One of the difficulties in selling a service is that potential clients (we’ll call them “prospects” here) often don’t know whether they should be using what you provide.
Your prospect has a problem, but they may not understand how your service can help them. And even if they’ve tried a similar service in the past, or used a competitor, they’re still not sure how your service will compare to that experience. They are full of doubts.
Selling services can require a much more sensitive approach than selling tangible products. Lets have a look at some of the things we can do to create a successful sales process when selling B2B services.
1) Identifying prospects.
Before you can sell you must have prospects. Identifying a prospect can be difficult because they may not know they could be your customer. Attracting prospects requires you to get their attention and help them to understand ‘how’ you can help them. This is not the same as telling them ‘what’ you do.
To encourage this understanding you really need to provide some relevant, helpful and insightful information. Prospects who are ‘in the market’ for your type of service will be sensitive to that type of information. They will pay attention to it and remember it. Ideally you’ll be able to stimulate the prospect to feel like “I need more of that” and to contact you.
In doing so, you’ll help the prospect pre-qualify themselves to a large degree. By the time they contact you they’ll already have some understanding of what you might be able to do for them and very importantly, they have taken a positive action in contacting you. They’re now a ‘warm lead’ for you.
But don’t be mistaken, at this stage they have not made a decision to buy from you. Don’t interpret their enquiry as a buying decision. You’ve still got quite a way to go.
So what’s next?
2) Understanding the prospect.
At this point you don’t really know if you can help them. So you should be using the initial meeting with your prospect (in person or over the phone) to gain a better understanding of what they are trying to achieve, and to discover their real needs. Ask lots of sensible questions, without interrogating them, and listen carefully to the answers. When you are planning your questions think about:
Why
What
Who
When
Now that you’re finished asking your questions, and knowing your own capabilities Can you still help them?
If so, proceed to make
3) Suggestions for future progress.
Note that this stage may be a separate meeting, or even a series of meetings. This is especially important if your prospect is a larger firm with multiple decision makers and influencers, or when the service you are offering is complex.
During this phase of the selling process explain:
In some situations it might be wise not to give exact details of your activities. This could be the case if:
Using written proposals.
As part of the overall sales process you may need to submit a written proposal. If you do submit a proposal, make sure it is done at the end of the sales process – when you have identified all relevant needs and discussed the scope of the solution.
Important:
Don’t use a proposal to “guess” at what the prospective client wants. If your proposal only contains guesses, then you’ll usually be wasting your time. If you have trouble getting details because your prospect wont spend time with you to discuss their situation, maybe they’re not very serious about making a decision. Should you continue?
The written proposal should reflect what you have discussed with them, covering their stated needs and explaining how you will work with them. The proposal should be a summary of your previous discussions.
When to use a “draft” proposal.
If your service is complex, or carries a large price tag, then consider using a draft proposal as an interim measure. How do you do this? When asked for a proposal, rather than just saying:
“Yes, you’ll have it next week”
… when really you’re still not sure what to write, try saying:
“OK, we can get a draft proposal to you next week for discussion”.
Use the occasion of presenting the draft proposal as an opportunity to further build the relationship and clarify all the important issues. When handled properly, this process will make you look like a professional, rather than an amateur trying to guess the clients needs.
After you’ve got this far, is your client still happy and eager to proceed?
If so, then
4) Agree to the terms of the relationship.
By this time you have developed a degree of rapport with your prospect. You may have spent some hours together, and have looked carefully at their situation and considered some options.
Now is the time to close the sale.
Congratulations… you now have an eager client.
You have found a prospect, identified their specific needs, matched your benefits to those needs, confirmed that your prospect recognises those benefits, structured a workable program to complete the job, and gained their agreement to start.
Now it’s a matter of following through with your promises and providing exceptional client service.
But there’s one last thing I’d like to mention…
5 ) When to do a “demo”.
If you need to demonstrate your service or discuss how you have handled similar projects, think carefully about when this should be done. Many service providers start off their sales presentation with this type of demonstration. They tell their prospect about what they can do, and detail all the benefits they can offer.
But beware; the prospect is waiting for you to show interest in their specific situation. So pay attention to them and start asking questions. When you know what is important to them you can do your demonstration with confidence, emphasising aspects that are particularly relevant for your prospect, and avoiding aspects that aren’t important.
By planning and controlling your sales process you can easily turn your warm leads into eager clients, developing a strong relationship along the way.
Happy selling!
Stuart Ayling runs Marketing Nous, an Australasian marketing consultancy that specialises in marketing for service businesses. He helps clients to improve their marketing tactics, attract more clients, and increase revenue. For additional marketing resources, including Stuart’s popular monthly newsletter, visit his web site at www.marketingnous.com.au
