Selling High-End Services and Solutions

I have been researhing and studying sales for almost 20 years. I have spoken at major events, turned around business units, trained large and small consulting firms, and yet, in all these times, I am amazed how many professionals do not step back and look at the major trends ocurring around them.

When you step back - you will see "selling conundrums" - sales effects that are opposites and cannot be resolved using old fashion selling methods.

Here are 10 major factors - you as a professional - should consider in any sales effort or campaign you are launching into your prospective client base:

1. In every sale, both large or small, there are more people getting involved in the purchase decision. And each person has a different role and is approaching the purchase from their own vantage point.

2. The length of time to close a sale is increasing drastically. How can we shorten the sales cycle without providing discounts and incentives?

3. More clients are unsure, confused, and are weighing options and criteria that should not even be considered in approaching the purchase of a major solution. How do you educate your clients in what they should be evaluating? How do you keep them from making the important criteria unimportant and boiling everything important away and make price and terms the final two criteria?

4. With global competition, uncertain economies both local and global, reorganizations, acquisitions, mergers, new industries and bankruptcies, your sale can be derailed by any one of these seemingly random events. How can you forsee and make plans for these events, should they occur?

5. Clients in the past preferred and had no problem with generic, off-the-shelf solutions. Today they want customized and tailored solutions. Tomorrow, clients want not only customized solutions, but they want them with the safety and assurance of a proven, off-the-shelf solution. They want the solution tailored to the way that meets their business needs and provide their company a leg-up in their marketplace, but not be the first or be at risk. They want it to be risk-free and proven. Yet be unique. This is a conundrum professionals must over come and solve in order to distinguish themselves from their competitors.

6. Clients are looking for long-term relationships with their professional service and solution providers. Clients are looking for a symbiotic relationship, where both firms are intertwined to achieve the success and end result of a major purchase. Clients want "skin in the game."

7. While clients want the symbiotic relationship as described above, your firm is being pushed down to the procurement department - or what is known today as "Strategic Sourcing." This is a fancy name for the purchasing agents of long ago who want to beat you down on price and shift the burden of risk to you and your firm. This is another conundrum facing professionals.

8. Selling by providing features without the benefits has long been known as a "no-no" is selling. But today that is not enough. Your solution must bring some measurable value in terms of revenue, cost improvement, customer satisfaction or some other value defined by the client. And companies are asking their providers to "put their money where their mouth is" by requiring stringent terms in their contracts.

9. As the information economy or knowledge economy explodes, there is a new Murphy's Law. The new Murphy's Law is: "Everyone Knows Everything About Anything." Your clients may know more than you about your solution. They certainly know more about your competitors. And they certainly know more about their problem or need that they have and the affects upon their organization if they don't address it. They have "interviewed" and met with your competitors and so the client has already formed an opinion. On the client's staff are people who came from your company or have come from a company like yours and they know what to ask and where to research information on the internet. What you tell them and provide them may not be as important as how you tell them and provide them the information. This leads to the last and final and perhaps the most important trend affecting the marketplace.

10. How you sell is more important than what you sell. Assuming you have a product, service and/or solution, how you sell (and Market) - how you interact and follow-up may be the most critical distinguishing factor in today's economy. Some in the retail business call it the "customer experience." In major sales, how you sell is a clear indication of how the relationship will look after the client buys. How you sell is about trust, integrity and credibility. The good news is, Number 10 can be the most important factor in selling high-end products and services AND it is completely within your control!

This post is derived from a presentation I give to companies across the US and Canada. It has been well received and according to audiences, has "provided a fresh look at how they are conducting business with their clients today."

I hope it does the same for you.