Selling services is different than selling a tangible product that you can touch and feel. Service customers can’t easily evaluate your expertise. Services are invisible; you have to make them visible through customer relationships. You must sell the perception that you can solve the customer’s problem. Relationships are about perceptions and personalities and they are the core elements of a services sales program.
Sell a Solution
Selling services is selling a solution. A solution is:
- A mutually shared answer to a recognized problem and,
- The answer provides measurable improvement.
Selling services (and in most cases complex products like software) requires that you find opportunities and then establish a customer relationship. Or, even better, find a person who needs your services and help them define their problem and requirements. Market studies show that around 90% of all service buyers are not looking for a solution. They haven’t felt pain and don’t know that they have a problem or that things could be done better. Get there first, help define the need, and present your company as the solution. This is the ideal sale.
Where do you find opportunities?
- Market research and cold calls
- Government sponsored business development events
- Existing customers
- Friends who know potential customers
- Industry associations and meetings
- Trade shows
- Social events
Go find the opportunities to establish relationships; the meek inherit nothing, proactive sales people who establish strong customer relationships generate revenue.
Two age-old sales adages remain true in the federal market.
- Sell them what they want and then sell them what they need.
- Only sell to those people ready to buy from you.
Translated to the federal market these adages mean:
- Establish the relationship so you know precisely what they want. Keep the solution simple, understandable, and one-for-one with the requirements as the customer views them. Then sell them more advanced solutions as they learn to trust your performance.
- Sell only to people that you have a strong relationship with and have shown that they want your solution (and have money).
Focus on Existing Customers
What’s the best customer relationship of all; an existed federal customer who knows and trusts you. This is why a majority of federal re-competes are won by the incumbent contractor. Conversely, find a federal customer who does not like their incumbent and you have a ripe opportunity.
Yet many companies focus on new customers instead of existing customers. They have already spent years and significant dollars developing trust with their current customers and it can take years and large investments to develop a trust relationship with a new customers. They have forgotten that service buyers will always gravitate to someone they trust and current customers already trust you.
Who is Your Real Competition?
Many federal service companies worry too much about the competition. They ask “who is bidding” when they should be asking “who has a relationship with the customer besides us and are they bidding.”
Try to find opportunities where the competition is minimal. Go where the others aren’t. Get there first and help your customer identify a problem: many federal customers do not know they have a problem or that there is a better way to meet their program objectives. This is the ideal customer. It will probably be an existing customer.
Experience and Credibility
Sales people in the service sector often assume that customers want to focus on experience and credibility. Customers do use experience as a qualifier; as a factor in their evaluation. They also use it as a justification to anyone who might question their choice. But the real factor in selecting a service provider is trust.
Remember--clients don't want to be experts in the service provider's field. What they really are seeking is confidence in an expert on whom they could then rely repeatedly. Many service companies try to create trust by talking about their experience and credentials. The alternative is to establish real trust. Real trust gets established by working on this customer’s problem, not the last customer’s problem. Real trust comes from gaining the customer’s confidence that you will solve their problem. They aren't really that interested in what you did for your last customer; they want to know what you can do for them.
Measuring Trust
A customer’s primary way assessing trust is your ability to address the issue facing them, head-on, with all its complexities. You don't sell intangibles by talking about them, but by demonstrating just what it feels like to work together.
To sell the next project, you have to help the client see:
- That his or her business can be improved.
- How it can be improved
- How you would go about improving it.
Focus on what the customer needs; not on your service offerings. Articulate how you will meet their needs and solve their problem.
What Really Counts
Service companies sometimes borrow a page from product companies. They design processes to systematically track leads through stages in a funnel process, or bring CRM systems to bear. In the world of services, these processes end up being places of refuge for people who are nervous about client contact. They end up filling out forms rather than meeting with clients. And since services selling is so personal, that ends up being destructive rather productive.
Clients buy on trust. A client instinctively knows whether or not you are paying attention, whether or not you care about them, and whether or not you are truly listening to what they say. You can't fake client focus. It's personal. No CRM system in the world can overcome it.
It’s about the Customer
Roman Orator and Statesman Cicero: “If you wish to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings, and speak my words.
Keep this in mind throughout the relationship building process.
Too many service sellers think it is about them. That is a myth. It is always about the customer.
You make it worse, not better, by obsessing about your tie, your PowerPoint slide deck, your rehearsed points, and your litany of capabilities. Do not try to look smart. Do not worry about looking dumb, or wise, about solving the problem or controlling the agenda. Do not count the names you drop, the methodologies you explain, or the references you plan to mention. Come prepared to have all these things, but plan to use none of them. It's not about you. It's about the customer.
Sell the Person
Sell a person who is ready to buy; you can’t sell someone who can’t buy or who is not ready to buy from you.
Find opportunities with the following characteristics:
- Pain: Has the buyer admitted pain?
- Power: Does the buyer have the influence, authority, and money to make the buy?
- Vision: Does the buyer shatter your vision of a solution?
- Control: Are you able to influence/control the buying process?
- Services are human, provided by people for people.
Don’t try to satisfy the customer, satisfy the person. It is not about you, it is about the person within the customer making the purchasing decision. People are not interested in your company, they are interested in themselves. Talk about him/her (the customer); not about you.
Make your service visible and make the prospect comfortable.
Focus on what he/she is buying, not what you are selling.
- Don’t say: I have something wonderful.
- Say: I understand what you need.
Find out:
- What they want
- Who they are
- What they fear
- What they need
Then document your finding in a Sales Intelligence Questionnaire (SIQ).
The Sales Message
The more similar the services, the more important the differences, accentuate the trivial and why you will minimize the customers risk.
Keep it simple. Your message should be singular, one simple message. The more you say, the less people listen. The more you say, the less people listen. Stand for one distinctive thing; to broaden your appeal, narrow your message.
Position on why you are different. Determine what will be the most difficult task in solving the customer’s problem. Position yourself as an expert in this task, if you can do this the customer will believe that you can easily perform lesser tasks.
Don’t hide the small; stress responsiveness and personal attention.
Customer Database
The Customer Database contains descriptive information on reach sales opportunity in your company’s sales pipeline. Customer data elements and an example record for an IT Infrastructure opportunity are shown below.
