Would you like to sell more professional and high-end services versus products, or are you simply trying to get more service-based revenue in the door? Here is a helpful list of marketing and sales topics to consider:
10. Direct mail: Direct mail is a great way to generate leads for, and possibly directly sell, services. Think most carefully about your list first, and then your list, and then focus on your list. After that, work on the offer, the price point, the call to action, and the copy.
9. Phone scripts: Donﾒt use a script when someone calls in to inquire about your services. Practice your conversation techniques until you are confident and fluent, and then have a conversation with the customer, not a soliloquy.
8. Proposals vs. quotes: People want to buy ROI, not features. You need to demonstrate the value of services, and itﾒs not easy when the customer canﾒt see, touch, and feel them. You need to propose the value proposition, not quote a price.
7. Measure: Know where your successes originate. What lists are working? What do sales reps sell more than others and why? Where are you getting your leads that convert into business? Which services are selling and which are not? What is the ROI for your marketing and sales expenditures? Only with measurement can you increase you success chances and drop unsuccessful tactics.
6. Keep your sales focus: Regardless of the state of the economy, never never never give up! If clients and prospects arenﾒt buying, send articles, offer your help, talk them through problems, be with them at every turn. Youﾒll have a lot of misses, but youﾒll get some revenue when you didnﾒt expect it. Plus, youﾒll be well positioned for the rebounding budgets when they come.
5. Price strategically: You may not get the rates you want these days. Still, keep the focus on value by offering creative pricing. Use performance clauses, be strategic about payments, offer extras. Be careful, however, about cutting prices. When the economy rebounds, it wonﾒt be quite as easy to raise them as it was to lower them.
4. Package services crisply: Make sure your offer and the value proposition are clear. If theyﾒre too big and confusing for the client to get their arms around, they might not know how to buy it, or to make the case to their company to release the funds.
3. Transition from products smartly: If youﾒre trying to get a product sales force to sell services, you might be meeting some roadblocks. Make sure you analyze completely what they need to do to make the shift from selling just products to selling both or just services. If youﾒre just telling them to do it and hoping they come around, youﾒre in for a long and frustrating wait.
2. Differentiate: If youﾒre the 32nd company to come down the pike and offer them the same services, itﾒs likely you wonﾒt make an impression. What makes you special? When you know what you want to say, communicate that message clearly and succinctly so much so that they can articulate back to you what makes you so special.
1. Deliver: Relentlessly deliver results. Donﾒt shoot for client satisfaction, build a cadre of loyal client evangelists who canﾒt fathom working with anyone but you and your company. Once you stop, the hungrier service provider will take your clients and your revenue. This may be an old message, but itﾒs still on the top of the list.
About the author, Mike Schultz
Mike Schultz is the Executive Vice President of the Wellesley Hills Group, a consulting firm that specializes in improving the sales and marketing performance of small to mid-sized business-to-business companies that sell services or a mix of products and services. Over the past decade, Mike Schultz has held positions as a general manager, marketing and sales performance consultant, major account representative, and marketing and sales director. Mike holds an MBA from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College, and a BA from Brandeis University. He is also an avid fly fisherman and golfer, and actively studies and teaches traditional Karate and Jujitsu, holding the ranks of black belt and Sensei in each.
He can be reached at mschultz@whillsgroup.com.
