5 ways to sell professional services
Author: Leanne Knowles
Article update: August 2024
3 minute read
Introduction
If you operate a professional services business, you already know its a tight and competitive market. It can be very difficult to differentiate your service and attract the attention of new customers.
This article will cover 5 powerful ways to increase sales, starting with:
- the challenges for professional services
- the 5 fundamentals of business to business (B2B) selling
- what kind of businesses that this applies to
- what you can do to take the first step
The challenges for professional services
When you have a team and a high cost infrastructure, you live and die by your sales results. Sometimes professional services businesses are good at generating new leads, but their conversion rates can be hit and miss. There’s a lot of moving parts to any professional sales equation and it can be difficult to know where to start in turning this around.
Add to this the changing economic environment and it’s easy to find yourself paddling upstream, working harder for less results. It could be time to implement a regular review and tweak of your sales campaign strategies.
There are some enduring principles in sales that work no matter what you sell and who you sell it to. Thankfully it’s easy to put these in place, once you know the formula.
Here is my 5 part method that you can share with your business development team to help you supercharge your sales conversions.
- start with campaign strategy
- find the sales sweet spot
- product and offer
- know your customer better than your competitors
- exchange of value
The fundamentals of business to business selling
1. Start with campaign strategy
When you establish a strong campaign strategy right from the start, you set yourself and your team up for an easier run when it comes to the personal selling and conversion stage of the process.
To bullet-proof your strategy, you really need your sales, marketing and product teams to collaborate up front, and to agree on the plan. The more complex the service and the sales process, the more vital this becomes.
But even simplest of transactions need a cohesive strategy that minimizes friction and barriers for the prospective customer as they take each step towards purchase. Remember that people have a lot of choice out there in a sea of competitive, and you have to bring your A Game at every customer touch point.
Creating a logical strategy that covers the full customer journey from end to end, means that by the time you get to your sales conversation stage, you are more likely to be talking to the people who really want your products or services, and they are more likely to have the information they need to make a decision.
Getting the foundations right will maximise results and reduce effort.
2. Find the sales sweet spot
A strong campaign strategy will help you clarify The Sales Sweet Spot. That means your campaign is offering the right product, to the right audience and with an effective exchange of value that is irresistible to your customer.
This might sound like an obvious statement, but many campaigns are running a scatter gun approach, attempting to be all things to all people. Subsequently, the campaign message is not cutting through the noise and reaching your ideal customer.
Further to that, the product or service offer is frequently not exciting, not distinctive, and does not move the prospective customer to take action now.
3. Product offer and price
To create your irresistible offer that represents amazing value to your prospective customer, start by selecting your most exciting, most distinctive and most profitable product(s) to be the hero of your marketing campaign.
Build out an extraordinary value Product Offer to capture the attention of your audience - by packaging extra services and complementary products that are not costly to you. Spell out this value with an amazing price to differentiate you from others in the market.
4. Know your customer better than your competitors
Remember, when you market to everyone, you market to no one. Give one customer group your focus for each campaign.
Ask yourself the question – who in the market place has a need that your business can uniquely solve, better than anyone else - profitably and sustainably with the solution you are offering. Then talk to this group in their language and style, and directly address their needs.
5. Exchange of value
Ultimately, it’s your customer who decides how valuable your offer is to them, and what price they are prepared to pay. When you truly understand your customer’s hot buttons, and what alternative solutions they can consider, you can create VALUE based sales and marketing campaigns that address those pain points better – and avoid undue pricing pressures and sales objections.
What kind of businesses can use these strategies?
These strategies are derived from enduring principles that work in any setting, no matter what you sell or who you sell it to.
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How to take the next step to increase sales conversions in your business
If you run a business, and you want to increase sales in a B2B or professionals services business with campaign strategy, there are a number of ways to get started.
My 3 Page Marketing Action Plan
A good place to start is a review of how well your sales and marketing activities are working together. Here is My 3 Page Marketing Action Plan that I have used in my own business to help me build out my online sales and marketing strategy. It’s yours for free and it’s an easy download, so just click on the link below and you’re on your way to the next step.
About Leanne Knowles
Leanne Knowles is a former professional skydiver turned Business Growth Strategist, who started two successful businesses in the adventure sport industry at 24 years old and sold them both ten years later. Leanne founded Headswitch as a marketing consultancy in January 2000, and now helps business owners in B2B and professional services to grow and scale their business using smart, simple strategies, the latest tech tools, and productive business relationships.
