Marketing Your Consulting Services.pdf - epiheirimatikotita.gr

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• Wrap-up close: Summarize the client’s needs and your services and show the relationship
to reach a buying decision.
• Trial close: Suggest that the project be broken into smaller milestones and that
the client use you for an initial step or two.
Do these techniques work? Sure. Salespeople have been using them for years.
What I find, however, is that I am usually too busy building the relationship and
adding value to have time to think about closing techniques.
Instead of closing techniques, think in terms of mutual problem solving. If you
are solving a problem and truly communicating with the client, you will spot the
closing signals, words, gestures, requests for more information, or even returning
to earlier discussion. You may take the lead in the discussion at that point, but it
may not be a contrived “close,” but rather a natural flow into a discussion of next
steps. A sale is not something you close; it closes itself while you are busy serving
your client.
What If You Can’t Help Them?
State clearly that you cannot help. If you believe they can solve the problem themselves,
tell them so. If you do not have the skills the project requires and you know
someone else who does, recommend that person. If you don’t know, volunteer to
find someone for them. Value-added selling approaches the problem of finding a
solution, no matter what that might be.
Remember the movie Miracle on 34th Street ? Macy’s Santa Claus sent people
to other department stores that had better toys than could be found in Macy’s. This
so impressed Macy’s customers that their loyalty increased. If you know that another
consultant offers a better solution, a better toy than you, tell your prospective
client. Like Macy’s, you will still win the relationship, build loyalty, and most
likely will obtain work in the future.
Learn Something
You will most likely follow up with this prospective client, whether your call ends
on a let’s-do-business note or a never-no-way note. You should follow up. Whoa!
Why would you follow up if the individual says, “No!” First, you want to thank the
person for the time spent in the meeting and for sharing information with you.
Second, a no today is not necessarily a no tomorrow. Remember Harvey Mackay’s
Marketing Your Consulting Services