Most service-based business owners think their sales problem is about price objections, ghosting leads, or not following up.
But the real issue? They’re selling the wrong thing – or at least, they’re positioning it that way.
After working with companies of all sizes – from startups to multi-generational companies – I’ve learned one key thing. Salespeople (oftentimes the business owners themselves) all face exactly the same issues selling services. And it’s probably not what you think.
In sales, we see people try all sorts of games (or “strategies”) to boost service sales…
- SPIF’s (Sales Performance Incentive Fund) to pay immediate extra bonuses for selling something
- Solution selling
- SPIN (Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need-Payoff) selling
- Services credits
- Service-first
- Sell service, then product
…And plenty of other versions of these “strategies”.
They may all be designed to boost sales in the short term, but, they somehow fail, fail again, and then fail one more time. Which leaves you wondering whether you’re even using the right strategy in the first place.
But here’s the thing…We see organizations spend huge amounts of money on conferences, trade shows, giveaways, and promotions every year to sell their high-end services thinking they’ll see a huge return on their investment.
In the long term, most of these efforts turn out to cost far more than the business they generate afterward. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Are you ready to transform your mindset and grow into a much savvier one?
When Selling Services, You’re Probably Looking At The Wrong Thing
Management and executives typically begin to wonder why expenses keep increasing while sales are not. They look at their cost of goods sold (COGS) and decide their sales team is ineffective. So they either throw another service at them to sell or they lay them off.
But this doesn’t help either because you end up back where you were at the beginning of the sales cycle – with a new team who isn’t familiar with your process or offer.
And this continues, year after year until someone in senior management brings up the difficulties of selling to prospective clients without any tangible solutions to move forward.
So they quit their services business.
And who does this affect?
Customers and the people who are let go are certainly affected. And while the company is still okay because they have products to sell, everyone ends up on the side of uncertainty about what to do now and how to move forward.
It’s deflating and can be damaging for everyone involved.
A perfect solution may not exist, but there are steps you can take to avoid falling into this cycle, again and again.
The Solution: Focus On The Person
So what are these companies missing?
It can’t be sales skills because they still sell products like hot-cakes.
It must be something else. And fortunately for you, we have the answer.
They forgot their customers are people. They aren’t just a number and a company name in a sales forecast. They have feelings, beliefs, and real pain points.
And if you want to be successful in your sales efforts, you need to get back to the basics – starting with these 4 strategies.
1. Ask the Right Question(s)
You may ask yourself…“Why aren’t we selling our services? And what’s wrong?”
Notice anything strange about that statement?
Surely, the question should have been “Why aren’t our customers BUYING services? What’s wrong?”
Notice the difference?
A simple word change makes all the difference.
And when you reframe the question as “ Would it make sense to talk through how this could look in your business?”, you find that you’re focused on the person making the decision.
Now, we can start solving the sales issue.
Let’s figure this out and explore how you can change your sales focus from selling to the customer to enabling the customer to buy from you by starting with one fundamental truth.
Customers don’t like to be sold to. They prefer to buy from.
And those customers prefer to buy from the people and businesses they know, like, and trust.
2. Deploy Sales Tactics That Let Customers Come To Them
For now, let’s focus on solving the “customers don’t like to be sold to; they prefer to buy from” challenge.
When we sell, most sales people walk into the meeting with a preconceived idea of what they want to pitch to the customer based on an email, phone call, or short discussion. And those conversations usually look like this…
Sales: “Based on our last contact, I think we have just what you are looking for. Because we offer feature, feature, feature, and more of our own features. I know you have blah, but our services will [rehash features]. Oh, and we also offer additional services or a set of more products too.”
Customer: “That may be right for us, but we’re not quite sure. Send me a quote. Bye.”
Successful?
Hardly.
Yet, we see sales people all over the world try to sell services exactly this way.
Let’s change the tune and see how it looks.
How about this…?
Sales: “Based on our last contact, it sounded like you are having issues with [specific challenge], and that you may be looking for some kind to help to fix this issue and make your life easier. Is that correct, or did I misinterpret what you said? I just want to make sure we are talking about the same thing, and I’m not wasting your time.”
See the difference?
The salesperson now gives the customer a chance to unload their issues, giving them further insight to their:
- Priorities
- Challenges
- Solutions tried
- Future expectations
And even if your salesforce has these notes already, it gives them a chance to listen and connect with their potential customer on a human-to-human basis. But at least, they will know in detail what the customer is looking for and seeking to BUY.
If the customer says, “That’s not what I meant or said.”
Simply apologize for your misunderstanding and wasting their time but also say that should they think they need your assistance later, simply reach out to you and you’ll do your best to help him. Leave them an olive branch. Then move on to the next prospect.
P.S. You can test your sales tactics in your copywriting and vice versa. Need help constructing the conversation? Let’s schedule a virtual coffee.
3. Don’t Assume & Pitch The Next Steps In The Sales Conversation
Making assumptions in the sales process without placing the customer first can land you in hot water when it’s time to close the conversation. This usually happens when you find yourself in either of the following situations:
- You launch into a pitch starting with…We have this service, which I think will solve your issues because it has [features list] at a budget-conscious price of $XXXk.
- You are upfront about your level of expertise, saying that while you may not be an expert in everything you’ve discussed, you do provide something similar to another client that helped them achieve x, y, and z.
The second option is obviously customer centric and a winner.
You can further make your point by writing up what you’ve understood from meeting with your prospective customer to send it and confirm that you’ve genuinely captured their wants, needs, and challenges.
While they review that, look internally for similar past projects to tie your solutions with real experiences. Doing so can help you confirm or correct the requirements to figure out what could work best for them and your team. Then, arrange for a follow-up meeting within a week or so to keep the momentum going.
When you’re putting together conversation notes, write your ideas with clarity by:
- Keeping it easy to follow with bullet points
- Don’t offer a solution yet
- Restate the customer’s needs early on
- Review and adjust for typos and grammar
Send it to the customer and ask them to confirm your understanding of the issues and requirements provided within a day or two.
When you get confirmation from your customer, talk to your sales support and ask them how they’ve solved similar issues (if you don’t already know). You need their help. Keep in mind that they likely tried to sell the solution, not persuade the customer to buy the solution. So take everything you hear with a grain of salt.
Next, search for any whitepapers or other sales collateral used in the past. Again you may have to paraphrase it or even develop new copy to provide to your customer, if needed.
Scour the information to ensure that it meets every requirement listed in the document. If it does, great! If it doesn’t, reengage with your internal experts to find out how the missing requirements can be met. Whether it can be met or not, it may not be a deal-breaker.
4. Push Benefits, Not Features
Your selling points are not the features that you think they need, but the benefits you offer that will solve their issues and make their life easier. This doesn’t mean eliminating a feature focus entirely. You’ll want to still keep those in your back pocket.
Then think about what you want your customer to buy and what each of those offers contain.
Ideally, you want them to buy your mid-level package, but you have a lower level one available just in case their budget turns out to be smaller than you or your customer originally states. Of course, you need a platinum offering just in case the customer loves your solution and wants more!
Now that you have your thoughts together, your packages assembled, and your sales pitch ready (when needed), it’s time to document the process and track its success.
Whenever you reach back out to your customer, arrange a follow-up (not a sales) meeting, to discuss what you’ve found that may help them.
Assuming they accept, be prepared to walk through their requirements and how you can address them while stressing at each point how your offering will help them solve their issues. Don’t worry about having a cost-heavy conversation just yet.
Once you’ve gone through the solution or several solutions, ask them whether they think you missed anything and whether they think that your solution will work for them. This puts them in the driver’s seat and makes them feel like they are in control of the situation.
RELATED: Transform Features Into Customer Benefits In 3 Simple Steps
Rethink What You’re Really Selling
Sales is driven by numbers – often impossibly short term numbers (i.e. COGS, revenue, and resource numbers they have to report every 30, 60, or 90 days). But when you’re stuck in the numbers, it’s hard to see a solution outside of that.
Ready to shift how you sell – without the pressure, pitching, or pretending?
