by Michael W. McLaughlin on March 9, 2010
You’ve probably heard the saying that there’s no such thing as a dumb question—except the one you have but don’t ask. Based on that, you might assume that prospective clients understand your need to learn about their issues and so give you license to pose dumb questions.
You can get away with that to some extent in client meetings. But clients expect you to learn fast, and will evaluate your capabilities accordingly. If the depth of your questions doesn’t improve with each one, look out.
Before you ask your client a question, think about these three points:
- Will your question really improve your understanding of the client’s issue?
- Will it encourage the client to think more deeply about the matter?
- Will your question lead the client to ask you questions about your ideas?
An ideal client question furthers your understanding of the situation, adds some value for the client, and shows that you know your stuff. Of course, not everything you ask needs to cause your clients to stroke their chins and ruminate on a response; you design some questions solely to gather basic information.
There are dumb questions, and you get to ask a limited number of them in any client meeting. Make sure that you ask them early on if you want to be around to win the sale.
by Michael W. McLaughlin on March 9, 2010
In this month’s issue of Management Consulting News, we interview Jeffrey Hollender, Chairman of Seventh Generation and author of The Responsibility Revolution: How the Next Generation of Businesses Will Win. Hollender tells us why corporate responsibility has become increasingly important for business success.
You’ll also find articles on client trust, authentic communication, and why your client’s frontline staff may be underperforming. Plus, we peek into the crystal ball about consulting in 2010, and let you know about some upcoming learning events for consultants.
As always, we keep you posted on what’s happening in the professional services industry with the MCNews 12 Index report. Read why things were looking up for the Index last month.
Read this month’s issue.
The next issue of Management Consulting News will be published on April 6, 2010, and will feature an interview with Mark Livingston, Senior Vice President of Cognizant Business Consulting. We’ll ask him about the trends he’s observing in this shifting market and how you can stay on top of those trends.
by Michael W. McLaughlin on March 8, 2010
Not long ago, I heard a client complain about an alarming lack of clarity in his consultant’s explanations. Unfortunately, it’s not an uncommon client complaint. Too often, the language of “expertise” is needlessly complicated and drowning in jargon.
The consultants I know would agree that we’re not supposed to add complexity to our clients’ lives. But sometimes we do it unintentionally. Successful professionals know the rule: keep it simple. That’s often harder than it sounds.
And that’s the subject of this month’s issue of The Guerrilla Consultant.
by Michael W. McLaughlin on March 7, 2010
Given the importance of the customer’s experience to long-term business success, it’s alarming that more than two-thirds of senior executives are only “somewhat satisfied” or “not at all satisfied” with the performance of their frontline managers. What’s worse, more than 80 percent of frontline managers say they are not satisfied with their own performance.
The problem, according to researchers at McKinsey & Company, is that most frontline managers are one part bureaucrat and one part fire fighter. They spend their time on either administrative tasks or solving the latest crisis. They devote too little time to coaching their employees, anticipating problems, or building their own skills. In fact, many organizations offer little or no professional development for their frontline managers in essential leadership skills.
Consultants who focus on operations improvement and organizational effectiveness can make a compelling case for helping clients improve the performance of frontline employees. Small improvements in frontline operations can deliver big benefits in customer retention, satisfaction, and word-of-mouth marketing. With consumers continuing to demand more for less, the time is right for clients to take this issue on.
You can read more about this in the McKinsey Quarterly. There’s no cost, but you do need to be a subscriber to see the full report.
by Michael W. McLaughlin on March 5, 2010
Researchers at Robert W. Baird & Co. asked more than 500 consultants what’s ahead for consulting in 2010. The respondents offered these four perspectives on the rest of the year:
1. Don’t be surprised if the market turns around in 2010. It’s not clear, though, if the increase in business for consultants means a return to a stronger market. It’s possible that new spending is focused on initiatives clients just can’t delay any longer.
2. Budgets will remain tight, in spite of expected growth. Consultants cautioned that their clients’ public statements have been optimistic, but increased budgets have not necessarily followed. Clients still appear to be taking a wait-and-see attitude about spending on consultants.
3. Billing rates aren’t likely to be threatened. Consultants are bullish on the direction of billing rates, as fears about significant price pressure from the lower end of the market proved to be unfounded.
4. Sustained growth is still in the future. Consultants believe that the industry won’t change materially until the economy shows more signs of life. Banks must reopen the credit markets and businesses must put together a record of strong performance before consultants expect a real recovery in spending.
Expectations for the industry have improved for 2010, but that optimism must be kept in perspective. When compared to 2009, many consultants believe that there’s nowhere to go but up.
by Michael W. McLaughlin on February 24, 2010
By some accounts, more than 40 million presentations are given every day. Many start off something like this:
“Good Morning, I’m Eric Snooze from Global Interactive Services and I just wanted to start off by saying say how happy we are to be here today and to assist you with this critical effort. In case you don’t know about us, we have fifteen offices in strategic centers around the world. We’ve been in business since 1985, and our people undergo hundreds of hours of training in seven areas of specialization…”
By this point, you’ve likely lost the attention of half your audience. But Eric’s presentation would likely go into even more detail about his company before moving on to the real reason he was there—the client’s issue. Thousands of sales presentations start just like Eric’s, even though that is arguably the worst way to launch an effective one. Unfortunately, old-school sellers cling to this type of introduction.
Even if the standard seller-centric opening is short (which it often isn’t) many of your attendees aren’t really tuned in. Besides, if you’re making a sales presentation, the odds are good that your audience has some clue what your company does. Remember, they don’t really want to hear about you, even though they may say they do. They want to hear about themselves. So, they’ll listen to a self-serving opening, but they may not really hear it.
Here’s another way you might introduce yourself:
“Hi, I’m Eric Nodoze from Global Interactive Services, and I thank you for your time today. We’ll cover three topics this afternoon, beginning with what we know about your issues. We’ll discuss that topic and refine our understanding. Then, we’ll review options for how you might address this issue, with an emphasis on how we can work together. Finally, we’ll wrap up with a short review of Global Integrated Services and why we think we’re well-suited to assist you.”
With a simple shift in emphasis, this opening lets your listeners know that their concerns will be up first, and that they won’t have to endure your spiel until you’ve satisfied them that you know what they are up against. Once you’ve done that, don’t be surprised if your audience members want to hear more about your company.
Here’s a rule of thumb for your presentations: Focus on buyers’ issues at least 75 percent of the time, including right from the start. With conscious effort on your part, a presentation that is mostly about them can still answer all their questions about you, without the usual dull recitation.
If your audience doesn’t already know the basics about you, that is, your name and company, then supply that information and get on with it. Or, better yet, have someone else, preferably a client team member, introduce you very briefly.
If you want an easy, effective way to make your sales presentations stand out from those of your competitors, ignore the wisdom of the crowd. Always lead off with an emphasis on your client, not you. Your audience will be pleasantly surprised.
by Michael W. McLaughlin on February 23, 2010
Think about the last time you made a major purchase, like a car, home improvement project, or an appliance. Chances are good that your experience with the seller reinforced (or contradicted) your preconceived notions about the product or service. At some point, most of us have decided against a purchase because something about the seller or our experience with that seller just wasn’t right.
In that sense, the sale of a service is no different. Your client’s experience with you and your sales process can be the deciding factor in winning the work. In Swanson’s Unwritten Rules of Management, Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson makes this observation about human nature: “You remember 1/3 of what you read, 1/2 of what people tell you, but 100 percent of what you feel.” What clients are most likely to remember about you is their emotional reaction to working with you.
Your job: create a buying experience that works for your client, not a selling process that works for you. Instead of focusing on how to sell to the client, work to identify and create the conditions under which the client wants to buy. You and the client co-design a buying process together, which allows the client to learn, analyze, and decide how and when to buy.
How do you design a good client buying experience? Ask questions. For instance, don’t assume that a client wants to see a presentation, call references, and then read a proposal. Offer alternatives for the client to learn about you. Maybe your client wants a series of small group briefings, an interview with the service delivery team, and a call of support from your boss.
The possibilities are endless, but you won’t know how clients want to buy unless you ask. And you’ll get kudos for bringing up the subject. The power of the client buying experience lies in the competitive advantage it offers when you get it right. It’s the one thing that your competitors cannot copy.
No matter how your client wants to buy, you’ll still undertake traditional sales activities like identifying decision makers, positioning your services in a favorable way, and communicating why you are the best choice. The difference is that you’ll pursue these activities in a way that is defined with your client, not by your standard sales approach.
by Michael W. McLaughlin on February 22, 2010
Among the most overlooked sales skills for services sellers is knowing when to walk away from a sale. In some cases, the decision is a no-brainer because there’s not a fit between what you do and what your prospective client needs. As your sales effort progresses with a client, though, it gets more difficult to pass on an opportunity.
The main drawback to pursuing a sale that you should abandon stems from your lost opportunity costs. As soon as you get sucked into a bad deal, invariably, something better comes along.
Ill-advised sales have other common characteristics: Often, it takes longer than you expect to close the sale and, by then, your profit margin is already slipping into oblivion. It also takes longer to complete the work than you’d planned. Bad sales chew up more of your resources than they should, and the client is often unhappy with the end result.
The tough decision to walk away isn’t usually cut and dried, so it’s essential to listen to all the clues clients provide. If a client expresses variations on any of these themes, you should seriously consider leaving the sale to someone else:
- We expect budget approval next month, but we want your proposal now.
- You will need to deliver your service a lot faster than that.
- We tried to do this once before but the people we hired dropped the ball.
- We will name our manager as soon as we decide which provider gets the contact.
- Your competitor wrote the specifications for our Request for Proposals (RFP).
- We have 12 proposals under review as of now.
- We can discuss the availability of our team for the project once we decide who wins the work.
- A task force will make the final decision, but they’ll rubber stamp my recommendation.
- The division president isn’t aware of this initiative, but we’re sure it’s on his list of priorities.
- Your competitor has done a similar project for us in another division.
- We are insisting on a fixed-fee, fixed-schedule proposal.
How do you decide when to walk away?
by Michael W. McLaughlin on February 18, 2010
If you’ve worked in the services business long enough, you’ve probably sold one (or more) projects that you wish you’d left for the competition. Given the pressure to make our numbers, mostly everyone has a few stinkers on the books. Often, you get an inkling during the sales process that something about the opportunity just isn’t right.
The trick to avoiding a lousy sale is to make a conscious and informed decision about whether or not to work with a client and to be ready, when warranted, to walk away with no regrets. Be as selective about the clients you work with as they are about choosing you.
So, how do you decide which sales opportunities are right for you? Find at least three reasons why you might choose to work with a client, and one of them cannot be, “I don’t have anything else to do, so why not?”
Here are ten possible reasons why you may decide to pursue a specific opportunity:
- Achieve a desired level of profit
- Work with this client on other assignments that are in the works
- Build a long-term relationship with a strategic client
- Obtain valuable referrals and references
- Improve your client base, enabling you to recruit and retain top talent
- Develop a new service for the market
- Increase industry visibility for your business
- Undertake challenging work that will aid in your professional development
- Add to your store of intellectual capital for use in marketing or on other initiatives
- Gain valuable expertise for growing your business in new areas.
You can probably come up with plenty of other reasons that motivate you to take on a sales opportunity. What matters is that you be willing–without hesitation–to walk away and leave the sale for someone else when your criteria for selecting a client aren’t met.
Your business–and professional well-being–is a reflection of your clients. And the perceived quality of your client list affects your ability to attract new business. Taking pains to avoid the albatrosses and choose the best clients for your practice fuels your growth and defines your future.
How do you decide whether or not a client is right for you?
by Michael W. McLaughlin on February 8, 2010
It’s exhilarating to learn that you’ve won a new project. But that moment is often followed by the sobering realization that you now have to make good on your promises. Or, as one consultant put it, “The good news is that we won the project. The bad news is that we have to do the project.”
In last month’s issue of my newsletter, The Guerrilla Consultant, I wrote an open letter from a client to a consultant that expressed what most clients want to say at the outset of a new project. I got quite a few suggestions to write about the flip side of that–what a newly-hired consultant would have to say to the client.
My take on that second letter is the subject of this month’s issue of The Guerrilla Consultant.
Enjoy the article.
