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Business Development Archives
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Monday, January 31st, 2011Three Must-Haves to Seriously Sell Services
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010Over the last couple decades of helping senior executives get serious about selling services, I’ve observed a few patterns that help me predict the success of this important transition. Organizations that show early success (one year or less) do three things. How many does your organization do?
1. Fund the services business appropriately. Duh! Sounds so [...]
Realize the Reality—Step 5 in the 5 Steps to Selling Services Success
Friday, October 15th, 2010As mentioned before in this blog, it is important to stay the course. Things may get worse before they get better; overall sales volume may dip before it goes up. People will complain and look for every possible reason why this selling services thing is a terrible idea. You will need to stick to your guns as people test [...]
Reinforce, Reinforce, Reinforce—Step Four in Seriously Selling
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010Very strong training, as outlined in Step Three in the Five Steps to Selling Services Success, is a vital catalyst, and is a mandatory start for changing selling behavior. Remember, though, for almost all of your sellers, this is a very big change, and training won’t do it alone. Behavior change takes time and support, so be prepared to [...]
Tailor Your Training: Step Three in the 5 Steps to Selling Services Success
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010Step Three in the Five Steps to Seriously Selling Services involves training. But, not any run-of-the-mill sales training. To be successful you need to invest in quality, services-specific sales training tailored to the issues and uniqueness of your situation. Generic, off-the-shelf packages have their place. SPIN Selling, Professional Selling Skills, and Strategic Selling are all [...]
5 Steps to Selling Services Success—Step Two
Monday, September 20th, 2010Step Two: Align the System with the Strategy
Adjust your sales performance management system (objectives, tools, rewards, consequences, and feedback) to align with your new services selling strategy.
A. Fitting performance specifications. First, make it crystal clear that selling services is now an important focus of the company and an important required responsibility of the sales force. [...]
5 Steps to Selling Services Success—Step One
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010If you want to change selling behavior–in this case, selling services and not giving them away–you must address all the factors that impact seller motivation.
Step One: Remove Excuses
Most salespeople weaned on selling products say that selling services:
• Lengthens the sales cycle, thus jeopardizing their 30- and 90-day numbers.
• Raises the overall price, thus making [...]
Common Approaches that Just Don’t Work
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010Here’s the scenario: Senior management has bought into seriously selling services and wants to get moving on it. When advised by a services expert that selling services is “way different” from selling products and requires special actions to succeed, they respond that they have a good sales force, and a good sales force can sell anything—just tell them what [...]
Leading and Managing Technical Talent: Turning Technical Experts into Trusted Advisors One-day Workshop
Thursday, August 26th, 2010Would you like to get more from your current resources?
Would you like to get higher billable hours from your technical talent?
Would you like to gain a distinct competitive advantage?
Join us for…
Leading and Managing Technical Talent:
Turning Technical Experts into Trusted Advisors
One-day Workshop
October 25, 2010
San Diego, CA
2010 Service Industry Summit
Technical experts [...]
Immense Upside for Your Firm—The Time is Now
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010Managing the transition to seriously selling services has an immense upside for most companies. New, profitable revenue streams, more sales of products, higher levels of customer satisfaction, and competitive differentiation are all probable outcomes of a well-executed shift to services. Know that the path to services success is clear and the obstacles are well-known.
As with any significant change, strong leadership [...]
