Tips to turbo charge the growth of your consultancy and practice

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT SOME of the worst salespeople I have known. They are professional services people - accountants, lawyers, consultants, financial advisors, mortgage brokers, and the like.

Did I ever tell you about the best consultants or accountants I've met? Lawyers, financial consultants? Yes? Well actually they're in both groups.

The groups are not mutually exclusive.

Let me just qualify what I am saying so I have a fighting chance of retaining friends who happen to be consultants, advisors, lawyers and accountants. The fact that they are ordinary salespeople is no reflection on their professionalism to do what they are retained to do. Which I know is excellent.

Just that personal service professionals do not like selling. I will rephrase that they hate the idea of selling.

"Build the practice and they will come" approach.

Apologies to Kevin Costner and one of my favourite movies.

They truly believe if they provide a good service that their practice will build automatically and they will be successful.

Well not quite. No cigar. Just yet.

Their practices will grow incrementally, more by default. But not sufficiently fast to satisfy the owners, defend them from faster more savvy competitors or take them from a practice to a true business.

Some wanting to change this paradigm will go and do a sales course and learn the sales process. Full marks for effort. But unlikely to have a tinker's chance of improvement .

Because the value of gaining sales knowledge will not be applied frequently enough for the right habits and attitudes be created. So we are back to square one.

So what is the alternative?

Let's keep it simple. Real simple.

Once consultants and professional services practitioners realise this they have a rubicon moment to not only increase their chance to attract new business but also gain improvement in their processes which will greatly enhance their service.

A true opportunity to stone two crows with the one yonnie.

Instead of learning the complexity of the sales process. Just adopt processes that will both exceed clients' experiences as well as gain you new business fees, both from your existing clients as well as new customers.

Adopting processes that could do both? Yes. This change would form the basis of better client work practices and also put you in a good position to be recommended as the service of choice.

So yes, meeting your client needs is critical but it is only part of the story.

It requires exceptional client experience. Most would agree but not know how to achieve this.

So to strive for great client outcomes which lead to a major increase in business consider the acronym AEDAA:

Attention Engage Desire Action Acclamation

ATTENTION

Gain the ATTENTION of your target demographic group. Until you have taken the time to decide who they are you will never know when you come across them.

Anybody can attract customers by sheer chance- some ideal, some clogging up your client list and others who are high maintenance and low yield.

There are good clients for you and then there are good clients for your competitors. Its knowing the difference.

What are the psychometrics and sociometrics that define your best clients. Their age, gender, roles, postcode, personality traits, industry categories, to start with.

Take your top 20% client, and aggregate their features. You will be surprised how common they are. As they say, birds of a feather flock together.

Next step is to hangout where they do. Where do their interests lie? Football, Yachting, Quilting, whatever. If you are in B2B then join their industry association. Your current clients know people who know people who would also be ideal clients for you.

Better a big fish in a small pond.

We like to be with people who are like us.

Get ATTENTION by not being beige and forgettable. Be different. Be noticeable.

What is your point of difference?

Marketing guru Seth Godin authored a wonderful book on this topic titled Purple Cow. In essence when you go for a relaxing drive through the countryside and you arrive home. How many cows did you see? It might take a moment to remember if any. But if there had been one purple cow you wouldn't hesitate to remember.

So what is your Purple Cow? Maybe it is your incredible high level of service, maybe your pink vans, or is it your giant pineapple in the front lobby which has you stand out like the proverbial (ie. the purple cow)? Whatever. But make it unique.

Ian Molly Meldrum is a unique and quirky character. I shared a friendship and accommodation with Ian in London in the 70s. His (and my) greatest influence was The Beatles. When he had a chance to meet his hero John Lennon he fainted. Imagine how many people John Lennon would have met, likely in the thousands, before his untimely death. But he always remembered Ian as that "crazy Aussie" that fainted and fell flat on his face in the London club when he met him.

That was Molly's Purple Cow which served him well later getting exclusive access to the super group.

Also ATTENTION in meetings with prospects and clients. When you meet with them in their office make sure they are present. What do you say? Yes, they may just have had an argument with their partner, got off the phone to a client about late deliveries, or simply just distracted.

So make sure they are mentally present as well as physically there . Otherwise anything you say or discuss will not be heard or remembered or acted upon later.

Best way to get their attention is to focus your and their attention on them. Compliment something personal or an interest or a sport you know is important to them.

What do consultants and advisors meeting with clients and prospects do? They are always in a hurry. Time is tight. So they launch straight in without the 'small talk ' which has such an important role at this point of a meeting.

'Tune in' the other person's frequency to your's before you move into the business part of the meeting.

Think about the Australian coast watchers in New Guinea during the war risking their life to pass information about Japanese shipping movements . They would crank up their valve powered short wave and start calling Port Moresby all the time swivelling the frequency modulator. They knew that there was no point transmitting until Port Moresby acknowledged their plea for attention.

ENGAGE

The key to today's age is engagement. We are bombarded by thousands of stimuli each day that are filtered out and only the most pressing and beneficial get through.

Plus there are so many ways and means we can ENGAGE. For many years it was restricted to face to face, mail and telephone. Then came radio and then television. Then fax arrived . Wow did we think it was Christmas every day.

Herald in the Internet and the permutation of engaging people has progressed exponentially.

As a senior executive from Disney visiting a conference in Melbourne said last month at a breakfast he was asked to address:

Are you engaging with your prospects and clients on as many platforms as possible?

It is a question, he said, is asked at every meeting of his team at the Disney studio.

That is what has become expected today.

We can only best ENGAGE if we know what our clients are interested and concerned about. How do we do that? We set out to understand what their concerns are, their problems and their pain points which can only be done through asking probing questions.

Questions that not only reveal their goals but their deep seated concerns and problems.

As Rob Jolles says, former head trainer for Xerox the pioneer of sales training, prospects only make decisions to solve problem. BIG problems.

Whilst many consultants and advisors know they must ask questions, they usually do without knowing the protocol and hierarchy of questions. Most are superficial first degree non probing questions. And their questions are left at that level.

Often the level of probing questions can be directly linked to our own self image. Only asking questions which will not upset our rapport and register a negative response.

SPIN Selling , which was released by Hathaway gives an excellent example and structure of questions that every professional services practitioner should study to be more effective. SPIN being Specific, Problem (Identifying), Implication and Needs (or benefits) questions.

We must aspire to be not just a provider but to esteemed position of trusted advisor.

One based on Trust and centred around their needs and their wants. This can only come from an honest concern for our clients welfare, by knowing their goals and desires.

Which come from questions!

               DESIRE

DESIRE is what drives decisions. DESIRE to gain pleasure or avoid pain.

To help prospects and clients make decisions, to avert procrastination, we must 'dial up' the benefits or aversion to losses.

"What if" questions help our prospects envisage a future if they proceed the path they are currently travelling or if they decide to change direction by making a decision.

We should not expect the person in front of us to automatically be able to imagine their future, but that is our professional skill to guide them down that path.

A good principle to use is that expressed by the President of Mattel:

"Never offer a solution until you first have the prospect verbalise their problem"

This is where we need to become big on questions and slow on statements.

It is human nature when we have endless time to make decisions, even for things we desire, we tend to put off because our fear of being wrong or a fear of failing as a result.

To increase the level of desire and the need for action we can create a sense of scarcity. Scarcity of opportunity, availability, profit, or time.

I am a good case study. Best expressed: I have some 364 days to buy one important Christmas gift, my wife's present. In all fairness I start thinking about it a week before Christmas Day. Come Christmas Eve morning I am now on a mission. By midday I am getting a little nervous as the count down begins in earnest. My level of desire is quickly rising like a barometer on a hot summer's day. Money becomes less important, because the solution is a matter of life and death. My personal safety is at risk.

This level of urgency in the financial advisory area comes with bass statement deadlines, ASIC reporting or our year end annual tax return. Or minimising tax through superannuation instalments before the end of the financial year.

The level of pain or gain must rise to be greater than that of inertia before we move into action.

                     ACTION

Our job is not done until we clearly have actions to be taken. Many professional service representatives often stop short. Thinking that if we give a prospect all the information that they will automatically make decision to go ahead. Wrong and in many cases a fatal error in getting a prospect on board.

A major error is that we give far too much information for a simple decision to go ahead or not .

We have blinded them with our cleverness and suitably impressed them with our knowledge.

The next words likely to come out of their mouths are " thank you we will take this home, (office or wherever) and think about it"

What we need to do is to take an assumptive stance and set a time table sign off," how are you placed next week to meet ?"

So before the initial meeting ends, a clear timetable should be proposed and diarised. Anything less will cost time and money and increase doubt that the project will go ahead as discussed.

Is that the end. Well for most it is.

But not for good professionals on their way to being great.

If we had a prospect which has now turned into a client we are now behind. What the? Yes we are now behind. We have one less prospect than we started with.

We should see our business model as a continuum. Otherwise just like everyone else it becomes a roller coaster of feast and famine.

             ACCLAMATION

We started by saying there is nothing that professional services people like worse than when they have to sell their services.

We are wrong.

There is one thing they hate worse. Asking for referrals!

Well we have a viable alternative to this very important element in the business development continuum.

That is to identify our brand advocates.

People who are pleased as punch with the service we have given and more than willing to recommend to others.

Once the project is completed a thank you letter is sent to our client for their business and a request which asks them to rate our service :

1/ on a scale of 1 to 10 would they give a value of the service they received?

2/ what is the likelihood that they would recommend on a scale of 1 to 10?

First this exercise tells clients that you are looking to build your client base. Often it is thought, wrongly, that you have enough clients and not looking for more, or whilst we feel it would be top of mind to recommend us, in real truth it just never enters their mind.

Second by identifying those who would give their experience an 8, 9 or 10 you could follow up to ask them for a testimonial to be placed on your web page.

Also a direct request if they can recommend to associates and others.

Third to the rest you might ask them with subsequent questionnaires what it would take to improve their rating.

SUMMARY

AEDAA offers a sustainable process that is repeatable and reteachable for all in your professional team to contribute to getting new clients.

Without relying on the practice rainmaker.

It also provides simple practice process to deliver superior service and enhance the client experience.

Why not try it. Nothing to loose and everything to gain
Good luck!

Footnote: For every statement there is an exception. The best salesperson I know is in professional services. I would go as far as saying that he and his brother established the most successful financial services practice in Australia 50 years ago and Tony Bongiorno still today does 35 new business presentations a week in Sydney and Melbourne. When the norm is more like 15. Without doubt in my experience he is the best salesperson of any product in Australia. Tony lives by many of the principles in this post.

If you found this post interesting and of value we invite you to like and share with others.


Other posts by the author are:

• 12 ways to pick Low Hanging Fruit

• 14 Keys to Effective Checklist creation

12 ways to pick your low hanging fruit

MANY BUSINESS OWNERS are quick to direct their sales people spend time on getting new business.

Often ignoring what they already have.

Its partly the thrill of the chase, the idea of something new.

Russell H. Conwell, tells a wonderful story, Acres of Diamonds, about a young man who left home to roam the world seeking his fortune. Unsuccessful and returned home only to find an acre of diamonds outside the back door of the property he once owned.

New business is expensive to find and win away from current suppliers. Up to 10 times more expensive to do business compared to the those outside your back door. Yes you should always have a stream of new business to offset change in your present clients, but it should not represent more than 20-25 % of your business income.

The good news is every business has low hanging fruit.

Say that within earshot of any sales rep or sales manger and you instantly have their attention.

Yes, they're called existing CLIENTS.

12 ways how you can pick your low hanging fruit

1/ SHAKE UP YOUR SALES TEAMS

Change your sales representatives territory, particularly if they have been calling on the same clients for yonks.

Expect a reaction to this move. But maybe some have been in a comfort zone, and taking their current relationships for granted and not seeing opportunities that a fresh set of eyes might. Have you the strength of leadership to take this action?

An alternative is to allow the sales representatives keep their top 20% but allocate the remainder to new representatives. That way you might get out of the announcement meeting alive!

2/ ARE YOU ENGAGING YOUR CLIENTS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE ON ALL PLATFORMS AS POSSIBLE?

This was the remark by the head of Disney Studios at a Licensing conference in Melbourne I attended recently. Apart from complaining that he’d never been up at such an hour (7am in Los Angeles) he opened the breakfast saying that the question (" Are you engaging your clients as much as possible on all platforms as possible ?") was asked by his team at Disney at every meeting he attended. It drives their every action. How would you answer that question?

Are you engaging your clients as much as possible on all platforms as possible?

3/ USE EMAIL CONTENT MARKETING

The most cost effective way of engaging and stimulating your clients. No not as a means to convey this month’s specials and use just as as another advertising channel, but with quality content that provides clients with knowledge and value.

If you establish trust and value you maybe be allowed to market directly to them on a 1:4 basis. What is stopping you to use this highly cost effective medium?

What is stopping you to use this highly cost effective medium?

4/ GET OFF YOUR BUTT AND OUT OF YOUR OFFICE

Get out of the comfort and warmth of your nicely appointed work space and visit your clients in their work place. When was the last time the owner or CEO of one of your suppliers visited you at your office? Maybe never! Too busy? What would you prefer to be an overhead or a direct cost (a cost which you can recover from sweat equity!)

5/ SPECIAL SNEAK PREVIEW OF NEXT SEASON'S RANGE

If you don’t have an exciting product or service then make the occasion or location the excitement factor. Invite current and lapsed clients to a special function (drinks and nibbles). Having worked for key brands in the electronics area (Pioneer) they would range their new components twice a year – and invite key clients and media. Why not do the same. At least a good excuse for a party.

6/ ONE WAY TO GET REFERRED BUSINESS

Referrals. Don't get many? Then freely give them! Simple as that. Think about your clients and ways you might refer business. Then leave it to the Law of Reciprocity. Don't be surprised nor disappointed when the referred business to you comes from another direction. That's the Law of Reciprocity working.

7/ DO SOME PHONE RESEARCH

Either personally or commission someone to research customers, both current and lapsed, on what they like about your product or service. If there is any suggestions to improve, or anything they might add, and if appropriate why they haven’t been using your services lately. Former clients may not give the real reason but if the interview is done respectively and sensitively they may be impressed by your want to listen and improve.

8/ SEND THEM FREE STUFF.

We all love free stuff. In your travels you will come across some new and low cost items. Why not buy up a bunch and send them out selectively with a personal note.‘Thinking of you. Thought you might like this.” Or do you have promotional caps and jackets. One of my clients' sales representative gave away a cap and jacket just being polite to someone who doesn’t even use his equipment (in the Ag and Earth moving area). The happy recipient rang three months, later switched brands, and the rep booked an $80 k order.

9/ RUN A PROMOTION

A promotional competition for clients. Invite them to enter. Or you enter them.

If it is a mature product or range a well thought out promotion supported by new point of sale and collateral can give a new and exciting boost to the relationship, Well if Madonna can reinvent herself why shouldn't a makeover to the stars of your range?

10/ WRITE A BLOG AND QUOTE THEM OR ASK THEM TO COMMENT

Appeal to their ego. Take an aspect of your relationship, or borrow from their narrative to feature them in your company's blog. Interview the CEO on the organisation, their service or unique aspects of their value offerings. Particularly valuable to your client if your blog is also followed by their prospective customers

11/ RECOGNISE A SPECIAL Date

Copernicus was wrong. Earth doesn't revolve the Sun. It revolves around us. We are the most important people in the universe or at least most important people in OUR universe. (That is why we send (m) emails.)

So the fastest way to get others' attention is recognise things that they are interested or involved in. It all started at birth. So their birthday is most important (even when they say it isn't). Its an important date to them. So recognise it. Give them a call, text, leave a facebook post, leave a message all Wishing them a great day. Why? Because many will not.

There are other dates that are excuses to just connect. Anniversary of their job, their new role appointment, admittance to a club, a win by their favourite sports interest. Just think if you had to judge when they were good to make contact then every chance these days are the ones. (Whilst saying important to make contact don't break into a sales speil. It will spoil the moment.)

12/ CHECK- IN.

Regularly call (one each day, if possible) a client you haven’t heard from or seen for some time. The contact importantly is NOT a sales call, but just of general interest to see how they are going. Importantly, again, don’t sell on this call even if they initiate the subject. Hard yes. Otherwise it will also spoil the warm 'fuzzy feeling' they will have when they hang up the phone.

Sometimes the best sell is when you don’t sell at all.

SUMMARY

We often leave, in particular, the low maintenance clients to themselves happy to and let the orders flow in at will. Allowing us to spend time with the problematic, low yielding or the vast green fields of prospects.

The most expensive part of a sale is the first transaction. That is where the time is spent, finding, nurturing and selling to them. Then building up initial contacts to builds a relationship. Then we get bored. we get busy, and just as dangerous sales flow in. Dangerous yes. Because complacency follows.

But remember if they have not had contact with us for 90 day or more human nature being what it is, and the frantic nature of our dynamic and competitive workplace, they forget about us. Not just forget, but forget we even walked the planet.

Yes, we must attract new business.

But not at the expense of our true and tried loyal customers.

We must continue, daily, ask our selves the question raised by our Disney executive:

Are you engaging your clients as much as possible, on as many platforms as as possible?"

If not somebody else will!

if you found this blog interesting and of value we invite you to LIKE and SHARE for others to gain from the benefits of looking after your low hanging fruit, their existing clients.

Other posts by this author include:

• Darwin Awards for Sales people
• What is your Coaching philosophy
• Remarkable People leave their mark
• 14 Keys to Effective Checklists
• 7 Things I would tell my Younger self

14 KEYS TO CREATE A CHECKLIST

LET'S IMAGINE YOU ARE A senior manager and you have the opportunity to increase productivity, workers' safety, team morale and become a more effective team.

Just like with the TV infomercial there is more!

This opportunity will close more sales, increase the top line, reduce re-work and increase the profitability of the organisation. And it is not going to cost you big bucks- for new tooling, equipment, training and more personnel.

You would be crazy, if not negligent, not to at least find out more about this wonderkid of a development ? Yes? Yes!

Atul Gawande (@Atul_Gawande) in his book Checklist Manifesto writes of the origin of Checklists. A successful surgeon and author Gawande draws on his own experience to operate, literally, in a world of growing complexity.

At first, he writes of his own experience in the world medicine but broadens it to take in all areas of our community and life. Gawande was concerned by the exponential increase of surgical operations worldwide combined with complexity and specialisation of medicine, resulting in millions of deaths and disabilities that were not decreasing with the economies of scale.

With investigation, Atul realised, that level of death and disabilities from surgery came not so much from the fault of ignorance of knowledge, this was progressively being addressed by training and research break through, but the simple known aspects overlooked. What Gawande called ineptitude, where the knowledge exists but failed to be applied correctly.

Atul was asked by World Health Organisation (WHO) to improve Patient Care but without the support of a budget to invest in equipment or major training. He proposed Checklists be trialled in 8 hospitals in both developing and developed countries.

The result was a significant reduction in death and disabilities. It is now being rolled out in hospitals globally.

Checklists are not a To Do List.

Related but TO DO LIST is an endless list of things- both important and non important. A transactional, an analogue process which is often largely filled with just stuff (technical term is Crap).

A Checklist is concise and brief, comprising important items which MUST be done that moves us towards our Purpose or Goals. It is strategic 'must do’, having significant effect if it is not exercised.

Importantly Checklists will have a major effect on an organisation's results if the concept is understood and implemented in a correct manner. Its application doesn't require new million dollar machinery. Does not affect CapEx. In fact the cost to implement is minuscule . It's ROI incredible and impressive.

But it does require a much greater effort. It requires THINKING and Discipline to commitment.

But any CEO or Senior Manager has the courage to implement will be rewarded by great results and accolades.

Embracing Checklists will:

• Gain more prospects and clients-if included on a sales representatives Sales call Checklist, i.e. Last action before end of call: 'Ask for Referral’.
• Prevent error in prescribing drugs in Emergency (which happened to the writer’s relative and was fatal).
• Reduce rework (e.g., as simple as 'measure twice, cut once’).
• Get one last sale: 'Fries with that?'
• Facilitate cross selling ( ‘now is there anything we can further help you with…financial planning?"
• Focus employees in meetings (" Lets be clear on the purpose of todays meeting").

What's in it for me?

• Brings Focus to yourself, managers' and team as to what is important and what should be in focus
• Gives senior managers influence right to the frontline on correct process and procedures
• Ensures safety guidelines and shows diligence by senior managers to ensure they are complied- considering serious penalties for not following can be jail time.

14 Keys to Checklists 

1/ Know the difference between a Checklist and To Do List (often used wrongly and interchangeably).

2/ Ask what is the purpose of introducing a Checklist.

3/ Know that Checklists are limited to finite number of points - this could vary depending on the process but kept ideally kept to a minimum (a manageable and critical 5-7 items in many areas).

4/ Expressed in simple easy to understand language.

5/ Items included are 'must do', strategically aligned with the purpose and goals.

6/ Does not include items not regarded as important that would be done as a matter of course.

7/ The Checklist should be tested and trialled in operation until the correct items and number included are agreed.

8/ Implemented with a training program so there relevance and importance is understood and contrast to a To Do List.

9/ Can be Do and then Checkoff, or Check then Do.

10/ Could take a couple of minutes ( 90 seconds to 2 minutes- ideal to administer or complete).

11/ Checklist may be undertaken at pause points ( aircraft crew before pushback and then cockpit crew immediately before takeoff ).

12/ Could be adopted by a single person as a reminder and personal disciple to stay on track and help with their personal focus, or as an effective medium to coordinate a high performing team.

13/ Slowly introduce into your business where you can supervise the introduction.

14/ Must become a habit through repetition and used 100% at all times by senior management. ( Who are not exempt, or above the process because of rank.)

Be warned. As simple and as effective as Checklists are they will not be embraced by all in your business. There will be some who question their value, of having some of the items included and why it has to be strictly followed EVERY time.

These people, who are likely to pushback, should be consulted early and asked for their input, and understand why their support is crucial to the adoption of the new process of Checklists. They are often the most senior and most experienced. But also the most influential in adoption of change.

Atul Gawande acknowledges the pace and complexity of change has driven the necessity.

The volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us." 

It is a long way and time from the origin of Checklists, back to a 1936 crash of the prototype US military plane. An event which shaped the pre flight lists we are all familiar with flying, that have saved possibly millions of lives.

The origin of Checklists can be seen in the link to a preceding post:

http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/how-old-ww2-bomber-can-effect-your-bottomline-d-keith-millar/edit

In summary, senior managers willing to implement the merits of Checklists will not be disappointed with outstanding results and accolades on offer for their leadership.

if you found this blog interesting and of value we invite you to LIKE and SHARE for others also to gain from the benefits of CHECKLISTS. 

OTHER POSTS INCLUDE:

• Darwin Awards for Sales people
• What is your Coaching philosophy
• Remarkable People leave their mark