By Mike Schultz
NOTE: This article is an excerpt from the complimentary e-book, The One Piece Of Advice You Can't Sell Without, From 11 Experts On Selling Professional Services. Download the full e-book now to find out what the other 10 experts, including Seth Godin, Keith Ferrazzi, and Alan Weiss, believe is the one thing you need to know.
"Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in."
~ Napoleon Bonaparte
I've seen more people intend to sell than I have seen people actually sell. They talk about how they're going to make the transition to rainmaker and build their own practices. Or how they're going to achieve phenomenal, top-line revenue growth for their service firms. They read books and attend seminars. They make plans to sell. They talk a good game.
Then many do nothing. Oh, they can justify their inaction: they were busy with other things. Perhaps worse than the nothing-doers are the people who shuffle papers or do next to nothing. These toe-dipper-inners deceive themselves by saying, "I did my practice growth work today!" even if their action was listless, untargeted, and nothing came of it.
If you really want to bring in some clients and some dollars, you've got to STOP THINKING AND GO IN! With hustle. With passion. With intensity. (HPI, folks). And your HPI needs to go on for hours on end. For days on end. For months on end.
If you don't, then you'll never know if you could have succeeded.
As the Publisher of RainToday.com, I happen to know that there are a number of sharp cookies that will be contributing to this publication with me. I don't know, however, the nature of their contributions, as our editorial team has kept the submissions under lock and key.
I'm going to guess, though, that you might see good advice about building trust and relationships, communicating and selling the value of the solution vs. the price of the service, listening, focusing on the best buyers, helping others to succeed, and a host of other topics.
Luck is when preparedness meets opportunity. Everything above is about preparedness. If you aren't trustworthy, you don't deserve the sale. If you don't sell the value, buyers will buy on price. If you don't focus on the best buyers (or don't have a good business development plan), then you will spend all your time selling to people who won't or can't buy. If you don't listen, you'll fall apart in so many ways you won't know what hit you. Here's my two cents on the most important piece of advice about selling professional services. If you don't stop thinking and go in, if you don't create opportunities, then you won't even have the chance to succeed (or screw up) with all of the above.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA's all time scoring leader with 38,387 points. He hit 15,837 field goals in his career. He also missed 12,470. That's a 56% field goal percentage. (For those who don't know basketball, that's pretty darn good.) When he got the ball, he sure was prepared. Then again, he figured out a way to create 28,307 opportunities for himself.
Don't get me wrong. I understand why some service providers are squeamish about selling. They don't understand what it means to be in professional sales. They have competing priorities for their time. They're not sure if they have the skills to succeed. They're afraid of having sales conversations. They're afraid of failure. They're afraid of success. They're afraid.
If selling is truly a priority for you, and yet you're not taking the actions you need to sell, here's my best advice:
| Your Challenge to Selling with HPI | My Advice | You don't feel you have the best selling skills. | Visit RainToday.com and see what training and reading you should take advantage of (yes, shameless plug).
Then stop making excuses, use the skills that you have, and get in the game. Regardless of how much practice you've had, time for some game experience.
| You are afraid of failure.
| Talk to Tony Robbins. Find your inner strength. See what Stuart Smalley has to say this week.
Then stop making excuses and get in the game. You're going to fail here and there. Perhaps more often than you succeed. Fuhggedaboutit.
| You have too many competing priorities for your time. You don't have the hours available to make calls, generate leads, write and speak, etc.
| Change your priorities.
Stop making excuses and get in the game.
| You are taking the actions, but in your heart of hearts, you know you're just going through the motions of marketing and selling. You're not really getting it done.
| Stop making excuses and get in the game.
Or get out of the game and do something else. No halfway in your head. In or out.
| You think selling is distasteful.
| Do you believe that when people use your services they're better for it? Do you believe that more people should be using your services versus other people's because they get more value with you?
Selling is the process of bringing your value to more people.
Now that we have that all cleared up, stop making excuses and get in the game.
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If you get in the game and do the work with HPI, you'll likely figure the preparedness topics out, too. You'll bump into the right person who helps you figure out your value and articulate it. You'll learn how to lead sales conversations with methodologies such as RAIN Selling. You'll figure out how to build trust the right way (hint: start by being trustworthy and delivering on your promises.)
But if you don't get passionate about selling, if you don't approach revenue growth and new client acquisition with HPI, you might just find yourself heavy on preparedness (even if it might not feel that way), and light on opportunity.
It's been said that people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold—but so does a hard-boiled egg.
Don't intend to sell. Sell!
People judge sales by the numbers. If you don't get fully behind taking action—and sustain your action with HPI over the long term—the numbers won't add up…no matter how good you are at everything else.
Q: The One Thing You Need To Do?
A: Sell with Hustle, Passion, and Intensity (HPI)
NOTE: This article is an excerpt from the complimentary e-book, The One Piece Of Advice You Can't Sell Without, From 11 Experts On Selling Professional Services. Download the full e-book here to find out what the other 10 experts, including Seth Godin, Keith Ferrazzi, and Alan Weiss, believe is the one thing you need to know. |