Building Your Authority - Promoting Your Expertise (Without Selling!)

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This is another special edition of my newsletter specially dedicated to all the professionals in our community who hate business development and selling their services – this one is for you **** Enjoy it and let me know your input or feedback.

This edition features advice on how to promote your expertise without selling from a true expert on #sales - Ian Altman. Ian was **one of my guests in an episode of SWITCH ON!, my weekly interview show with THE SWITCH, (see here the link to this respective interview).

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As a professional - a lawyer, an accountant - you probably never thought that you would have to sell anything. Right?

You assumed (and many professionals still do...) that being a good professional and trusted advisor is probably enough.

In fact, nowadays there is no other option.

Economic times are tough, buyers of legal services are more demanding and the professional services landscape is changing.

This is a wake-up call?

For what, you ask?

For those professionals who are unable to move away from the sanctuary of the profession and the old way of doing things.

You need SWITCH, if you don’t want to face an ever-increasing struggle.

Professionals today need to control their own financial destiny by getting out there and originating new businesses to grow and maintain their practice.

What if I told you that there is a different way to promote your services (without selling!)?

A way that can be authentic, genuine, and very much client-centric

A way that can help you to promote yourself and your services without being sale-sy, pushy or nudgy.

When it comes to selling your services as a professional firm, here is Ian’s advice:

“The first one is that people approach the idea of promoting their firm by talking about the firm itself or talking about their practice.”

“So people share things like, oh, we have so many attorneys and so many offices, and people don't necessarily care about that. What they care about is what kind of problems do you solve for your clients? Why do people come to you under what circumstances?”

“Because in many cases, what I see professionals do is they describe their firm. And if you took out the name of their firm, you could apply that same description to any firm in their industry, which means you don't stand out at all.”

“The second big mistake that people follow is that they don't have a process of how they approach expanding and growing their business. And all of a sudden, the person's trying to teach themselves how to write left handed because the person they're supposed to be following also writes left handed. It's like, no, that has nothing to do with why they're successful…Or they say to themselves, well, this person, they network at their country club and they're a great golfer, so I have to become a great golfer. No, you don't. You have to better understand how to engender trust and how to connect with people authentically so that they're inclined to do business with you instead of somebody else. “

“And so what I think is it's a matter of having a process where we recognize first and foremost that we're just trying to see if there's a good fit between what the clients needs are and what it is that we do.

“So it's not about feeling rejection if they didn't pick us. It's about coming into the conversation realizing, look, not everyone's a right fit for what we do. I'm trying to figure out if your needs match what we're good at, and if so, we have something to talk about. If not, let me direct you to somebody else.”

“And having comfort in those situations is actually easier to develop than comfort in the courtroom.”

“When we have a new practice area, those people need to be able to come in and say, here are the people who we best serve in this practice area. Here are the types of conversations those people are having internally. Here's what they're complaining about about their existing concerns. Here's what they might be complaining about about their existing resource that they're using for this, their existing firm. And here are the types of questions to ask to see if they have a need.”

“If you just say to people, go out and have these conversations, everyone goes out and has the conversations. Six months later, there's almost no new business coming for that new practice area. And everyone wonders why. And it's because the way people make decisions is not random.”

“When making or approving a decision, people ask three questions consistently. The first question they ask is, what problem does this solve? The second question they ask is why do I need it? And the third question they ask is what's the likely outcome or result if I engage with this organization or if I buy these services, if you will. “

“Well, what that means is that we need to lead with here are the types of challenges that people come to us with and we have to answer the question of why would those clients be better off working with us than somebody else? Because if we don't understand it and we can't talk to each other about it, how could we possibly have a conversation with a client about it? But if we get that nailed down pretty well, then all of a sudden it changes the dynamic of that conversation.”

“So if you post something on Facebook, you can't do something that's just self-promotional. Because if you saw something that was self-promotional, would you want to read it? Of course not. But if you said, wow, we're really proud of our client, who solved this problem. We were happy we could help them. This is a great company. Then what happens if someone else sees it and goes, wow, this is a great company. Oh, and they help them? Oh, well, maybe that's something that we could use their help with also.”

“I think that a lot of this comes down to content marketing, and oftentimes people misunderstand the concept of content marketing. So content marketing is not marketing that is promoting yourself. Content marketing is creating content that establishes your expertise, that lets people think to themselves, wow, they can really help.”

“You don't have to answer a question definitively. You just have to address the question.”

“I want to create content for my target audience, for my ideal clients, and I just want to establish my expertise so that when something comes up, what's going on? Their mind is, who have I heard the most from on this topic? Oh, it's so and so, let me reach out to them.”

“And that way you're establishing your expertise, you're being generous with information, but you're not telling somebody. Here's the legal answer to your specific question.”

“Best way to sell something is don't sell anything. And the respect, trust, and awareness of those who might buy”

Remember: Nobody like to be sold to, but everybody loves to buy!

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SWITCH ON and keep STANDING OUT!

Warmly,

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If you have any specific questions with regard to building authentic relationships with clients, client retention, or referrals, please send us an e-mail and I will be happy to help.

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Itzik is considered the global leading authority on business development, business networking, client relationships, and personal branding. He is a highly sought-after international speaker, trainer, business mentor, & attorney-at-law. He is also the bestselling author of “The Attention Switch” & Founder of THE SWITCH?? , the leading online training, education and done-for-you platform for professionals globally. Itzik teaches, trains, and mentors lawyers, other professionals, and professional firms to attract and win their ideal clients by becoming seen as authorities in their field, creating and maintaining successful and strategic relationships, and learning to SWITCH their relationships to referrals+revenue+results.

See more information: itzikamiel.com | THE SWITCH???or connect with Itzik via: [email protected]