natural role of a consultant right it's
it's where you come in and you you share
your expertise on a given topic on a
given area and and that's where you
really stand out so anyone who's selling
consulting services should first and
foremost also be a domain expert number
two is a strategic Orchestrator they are
able to bring together resources from
within the organization and lead those
as a team and lead the sales development
effort with their clients at number
three is the risk alleviate er one of
the top ten factors that our research is
reine group has shown helps buyer decide
to buy from one firm versus another is
because the seller help them avoid the
potential pitfalls this is hugely
important risk is a hugely important
crucial factor in any b2b sale today and
great consultant sellers understand that
they are able to address those risks
upfront and they're able to mitigate
those risks or help the client see how
they will mitigate or diminish the
impact of those risks number three they
educate their buyers buyers today want
to be educated the biggest
differentiator between sellers who win
deals and sellers who come in second
place is because they educate with new
ideas and perspectives sellers educate
their buyers and so do great consultants
for they build trust into the process
the traditional sales process is broken
its it relies on a number of assumptions
that are simply no longer true buyers
make decisions for rational reasons for
example we know from practice that they
don't the important part in any sales
process is to build trust and to build
it into the processing grow it as you go
through the sales process in addition to
that great sellers communicate the value
of what they are selling the full value
of what they are selling and this is
very important because value is the
primary reason why buyers buy it's not
price it's not you know because they
like a certain seller it is because the
overall value
that the seller delivered was perceived
as larger than any of their competitors
so successful sellers understanding
communicate the full extent of the value
that they there serves their solution
offers to decline and finally they
minimize uncertainty and they encourage
action buyers today don't have it easy
we need to make decisions buyers need to
make decisions on complex sales
involving hundreds of thousands up to
millions of dollars based on very
frequently very little information a
couple of phone calls a couple of
meetings maybe a proposal or some
additional documentation that's really
all we have to go on so sellers
understand that and they help buyers
minimize uncertainty and take action
because the number one reason why sell
why sales stall today the number one
reason why many sales were lost is not
to a competitor it's not even to doing
things internally it's to doing nothing
at all and the reason for that is
because buyers are fearful of taking a
wrong step of making a wrong decision
and that risk is holding them back from
taking action great sellers understand
that they're able to encourage a buyer
to move forward by minimizing the
uncertainty involved in the decision
making process so there you go a couple
of ways in which I see consultants who
are also great sellers act and behave
differently from everybody else
number one they understand they're in
sales they accept that as a fact of life
and they're comfortable with that number
two they act like chameleons they're
able to play these roles as team leaders
as domain experts as risk alleviate errs
number three they educate their buyers
with truly new ideas breakthrough ideas
and perspectives number four they build
trust into the process from start to
finish number five to communicate the
full value of what they are selling
thereby positioning themselves as the
most value added alternative and finally
they minimize uncertainty and encourage
action from their buyers as always if
you like this video if you want to hear
more about how to sell professional
services how to close more deals how to
generate more business how to win more
often sign up for my youtube channel
subscribe to my youtube channel I look
forward to seeing you in a next video
until then
sir