Did you know you could be losing more than 20% per project right now? If you are earning $1m in fee revenue per annum, that’s $200,000 in lost revenue! By applying some simple strategies, one of my clients created an additional $25,000 in revenue in the space of two months.
You already know that our clients demand more than just technical excellence. They demand us to understand their financial needs and be excellent at communication. What you may not realise is how much these factors shape our client’s decision making process. I contacted about 30 users of professional services – that is, people who may be your clients. I asked them about how they choose which providers to use, when they decide to switch providers and their experience with providers generally. Here are some of the things they said:
- “I feel like we have to drive the project to get what we want out of it”
- “I feel like my service providers truly understood my needs about 20% of the time”
What is it we are doing that makes our clients feel like we don’t understand them? How can we demonstrate our value if our clients feel like we are only paying attention 20% of the time?
There are so many messages we are communicating to our clients that we may not even be aware of. Every single conversation, email and phone call can contribute to our clients’ perceptions. By understanding how our clients perceive what we say, do and write we can start to demonstrate our true value. Client referrals and upsells are just bonuses that will follow.
Here are three insights I have taken straight out of my 90 minute webinar to share with you:
Insight #1: Be in control by letting our clients do the talking
You may have heard that, in sales, it is important for the seller to maintain control of the conversation. I have sat through many meetings where the client starts to discuss their needs and when the partner or director believes they have sufficient information, they launch immediately into problem solving mode and take control. While a solution is what our clients want ultimately, in the sales phase, it is more valuable to the client if we ask them the right questions to help them define the problem and come up with the right solution themselves. By giving our clients back a sense of control through asking questions we will have better control of the outcome – and that is a sale at a better fee.
Insight #2: People buy on emotion and justify using logic
In business, it is so easy for us to focus on logic. In proposals and sales meetings, we make sure we communicate all the logical reasons why our client should choose to work with us. The thing is, people buy on emotion and justify using logic. For example, when choosing a new suit, you may look at the fabric, how easy it is to clean and price. These are all the logical reasons to buy, or the “why”. However, your decision to buy a particular suit is really based on how the suit looks on you, how it makes you feel as you wear it and what you believe it conveys to others who see you in it (the “why behind the why”). When you check those logical attributes, you are merely justifying an emotional buying decision you have already made. Your client goes through the same decision making process when it comes to buying your services so start communicating the “why behind the why” in your messaging.
Insight #3: Our client is responsible for creating value, not us
Have you had the experience of talking to a sales person where they recited a monologue about how amazing their product or service is? How effective was that sales pitch to you? There is a common belief that it is up to us to communicate our value. The thing is, value is created by the purchaser not the seller. We can, however, help our clients come up with the value perception by doing several things well:
- Asking the right questions
- Demonstrating we have truly understood what they want
- Giving the client choices – this means letting them choose whether they want to be driving or just reading the map.
I hope you have found these insights useful. For those of you who want to learn more, I will be holding a series of complimentary 90 minute webinars in August and September to discuss more insights and strategies you can implement right away to start improving your results.
More details can be found here.
Over the past decade, Jenny Tse has worked with some of the largest organisations in the world, including PricewaterhouseCoopers and Macquarie Bank and is also leading the Licence to Bill Roadshow hosted by CPA Australia. Jenny is brought in by her clients to leverage their client base and increase their revenue.
