Selling Professional and Financial Services Handbook, + Website Hardcover - 2013 - 1st Edition

From the jacket flap

Times are very tough for people who sell professional services, but Selling Professional and Financial Services Handbook offers a new solution proven in practice. The book describes methods the authors have used and taught since the 1990s, most recently at a major consulting firm, where they led a Global Business Development team to revenue gains of 500% over six years--in a period that included the recession of 2008-2010.

The solution is not just a new twist on face-to-face selling techniques or the art of persuasion. It's a strategic approach built around a simple fact: the markets are tight but far from static. Even with lean budgets, client companies must respond to urgent changes and emerging threats in their industries. Thus they will buy services from the sellers who can help them detect, understand, and cope with what's coming their way.

This Handbook outlines a systematic way of becoming such a valued resource. Readers learn to scan the horizon for early signs of "rock-ripple events"--major changes in the business world often spring from new developments that are little noted or heeded, at first, by the client companies soon to be affected by them. But like a rock dropped in a pond, these events set off ripples that sweep through entire industry sectors, creating must-have service needs.

There are endless variations on the theme. The Handbook is filled with stories showing how almost anyone, in any line of professional services, can apply the same basic approach repeatedly to get ahead of the pack on recurring waves of new business opportunities.

The Handbook explains how to evaluate emerging issues to judge their likely effects, and whether they'd generate service needs that are a good, and profitable, fit for your firm. It then describes how to create and deploy a sales initiative that takes full advantage of a given opportunity.

A key theme is that it's possible to "industrialize" the process, getting consistent returns in volume instead of guessing right sometimes or chasing one-off sales. And a key goal is to build long-term sales relationships on a new basis, suited to a new business environment. Clients no longer have time for relationships built around wining, dining, and socializing. In their lean-running companies, they are often pressed just to deal with daily demands in their functional silos. They value people who can extend their vision, keeping them well apprised of what's next.

Selling Professional and Financial Services Handbook demonstrates how to fill this vital role. And as examples show, the rewards often include unsolicited sales from clients calling you, since you're the guru they have come to know and trust.