What’s different about selling consulting – different from machines, or software, or services, or anything else for that matter?
After all, the guys selling consulting still have targets, and suspects and prospects and customers, although they might call those clients. That’s the professional services dimension. Lawyers and accountants call their customers client’s instead of customers, but they’re still people who buy and pay for stuff.
And selling consulting requires a similar process to anything else. Identify a benefit, prove credibility, pitch a value proposition, and then close the deal.
The prospects prevaricate, just the same. They want discounts and guarantees. They’re every bit as difficult as the guy buying a car – just better dressed.
And they always make out they know more than they really do. That’s the nature of the buyer, whatever they’re buying.
But there is one big difference, and nobody can be successful selling consulting without understanding it.
Professionals selling anything else know the answers they’re looking for before they ask the questions.
Professionals selling consulting don’t, even when they do.
The consulting business is about discovery, not about delivery. It’s about finding out what the need is.
Selling consulting is all about asking questions. But instead of asking questions to narrow the focus of the pitch, it’s asking questions the prospect can’t answer.
If the prospects knew the answer to the questions, they wouldn’t need consultants, would they?
