Part of the reasons for this are inherent in the nature of professional service businesses. There’s a huge variety in the type of engagements professional firms sell – from short assessments to huge multi-year projects. And many engagements have very long sales cycles – sometimes lasting many years.

But many of the problems are also self-inflicted.

Particularly painful is the boom-bust cycle driven by the fact that in professional firms, the business-winners are almost always responsible for delivering the work too.  The pattern seen time and time again is that once the professional sells a piece of work, they bury themselves in delivering it and neglect business development. When the work ends, they haven’t built up a pipeline of new work – so they go through a painful dry period when they run around trying to drum up new business. Eventually they sell something and the cycle repeats.

The pattern is well known, and the solution rather obvious: professionals must keep working on business development while they’re engaged on projects. Sadly though, very few professionals do this.

Why is it that so few professionals carve out adequate time for business development when they’re actively engaged on client work?

Part of the problem is that most professionals much prefer client work to business development. They studied and trained to do client work. They’re good at it. And it’s often quite technical and rational in nature – much more suited to most professionals’ personalities than the confusing, fuzzy world of relationships found in business development.

So professionals will often find any excuse to avoid doing business development. And being busy with client work is the best excuse going.

Many professionals also don’t understand the “economics” of business development. They have no real concept of the amount of effort they need to invest today in activities like networking, or in contacting new clients in order to get a payback 3, 6 or 12 months downstream. As a result, they don’t feel a real sense of urgency about doing business development activities.

Professionals are also rarely good at planning and organising themselves when it comes to business development. Marketing and selling often isn’t viewed as a “proper” activity to be managed like other functions or projects. So they may set themselves a goal like “do more speaking engagements” – but will rarely make a concrete plan to do so. As a result, when they get a few hours spare one afternoon, instead of knowing that the next task in their plan is to search for potential events to speak at, or to contact the organisers of these events; they have to think from scratch. And by the time they’ve figured out the things they need to do, their time window has passed.

One critical problem many professional firms have which cripples their ability to invest in business development is the performance measurement and reward system they have in place.

Many professional firms still measure and reward senior staff primarily on their own billable hours. It sounds ludicrous, and it flies in the logic of leverage, the core dynamic behind the profitability of professional firms. But it’s still the case in many professional firms today.

Wise firms take a more enlightened view to billing targets. As professionals gain in experience and seniority, their billability targets decrease, and their targets for various forms of practice development (chief among them being business development) increase. And, of course, their career and competency development models place increasing emphasis on client relationship and business development skills. Client acquisition and sales targets take primacy over individual billing targets.

What can professional firms do to address these challenges?

Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to get professionals to “fall in love” with business development activities. They will almost always prefer the technical work of their profession. But it is possible to make business development less painful for them – and to make it clear just how important it is.

The first step is to make sure professionals understand the economics or mathematics of selling – the lead times on typical sales activities, and the success rates. Translating future end goals (either revenues or billable hours) into the business development activity levels needed today will help make sure they don’t underestimate the importance of engaging in those activities.

Secondly, prioritising the key marketing and sales activities that will deliver the desired end results, then developing detailed actions plans for them must be a mandatory activity for all senior professionals. Planning needs to be drilled down not just at the practice level, but for all key individuals. And then the plan must actually be implemented: moth by month, week by week, day by day.

Finally, firms must ensure that their competency models, their promotion criteria, and their performance targets integrate the business development skills, activities and targets needed to achieve the firm’s growth goals.

Put together, these three simple actions can make a real difference in making next March’s targets rather more achievable and predictable for professional firms.

But Tibor beat me to it and has already posted on that.

So I’ll attempt to gaze into my crystal ball. But only a little. I believe that trying to look to far out and betting too much on predictions of how the future is going to turn out (especially when it involves technology) is foolish in the extreme.

However, I can see two trends in the CRM field which I think are sure to continue.

The first is integration with the social web. Most CRM systems are beginning to build interfaces so that when you look at a client/customer, you not only see the traditional “360 degree view” of all the internal details you have on that customer – but also now you can see a lot of external information. You can see the latest posts on their blog, their linkedin and facebook profiles, their twitter feed – or even a quick google news search on the topics you know they’re interested in.

Next will come integrated alerting based on these external profiles and searches – so that at minimum you get alerted when a top prospect updates their blog or changes their profile details on a social networking site.

The other trend is the increased sharing of information outside the company. A number of services are appearing which allow salespeople and others to “trade leads” and other information about potential clients.

This is a development which throws up all sorts of interesting opportunities and challenges.

For salespeople it could help get a real inside track to hard-to-reach prospects.

But from the client’s perspective it could open them up to all sorts of unwanted calls and what they would consider spam – plus the rather unnerving prospect of sales people they talk to giving away what they thought was one-on-one information as a trade to get a lead for another client.

To some degree, salespeople have always traded information – but this raises the prospect of it happening on a much wider scale.

There are also legal/privacy implications too. Certainly, in the UK, trading contact information from your CRM system with outside parties would almost certainly be a breach of the Data Protection Act.

So it’s going to be interesting to see how this area develops.

Lawyers, for example, can collaborate with accountants, financial advisors, bankers, consultants and other advisors to do joint seminars, create joint service offers or simply cross refer business.

Consultants collaborate extensively with technology and software providers to provide joined-up implementation solutions for clients.

But of all the choices, the one area where almost all firms must excel at collaboration is with their clients.

Gone are the days where professionals carried out their trade in ivory towers and clients gratefully lapped up their advice without challenge. Nowadays almost all clients want to be significantly involved in the process of how the professional does their work. They want to be kept up to date with progress and consulted at key decision-making points – not just presented with the results at the end.

For many professional firms, this requires a new skill-set from their professionals. They need to be able to work effectively in teams with their clients, be comfortable getting “up close and personal” with people from different backgrounds and experience bases to them, and to be able to get results without having direct line authority over all team members.

Of course, not all clients want this. Some still want to outsource responsibility and get a great end product. But more and more are realising that the only way to ensure a great end product is to be involved in the process of producing it yourself. The consulting, law, accounting or other professional firm who is able to demonstrate that they can collaborate effectively with their clients in this sort of environment has a great advantage when it comes to winning business.

But perhaps we shouldn’t feel so superior. Those of us in business often fall victim to a similar malaise: the curse of the “next big thing”. It’s the business equivalent of retail therapy.

How many times in business have we been seduced by the prospect of a new marketing or sales system offering us “all the leads we can handle” or to “grow our business 500%”?

In truth, we know what works: get a good marketing & sales approach and stick to it.

The absolute worst thing you can do is flip backwards and forwards between approaches, never giving any of them the time to work. Try referrals one week, cold calling a few weeks later, pay-per-click a few weeks after that. The result: guaranteed failure.

But it’s just so tempting. Sticking to somthing is hard work. You have to grind out results activity after activty. The ads for the new sales method tell me it’ll be easy; a few hours a week; any fool can do it.

In my case, I’ve partly learnt the lesson of “next big thing therapy”. I don’t flip between methods: I stick with what i know will work even if something comes along that claimes to be even better.

But I’m not all the way there yet. I may not flip between new systems – but I still buy them. My curiosity gets the better of me. I have to know whether what people are claiming is as good as it sounds (it rarely is of course). It’s my own version of retail therapy.

The problem is not that such a person doesn’t exist – if he does, I’d love to meet him (or her). Instead, the problem is that those of us who don’t see ourselves as naturals assume we can’t make it in sales. And because we assume we can’t make it, we don’t try. We don’t practice, we don’t learn, and we certainly don’t expose ourselves to sales situations where we’re inevitably going to fail.

My 16 years in consulting and training, and my years in business beforehand, have taught me that any skill can be learned. I’ve seen accountants who could barely speak in public become highly professional presenters. I’ve seen business owners who struggled to read their bank statements become skilled at understanding complex financial analyses. And I’ve seen nervous lawyers learn how to network confidently and effectively.

What all these skills require in order to become proficient is practice.

Not just any practice – but goal directed practice with feedback. And lots of it.

According to Anders Ericsson, Professor of Psychology at Florida State University; it takes around 10,000 hours of deliberate praciice to become truly proficient at a skill.

When it comes to selling skills, practice can partially be done in the classroom through role playing. But it primarily needs to be done in the real world. People who want to get better at selling need to sell (or at least to try). And that means they are going to experience rejection and failure. Time and time again.

One of the primary reasons there are so few really expert salespeople is that it’s actually really painful to develop the skills needed. Golfers, tennis players, spreadsheet experts and professional presenters all have the luxury of being able to practice in private and get feedback from trusted coaches & advisors. Salespeople learn in public and largely get feedback by being rejected by clients.

What kind of mad person would put themselves through that? Only the truly dedicated.

And that, to me, is the difference that makes the difference. The dedication to put in the work, to put up with the rejection, to do the learning, to keep coming back and eventually, to get better and better.

Expert salespeople aren’t born. They make themselves. And they have my utmost respect.

But just as importantly, sales presentations are all about them. The way you build trust is to focus on them and their needs. The way you demonstrate credibility is to talk about their issues, challenges and opportunities.

In my experience, the most important thing to do in any sales presentation is to demonstrate that you fully understand your potential client’s needs.

Your solution could be off-base. You can have under or overestimated the benefits. Your implementation plan can be a bit screwy. But if you fully understand their needs then all that can be fixed. And they know it.

Conversely, no matter how good your solution or how accurate you analysis of the benefits or how perfect your implementation plan: if you don’t fully understand them and what they’re looking for then the chances are that things will eventually fall apart.

In most sales presentations, the client needs are usually glossed over in a single slide. The seller gives an overview, uses generic phrasing, and replays what the client told them. Their objective is to quickly convince the client that they’ve understood what’s being asked so they can move on to the exciting bits of presenting their fantastic solution.

In contrast, the effective presenter has an objective of actually ensuring they fully understand the client needs – not just convincing the client they do. They will spend considerable time up front playing back a more detailed analysis and understanding of what the client needs. they don’t move on until they’ve fully explored this Not just what they said – but exploration of root causes and impacts. Clients quickly pick up on this intent and begin to feel more comfortable.

The solution, of course, should be presented in the client’s terms too. What it means for them, how it will help them, what they need to do to make it work. As should the implementation plan and the business case.

And finally, make it interesting. As David Ogilvy said: “You can’t bore someone into buying your product”. Make your presentation interactive, open strong & close strong. Entertain.

My fellow Sales Bloggers have quite rightly highlighted the flaws in the pitching model – particularly that it is a combatitive model of selling rather than a partnership model. Certainly, given the choice of building a relationship with a potential client vs pitching at them, we should choose the relationship every time.

But in my experience, pitching is becoming more, not less common nowadays. Not because salespeople want it that way – but because our buyers do. Beauty parades and pitches are common in the professions, and are extending their reach continually as procurement of services is “professionalised”. Procurement professionals often view building relationships with clients as an attempt to circumvent the “objective” procurement process and many prefer to keep vendors at arms length and to select based only on written material and presentations. Some even go as far as to disallow members of their organisations with personal experience with the vendors from taking part in the selection process in case they are biased in favour of one of the bidders. In fact they seem to value a “level playing field” over actually making the right decision using all the available information.

While I hope that some day they’ll come to their senses and realise that the ability to build a productive relationship with your clients is at the heart of good service delivery and so should be a critical part of selling and buying – I don’t hold out hope for a change soon. So pitching is here to stay: whether you’re a startup pitching for VC funding, or an ad agency pitching your ideas, or a salesperson pitching your product in front of a selection committee.

So if pitching is here to stay – what can we learn from the veteran “pitchmen” that will help us pitch better.

Well, first of all, let’s look at what a “pitchman” actually is. Despite the temptation to drop into a baseball analogy, a pitchman is not a pitcher. I believe the origin of pitchman came from the the fact that the salesman (it was always a man) used to travel with county fairs or other travelling events and had to put up a pitch (as in “pitching a tent”) to sell from at each new location. So pitching is not about lobbing a fastball at an unsuspecting customer – it’s about setting out your stall as attractively as possible. If nothing else, the pitchmen were entertaining – I wish I could say the same about the sales presentations in corporate situations I see.

Now since they travelled from town to town, the old pitchmen were dealing with brand new prospects all the time. Prsopects who didn’t know or care who they were. They didn’t have the time or the opportunity to gradually build relationships with their customers – and frankly, for the price of the products they sold, it wasn’t worth it either.

Instead they had to grab the attention of passers-by in only a few seconds. They used loud noises and loud voices – echoing the approach of buskers and street performers. Ron Popeil (founder of Ronco) opened his pitch for the Chop-O-Matic with “Ladies & Gentlemen, I’m going to show you the greatest kitchen appliance ever made!”

How can we do something similar today to begin our pitches in an impactful way? Well we certainly shouldn’t do what most people do in sales presentations: begin with long winded descriptions of who we are and the history of our company. By the time you’ve got through that, our clients will have switched off. Instead, focus on what’s going to grab the attention of of the client. And that’s usually his problem. Begin with a brief statement of value, what problems you’re going to solve and what it’s going to do for them.

What did the pitchmen do in the middle of their presentations? They always demonstrated the product. They proved it did what they said it could do. And they often got up audience volunteers (or later on TV, celebrity guests) to use the product too to prove anyone could do it.

We face the same problem in pitching our services. How can our potential client really know we can do the things we claim we can? It’s all well and good focusing on the benefits they’ll get from working with us (or from funding our company, or from using our ad campaign) – but if they don’t believe we can do it, the claimed benefits are meaningless.

Just like the pitchmen, our best course to prove ourselves is to demonstrate. To show our capabilities in action. Perhaps we can walk through a similar example of work we’ve done; or perhaps we can even use our time with them to actually start working for them by sharing ideas, jointly brainstorming & problem solving. That way they get to see what it would be like to work with us for real.

And how did the pitchment close? With unexpected value.

Just when you thought the product was going to be hugely expensive, they told you it was really cheap. And not only that, they were throwing in something extra: “But wait, there’s more….”

Now the “but wait, there’s more…” approach has become a bit clichéd, but the principle still works. Make sure what you’re proposing is perceived as so valuable they just can’t say no. And then add some more value.

Now, of course, there’s plenty more to do in sales – and pesonally I try to avoid getting involved in a pitch whenever I can.

But sometimes it’s just unavoidable. And when it is, we could do a lot worse than learning from the old-time pitchmen. Billy Mays knew this – he’d have been completely at home at the county fair selling vegetable chopper or knife sharpener. And when the time is right, you need to be too.

And for those selling complex products or services which require positioning or tailoring in line with the client’s business issues, it’s critical to use your questions to understand those business issues.

When I first started selling large consulting projects over a decade ago it was still common practice to ask very generic questions: “What keeps you awake at night?”, “What are your ‘red’ issues?”. Nowadays that just won’t wash.

Clients expect you to understand their business already, and to know the potential issues they and businesses like them may have (in your field). But it’s a fine line – they also don’t want you presuming you know more about their business than they do. They certainly don’t want to be told after 2 minutes that you can save them 20% of their manufacturing costs or that you can see that their biggest problem is staff retention. To do that is to simultaneously insult them (after 2 minutes I can see how fix problems you couldn’t Mr Client) and demonstrate your ignorance (they may already have tried what you’re suggesting, or their situation is different in some way).

What you need to do is phrase your questions so that they demonstrate your knowledge and prior research – but that don’t presume too much.

“A number of the clients we work with in your field are finding it critical to reduce their manufacturing costs to remain competitive. Is that an issue for you?”

“I noticed you have quite a high employee turnover rate compared to your competitors – what are the implications of that?”

Each of these questions can lead to more detailed follow-up probing to get to the bottom of the issue, its impact, and some of the potential root causes.

Help your clients understand their issues through smart questions and their perception of you as an expert will accelerate. Not because you’ve shown how much you know – but because you’ve shown how you can help them through that knowledge.

And please, don’t ask what keeps them up at night.

My answer to that question: “Nightmares about salespeople asking stupid questions they should know the answers to”.

Sales Process Model

During the late 90s and early 00s I made my living improving sales processes. I lived and breathed process maps, metrics, re-engineering workshops and implementation plans.

So what I’m going to say may sound a little sacreligious – but over the years I’ve come to believe that sales processes just aren’t that important.

Now don’t get me wrong, they’re not unimportant. Qualification helps you focus your resources and time on your highest priorities. Good forecasting keeps your investors happy and helps you know when you need to take action to remedy problems. Review processes give managers a forum to coach and improve the skillss of their team. And for new salespeople, a solid process can help guide them throught the basics of making a sale before the key stages become embedded in their brains.

But at best, achieving excellence in sales processes will make you efficient. It will make sure you don’t waste time & resources, that you don’t bog down your sales team in admin, and that you get useful information to track progress and to manage the team.

But what will really drive up your sales? It’s the actions your salespeople take when directly interacting with your customers. It’s their skills, their technique, and most importantly, their mindset during those interactions. Give me a genuine and skillful salesperson over an excellent sales process anyday.

So for almost any company, given a choice of where to invest management time or resources for improvement: invest them in improving the capabilities of your team rather than in sales processes.

Professionals Need Motivating Too!

Professional Services are somewhat unusual in that the key sales tasks are almost always carried out by non-salespeople: the professionals who will supervise or perform the piece of work being bought.

As a result, what motivates them is often quite different from what motivates “normal” salespeople. Often, for example, by the time they’ve reached a stage in their career where business development is a key part of their role; they are already earning a very comfortable salary. They certainly aren’t in the same position as a commission-only salesperson who needs to bring in business to eat.

That’s not to say that money isn’t a motivator at all – but it’s often not the most important one for most professionals. Nor, surprisingly, is the role of sales in your chances of being promoted to partner.

When professionals are surveyed, the two factors which regularly emerge as being the most important for them in their career are the ability to work on interesting and challenging assignments, and to work with clients they like and respect.

How can this be used to motivate them to sell?

Well, a factor often overlooked by professionals reluctant to get involved in business development is that it gives them control over their destiny. If you can sell, you can ensure you work on interesting assignments for good clients. If you can’t sell you have no option but to work on the assignments others sell – which may well not be for the sort of clients you want to work for, or on the sort of topics you want to work on.

When professionals understand this they are often much more motivated to get involved in sales than before. They suddenly realise how effective selling can make their “real job” of delivery so much more enjoyable and interesting. And over time, they often come to realise that selling actually is their “real job” and can be even more enjoyable and interesting that delivery.