Book 51 of 141

    From the library

    How Clients Buy: A Practical Guide to Business Development for Consulting and Professional Services

    Tom McMakin, Doug Fletcher, 2018

    In one paragraph

    Tom McMakin and Doug Fletcher's guide to understanding the client buying process in professional services. Based on extensive research, it reveals how clients actually make purchasing decisions and provides strategies for service providers to align their sales approach with client psychology.

    Also tagged

    Sales
    Professional Services

    Where this sits in the operating system

    Behavioral Psychology Awareness

    Continuous Improvement & Feedback Loops

    Right People First

    People & Relationships

    Systematic Operations

    Systems Over Goals

    Key insights

    Expertise does not sell itself. Buyers must be aware of you, understand what you do, be interested, respect you, trust you, and be able to afford you, in that order.

    Professional services are bought on trust because the outcome cannot be inspected in advance.

    Referral and reputation are systems that can be built deliberately rather than hoped for.

    Recognise it early

    The failure and the correction sit side by side deliberately. Read the left column asking whether any of it is already true of you.

    What goes wrong

    Leading with credentials and capabilities instead of client problems

    Clients don't buy what you're sellingfocus on their needs first

    Trying to sell before building trust and relationships

    Trust is the currencyinvest in relationships before selling

    Ignoring client risk concerns about professional services

    Risk is biggest factoraddress concerns proactively

    Positioning services as activities rather than outcomes

    Clients buy outcomes, not activitiesfocus on business results

    Responding to client-defined problems instead of leading problem definition

    Person who frames problem winstake initiative in problem definition

    The same idea, argued differently

    Roger Fisher, William Ury

    Peter Drucker

    Ryan Deiss

    The full breakdown

    Before you close this

    Naming the specific moment you will act roughly doubles the odds you do.

    Reference

    Author
    Tom McMakin, Doug Fletcher
    Published
    2018
    Category
    Business

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