Welcome to a free edition of Start Up To Grown Up: Your source for ideas, insights and tactics to take back control of your business and scale it sustainably and profitably by Heather Townsend, award-winning author of The Accountants’ Millionaires’ Club and Founder of The Accountants’ Growth Club
I like going into sales meetings with a colleague. Not because I fear sales or are bad at it. Because they bring a different energy to the meeting. It also allows me to move into the role of summariser and observer. A role that I love.
You see, they say I am great at sales meetings. Apparently I am fearless and ask questions that I have no right to ask.
Not sure that is true. But what I have is less hangups about sales. And that’s the thing, it’s these hang ups about selling that hinder many of us from winning the clients we deserve.
Let’s prove this
When you were 18 or perhaps a bit older did you wake up and think,
“I’m going to grow up and become a sales person”.
I suspect not. You were going to become an accountant, lawyer, consultant etc. Anything but a sales person. After all who wants to own up at a dinner party that you sell double glazing or are an estate agent?
But the problem is, if you are going to grow and scale your practice you need to become a great sales person. Until you have a team underneath you who are all competent and capable at selling, this is your responsibility. For many of us, we never quite get away from being involved in sales.
We hate calling selling “selling”
Think about all the various names we have for selling; business development, hunting, farming, writing business, hunting expedition, fishing… anything but the actual word, selling.
Changing your identity
It all starts with changing your identity. If you are still thinking that selling means becoming a 2nd hand car sales person then you are never going to embrace this responsibility.
I often do a session at conferences on how to learn to love business development. I start by asking what do people see as the attributes of a sales person. And the normal stuff comes out:
Pushy
Manipulative
Talks too much
Extroverted
Etc
I then ask people what do they see as the attributes of a typical lawyer, consultant or accountant. And funnily enough the list is often diametrically opposite the first list. Is it any wonder that we often decide we ‘can’t do sales’. Or that we think that great sales people are born rather than made.
This means sales needs to be reframed. Here are the reframes that will help you love sales:
Reframe 1: You are problem solving with your clients/prospects
I asked my daughter what she liked about being an accountancy apprentice. She gave me an answer I didn’t expect. Apparently every day she is problem solving on behalf of her clients. She loves problem solving. Even better, she gets paid for it. Perhaps her stint when returning to the classroom in lockdown where she learnt how to do the hardest level of sudoku rather than the actual lesson content wasn’t wasted!
When I ask this question doing my talk on learning to love sales, I ask the room who loves problem solving for their clients. Pretty much every hand will go up.
When you think about what you are really doing with sales it’s:
Finding out the real problem your prospect is motivated to solve
Helping them solve this problem with a solution.
If the solution happens to be using you and your firm, that’s just a risk you are going to have to take!
Reframe 2: You are helping your clients buy
Many of us recoil from the thought of selling as it just feels too pushy. After all, no one likes to be ‘sold to’. However, if you reframe this as helping your clients buy, it feels so much easier and more natural.
When you are helping your clients to buy you are:
An equal partner
Not forcing them to do anything
Providing them with information to help them make a decision
Attracting them to come to you for help
Your clients always have real problems. You know that, I know that. However, they need to trust you enough to talk to you about these problems. You can’t do that without a strong relationship forming. But unless you create the time for these clients to talk, they are not going to tell you about them. This isn’t about a formal pitch. It’s about doing the basics well and then creating the time to understand more about them and their needs.
Reframe 3: Sales is a skill to be learnt
So many of us believe (whether or not we voice it openly) that sales people are born not made. After all, how many times have you said:
“They were a natural at sales” or “It’s not what I am good at”
But sales skills are a skill to be learnt. Just like any other skill. When you approach sales with a growth mindset, rather than a fixed mindset, i.e. “I’ll never be good at sales”, you will become that person that others see as a ‘natural’ at sales.
Be curious
If I put a prospect in front of you who needed your technical expertise you would get stuck in. You’d be professionally curious and even ask the difficult questions to help find the right solution for the prospect.
But the problem comes when we are in selling mode. We forget the need to be really curious. Sometimes we get fixated on our technical area of competence and forget the bigger picture. Or we get it into our head that it’s not the ‘done thing’ to ask that.
Whereas what I do differently to my colleague is I believe that no question is off limits. That means I will ask stuff like:
Are they talking to any other providers as well as us? If so, I will ask if they feel able to name who they are talking to and what has prompted them to speak with them. [This then helps me think about what I need to differentiate about us and our offering.]
Their personal and business objectives/goals. This could be at an individual, department or organisational level. Plus what are their motivations for these objectives or goals. This is much more of an exploration than the “what are you worried about” type surface level question that is often asked.
What prompted them to get in touch with us.
How they found us
What is the impact of doing nothing? Or could they achieve the same desired result using their own resources?
What would the right supplier do to delight them?
What have they done before but it didn’t work? [This is often illuminating for their real reasons for buying and what is going to help them say yes to your potential solution.]
If we were sitting here in a year’s time and it had gone wrong, what would we have done? Or not stopped them from doing?
The point I am trying to make is to ask that extra question and go deeper than you normally would. You’ll be handsomely rewarded by what the buyer tells you.
Move the process forward
We often think that the best sales people can enter a meeting and exit with a verbal agreement to work together. Sales doesn’t work like this. It’s a process where you and they go through a series of defined steps. What we often forget to do is to test their commitment. I.e. by asking for them for something. Ideally a commitment to move the sales process forward. For example, will they agree to:
Talk to one of your colleagues (who has the expertise they need)
Agree to another meeting to move the conversation forward
Agree to look at a draft proposal together to get it ready to be submitted
A date when they want everything decided and the work started
Normally if you have been curious and really listened to the prospect they will move the conversation forward. But you may need to ask them:
What’s the right next step for this?
In summary
Great sales people are made not born. If you can get your head around the fact you are not selling, just problem solving with your clients whilst being curious, this sales stuff will become much easier.
