Acquire More Clients – for professional services firms
All of us have had the bad experience of being manipulated into buying something that was not in our best interest. This type of selling behavior is particularly egregious for professional service providers because it is the antithesis of being a “trusted advisor.”
Not surprisingly, a high percentage of professional service providers – Attorneys, Accountants, Architects, Consultants, and Engineers – don’t like selling. Yet, these same people like using their expertise to improve their client’s condition. Evidently, they see “sales” as something dirty that is distinctly different from helping people. For many people, the term “sales” is irredeemably tainted as a necessary evil that only people with questionable ethics do. For this reason, professional service people should retire the term “sales.” It’s just too loaded with “pushing” and “self-interest” for many prospective buyers – and the professionals themselves – so why use it?
Consider what we can learn from physicians. Doctors learn how to conduct a patient diagnosis as an essential first step in developing an effective treatment plan. It’s considered medical malpractice not to do a thorough diagnosis before prescribing a treatment plan. Doctors listen to the patient, educate the patient, and (usually) tell them the truth. They may attempt to influence and push when, in their professional opinion, they think it’s in the best interest of the patient, but isn’t that exactly what we want all professional services people to do, to apply their expertise to help us? The true professional’s way to acquire new business is to help clients acquire exceptional value. They have a noble purpose: to deliver value to customers. The best sales people have always know this.
The key difference between professional and unprofessional people lies in their motivation, not their title or profession. Doctors who recommend unneeded surgeries for patients are not only unprofessional, they are criminal. The used-car salesman, however, who walks away from a sale because he knows it’s not in the customer’s best interest is a true professional. Are you primarily motivated to help your client, or yourself?
Like a good doctor, professional services providers should learn how to diagnose their client’s condition in order to prescribe the best service plan. This means asking good questions about what clients want to accomplish (business outcomes), determining how they will measure success, and educating them about the options. Not surprisingly, this leads to the discovery of new opportunities, the delivery of greater value, and the acquisition of more clients. Why aren’t all professional services firms teaching their professionals how to do conduct a “customer diagnosis?”
Reveal fills this gap with Expert Inquiry™, a simple, highly effective, 5-step questioning process that teaches how to engage prospective clients in a conversation aimed at uncovering their important unmet needs, educating them about options, and delivering exceptional value. We call this process “Expert Inquiry,” because:
- The questions are expertly designed to reveal the client’s unmet needs in a form that lead to high value solutions.
- The questions are informed and ultimately crafted by each professional given his/her expertise.
Expert Inquiry™ enables professionals to navigate any client conversation with confidence and pride. It’s a reliable way to reveal unmet needs so you can deliver exceptional value.
We provide training, working sessions, role-playing, and coaching to help professional service providers:
- Discover hidden opportunities
- Acquire more clients
- Sell higher value solutions
- Increase professional resilience
- Have more fun