By Mike Schultz and John Doerr

"Eighty percent of success in life is showing up."
Woody Allen

Time Won't Let Me

Selling professional services takes perseverance, not only to become good at it, but just to find the time to do it at all. If you are a professional, whether an accountant, lawyer, consultant, or executive, all you really have is time. Of course, a professional's time is best spent adding value to clients directly by working with them, i.e. billing as much as you can.

But if you're billing all the time (or managing your staff or keeping up with professional knowledge), odds are you are not always keeping up with your necessary business development tasks. Without consistently engaging selling activities, it is likely you a) won't be busy billing for long, and b) won't be growing your professional service practice to where you want it.

By approaching selling time as sacred selling time, you can ensure a smooth flow of new business and new client growth while maintaining your vital other tasks and current clients. Sometimes all you really need to do is show up.

Wayne Gretzky Says...

One of the most powerful and effective selling strategies ever developed is... prepare yourself...just pick up the phone and sell, and do it at regularly scheduled intervals. Choose a block or blocks of time every week to sell. This may be used for following up with prospects, reconnecting with current customers, or keeping up with your network of contacts. (Don't be afraid, it doesn't have to be a cold call!) Whatever your strategy, you need to make sure you spend the necessary amount of time jumping in and making the calls.

We are not suggesting that success in selling professional services only takes proactivity and planning. We are suggesting, however, as did Wayne Gretzky (Hall of Fame hockey player for non-sports fans), that you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So plan some time to take some shots.

For those of us that have very busy billable and management schedules, it is difficult to carve out time for selling. If you find that time is both precious and fleeting - that there simply does not seem to be enough time in the day to sell - follow these principles and you may find you cannot tear yourself away from the phones.

Seven Tenets of Sacred Selling Time

1. Sacred is Sacred: Unless it is an absolute emergency, everyone at your office should know not to interrupt your sacred selling time. Client emails may come in. They can wait three hours. Your administrative assistant (or your voicemail) can intercept your calls. If a client wants a call back but it is not an emergency, you will be available to call them back in three hours.
   
   You must consider your sacred selling time sacred if selling professional services is to be a priority. Emergencies happen, certainly, but most of the distractions in our days are not emergencies, just distractions and excuses not to sell. Do not let everyday distractions steal you from your sacred selling time.
   
   
2. Assign a Value to the Time: Choosing to spend time on one activity versus another can be equated to selecting an item to buy. When faced with a forced choice between two alternatives, we choose the one we believe will provide us with more value. The same is true for spending proactive time selling professional services. If you are going to spend four hours a week on outbound business development, you should set expectations of results.
   
   For example, you believe that if you make four hours of telephone calls a week you will surface at least one worthwhile sales discussion. If you do this four times a month, you will have four new leads per month. Assuming one lead in four closes for new business, and your average new client is approximately $15,000, you will achieve $180,000 in new business for the year.
   
   And all from sacred selling time. By assigning a dollar value to the time you spend selling, you will feel a greater sense of purpose for each call and each calling session.
   
   
3. Commit to Following Through: WC Fields once quipped, "It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it a thousand times." If you put the time in your schedule to sell, and then you end up not doing it, you are not doing yourself any favors. Committing to spending the time to sell is one milestone to reach; actually getting on the phone is another.
   
   Whether you need to get a peer to push you to sell, a manager to psych you up for making the calls, or a copy of your favorite motivational book, you must find your own path to following through and spending your sacred selling time actually selling professional services.
   
   
4. Stop Making Excuses: Let's assume you have scheduled sacred selling time in the past and for one reason or another you did not make the calls. And then later on the same thing happened. At the risk of sounding paternalistic: stop making excuses. Get on the phone and sell or take the selling time off your schedule. Either way, be honest with yourself.
   
   
5. Make the First Call and Get on a Roll: One of the most difficult tasks in selling is making that first dial. You are not sure what you are going to say. Your heart is pumping a bit. Your billable work and deadlines are poking at the back of your brain.
   
   Put all that aside and make the first dial. Then make the second dial. Then the third. By the time you start reaching people or leaving voicemails, your voice and your dialing fingers will be all warmed up.
   
   
6. Don't Worry About Missteps: Don't you wish you could take back a few of the voicemails you left? Or that you could have a prospect back on the phone just after they hung up because you thought of the perfect question to ask them? Don't worry about it - just keep calling. If you have four hours on your sacred selling time calendar, give yourself 60 seconds to get warmed up and don't stop selling until your four hours are up.
   
   
7. Get Coaching: I am pretty good at ping pong, but I have never had a lesson. People who are really good at ping pong toy with me as they let me have a few good volleys and then slam home a winner from 10 feet away from the table. Tiger Woods is the best golfer in the world, and he works with his golf coaches nearly every day to improve his game.
   
   Whether you are a proven rainmaker or just transitioning into a role where you are selling professional services for the first time, good coaching can increase your selling activity and selling results. Sometimes, even the mere presence of a coach will keep you from procrastinating. 
    

Sacred selling time can help you consistently generate leads, grow your practice, and increase the size of your client base. If selling professional services is in your future, try scheduling some sacred selling time. Odds are it will help you to generate more clients, which, of course, translates to making more money. And as our friend Woody Allen also said, "Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons."