Sales Skills For Service Professionals Part 3

In Part I of this series, we introduced three skills that are essential for selling professional services:

(1) The ability to ask provocative questions
(2) The ability to listen with total focus on the client
(3) The ability to relate moving stories and metaphors

Let's discuss the third skill: The ability to relate moving stories and metaphors.

Testimonials about your service help you get clients because human beings are hard-wired to believe stories. Even before humans developed language, they could tell stories with cave paintings. As language developed, one of its first uses was to sit around the campfire and tell stories of great exploits.

Even when there are no clients around to give testimonials, however--or campfires, for that matter--stories of your exploits can assist you to turn an uncertain prospect into a ready client.

My client Michael, an attorney, is a master at "sales" stories:

"Joe, your situation is very similar to a client I'm helping at the moment. He had a little more money invested in his piece of real estate, but what the seller did in his case was almost identical to what happened to you. Just like you, he struggled with whether he should spend the money on starting litigation or not, but then he decided he couldn't let them get away with it and asked me to go ahead with it."

It's a rare instance when a prospective client doesn't yield in the face of stories like these.

Michael also uses metaphors. I remember our discussion about a client with a small case, who asked Michael whether or not she could handle it herself, without a lawyer.

"Sure you can," Michael told her, "But then you'd be like a leaf on a rushing stream. With no rudder and no one to steer, you'd be rushing toward whatever result the system intends for you."

The woman took out her checkbook and wrote a retainer check.

One of my favorite masters of metaphor was Ben Feldman, one of the greatest insurance salesmen in modern history. Ben could look prospective insurance purchasers in the eyes and say things like, "with the stroke of a pen, you create an estate," and the prospects would pick up their pens to sign the application Ben brought with him.

Another client, Larry, is a financial advisor. To explain a Roth IRA, where you invest with after-tax dollars into an account that can grow income tax-free, if held long enough, Larry uses a farming metaphor:

"If you were a farmer and you had to pay taxes," he asks, "would you rather pay taxes on the seed, or on the crop that you harvest?"

"The seed, of course," is the prospect's reply.

"Why is that?" Larry asks.

"Well, the tax on a huge crop is probably a lot more than the tax on the seed would be," is the response.

"That's why I want you to make this investment," Larry tells his prospect. "You'll have already paid taxes on the seed-and you'll be able to harvest the crop tax- free."

In case you missed it, Larry manages to put all three skills together in his presentation. He asks provocative questions, listens carefully to the answer, and uses a metaphor that allows his prospect to make the right choice.

These three skills will help you get more clients, get better clients and keep the clients you have.


Sales Skills For Service Professionals Part 3 - To learn more about this author, visit Sandy Schussel's Website.

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