During my time working in Professional Services, the most challenging part of the business has always been sales.  This is likely true for many other organisations whether you're selling widgets, advertising or whatever else.  But in the Professional Services world, it’s just that little bit harder.

I have worked with some amazing sales people over the years and I have also worked with some good sales people that have not been able to transition into professional services selling. 

There are lots of things that contribute to success and I will cover many of these in future articles, however in this piece I want to try and get to the root of the issue with two main points.

Relationships

A customer will only buy a service from you if they know you and the company that you represent.  Of course there are exceptions to this, for example, if you have an amazing website that allows a customer to make a buying decision then and there.  But if that’s the case, why do you need sales people?  This scenario is unusual in Professional Services unless you have an incredibly niche offering and a very effective funnel.  The point is that relationships matter and in the end people buy from people and generally they will buy from people that they know and trust.  

The key questions to ask yourself are:

• Do you have good relationships with the customers, and key roles, that would potentially buy from you?

• When they have a need, will they think of you first?

What’s the problem - there always has to be a problem!

That brings me to my second point.  Even a great customer relationship won’t guarantee a sale.  There needs to be a problem (or a need) that has to be solved, and one that the customer is unable or unwilling to solve on their own.  The bigger the problem, then the bigger the opportunity.  The more unique the problem, the easier it is to sell your service if the customer understands that you are able to solve it.

Some problems are simply things that the customer chooses not to do for themselves anymore.  These are generally non-core roles that have been removed and they will simply engage an external service provider from time to time to solve.  These can become commoditised and you will need to understand how you differentiate yourself if this is your market.

Sales people with product catalogues showing the customer a “me too” offering or even the next ‘new thing’ will not have much success selling professional services.  Even if there is a need or problem that can be solved, claiming that an off-the-shelf product will solve it will be viewed cynically by many customers.  Productising your services can help your customers to understand them, but there must be a process of alignment between the problem and the solution [this is the idea of Solution Selling].

What you must do:

• Listen to your customer.  Find out what the problem or need actually is before proposing any kind of solution.

• Ask lots of clarification and qualification questions.

• Ask their thoughts on possible solutions.

• Present back to the customer a solution that solves their problem that is made up of your services.

It is only after you have had an honest discussion with your customer about the problem that you should then discuss how your services can address the need or solve the problem.  Be very specific about how you are going to solve the problem and approach that you propose.