Professional Services Marketing & Selling

Too often professional services firms practice "random acts of marketing." They don't have a real strategy for marketing the firm or for generating leads, and as a result leads get lost or are discarded. To successfully generate leads, service firms have to do three things: identify the companies they should be working with, identify the right people within the companies, and nurture an ongoing dialogue with them and build trust.

Before you can do that, however, you need to identify what is a good lead. Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch and author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, talks with Mike Schultz, Publisher of RainToday.com, about the importance of having a Universal Lead Definition. Build a profile of the ideal client, then marketing can use it to identify quality people and certify when someone is ready to talk to a partner, and sales management can use it to nurture a dialogue.

(Time: 17:06)

In this day and age, when the Do-Not-Call list is so often put into action, you might think phone sales are things of the past. Not so, says Colleen Francis, Founder and President of Engage Selling Solutions. In fact, she says the phone is still the most effective sales tool.

To succeed at cold calling, however, you need to have a different mindset and you need to follow certain best practices. Think about cold calling as new business development or opening a relationship. Listen as Francis offers advice for leading successful conversations and points out statements that will kill relationships before they even have a chance to get started.

(Time: 11:56)

Providing sales proposals for prospective clients can be challenging. You want to win the client, but it's often a lot of work with low chance of success. And sometimes things can happen that can turn the process into a horror story.  These tips from Michael McLaughlin, a Principal with MindShare Consulting, LLC and coauthor of Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants, can help prevent that from happening.

Listen as Mike discusses whether you should charge for a diagnostic, methods for establishing trust with a prospective client, steps for following up after the proposal has been submitted, and what to do when you're denied access to the decision makers.

(Time: 15:58)

If your referrals run dry, chances are you're going to have to turn to cold calling to bring in new business. That may seem daunting, and you might consider hiring an agency to make the calls for you, but it's better if you do it yourself.  John Doerr, Founder of RainToday.com and President of the Wellesley Hills Group, offers tips to ease the cold-calling process and help you establish good practices that will lead to sales.

Advice John offers:
•    Whether presidents of companies should make cold calls
•    How to conduct a cold call
•    If a prospect agrees to meet with you, how to prepare for that meeting
•    What to do if a prospect says he isn't interested

(Time: 12:54)