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Professional Services Win More Sales by Educating Instead of Telling
| Guest post by: Leanne Hoagland-Smith |
Article Overview: Are you a professional service provider such as a lawyer, realtor, insurance agent, financial advisor, business coach, sales coach or executive coach? Would you like to win more sales while decreasing your sales to lead or sales cycle time? Then why not use your sales skills educate your potential qualified customers (a.k.a. prospects) instead of the traditional sales based marketing approach of telling them?
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Free Download - How to Craft an Engaging Message That Highlights What You Do to Increase Sales By Leanne Hoagland-Smith |
Professional Services Win More Sales by Educating Instead of Telling
Are you a professional service provider such as a lawyer, realtor, insurance agent, financial advisor, business coach, sales coach or executive coach? Would you like to win more sales while decreasing your sales to lead or sales cycle time? Then why not use your sales skills educate your potential qualified customers (a.k.a. prospects) instead of the traditional sales based marketing approach of telling them?
Think about your most recent encounter with a qualified potential customer? Did you end up sharing:
1. How great your product or service was?
2. How much better your product or service was compared to the competition?
3. How you have been selling for 10, 20 or 30 years?
Conversations like those evolved from a sales based marketing approach. As one of my colleagues, Jim Godshall once said: "Most professional sales people show up and then throw up."
Would it not make more sense to truly educate the potential qualified customer from a non-self serving position? Using this relationship selling approach, you provide outstanding value for free while simultaneously building the relationship and potentially decreasing the sales cycle time.
Here are three examples of how education based marketing works:
1. Give a book that you either wrote or was written by a close colleague. Of course this means that you have completed your research about this company, industries or critical issues facing all organizations. One of my favorite books is Fail-Safe Leadership because leadership development to leadership succession planning is an ongoing issue for the micro to the macro organizations. This is a great book to quickly capture the real obstacles preventing sustainable change from happening within organizations and even individuals. Sales Coaching Tip: Make sure you set a time to discuss the book before you give any book away.
2. Write articles or white papers and post them on the Internet or on your website. Give your potential customer or potential qualified customer an article or white paper that brings value and may provide some insight as to your specific expertise without you having to sell yourself. Again, ask for feedback by securing an appointment to discuss the article or the white paper.
3. Treat your potential qualified customers or even a centers of influence to a free on-line assessment that will profile their organizational role and provide some insight as how to improve their overall performance. For me, this has become my primary education based marketing strategy. Since I have already include a free coaching strategy session, by adding the free on-line assessment I am now providing the client with something very tangible and authentic. The assessment that I give away has been taken by hundred of thousands of individuals in all industries. What I have personally discovered is by giving this assessment away, I am building trust, shortening my traditional 6 month sales cycle time to less than 2 months and winning more sales through the referral process.
TAKE ACTION SALES COACHING TIP: Determine how you can provide tangible value to your potential qualified customers. Then monitor the results. Bottom line is education based marketing does win more sales because you are improving your conversion rate while decreasing your sales cycle time.
Simply Speaking Increase Sales Using These 7 Words
How to Stop Suffering From I Hate to Sell But I Need to Pay My Bills
A Proven Sales Process Should Educate First, and Entertain a Distant Third
Dramatically Increase Sales Conversion Rate Using Education Based Marketing
Telling Aint Selling
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About the Author: Leanne Hoagland-Smith RSS for Leanne's articles - Visit Leanne's website Her book, Be the Red Jacket is a no-nonsense and quick read to help discover potential gaps that may be keeping you from your goal to increase sales. The forward is by Evan Carmichael of EvanCarmichael.com Remember if you think you cannot or you think you can either way you are right. (Henry Ford). Sales Coaching Tip: Change your thoughts; improve your results. Click here to visit Leanne's website   Business Building Check List Leadership Audit For Business Leadership Assessment |
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