Don't like selling? Try this....

Most professional services people I speak to have one thing in common, they don’t perceive themselves as being sales people. So, being told they have to go into a ‘sales environment’ such as a networking event, seeing a prospective new client or giving a presentation usually brings them out in a cold sweat!

However, professional services people also have another thing in common. They like to help people.

To help you feel more comfortable in a potential sales situation here’s what you can do.

Firstly, just be yourself. Remember, people buy from people. The fact that you have a service which they may have a reason to use can sometimes be secondary. In order for them to sign up for that service, they’ll want to get to know you better and develop rapport and trust with you. That initial conversation may well not have anything to do with your services or business in general. What tends to kick-start that relationship is identifying common ground between you and that could be as a result of you both supporting the same rugby team, your kids going to the same school, a shared interest in local theatre productions and so on.

Secondly, when you do start talking about each other’s businesses (or personal lives), listen very carefully to what they are telling you. Try to spot opportunities whereby you could give them some useful advice or information. Accountancy based examples may be:

A member of the family has recently died - explain the process they will need to go through for probate and estate administration in order to wind up the deceased’s affairs. (Leading to a conversation about your probate and estate administration service).

Bank won’t lend them money for a loan to expand the business - ask what supporting information they put together to try and get the bank to lend them money. Perhaps offer to review these documents free of charge to see if they could put together a more convincing proposal.Suggest other funding sources they could consider getting business loans from, other banks/building societies, crowdfunding, Peer 2 Peer lending, perhaps offering to put them in touch with other funding providers you know. (Leading to a conversation about how you could help with business plans, cash flow forecasts or corporate finance).

Looking to start using an accounts package or upgrading an existing one - ask more information about their business and their sales and expenses transactions. What type of information do they want to extract out of their accounts package, e.g. just VAT return information or monthly accounts etc? Give them examples of what packages similar businesses (your clients) have used and how they found the conversion process. Perhaps offer to put them in touch with some of your clients.(Leading to a conversation about your Cloud accounting services).

Someone mentioned ‘Making Tax Digital’ at a recent networking event but they aren’t sure what this is - give a brief overview of HMRC’s digital plans (without getting too technical).Explain that it is being implemented in stages from 2019 onwards and outline what businesses or property landlords may have to do, based on current information provided by HMRC. (Leading to a conversation about your MTD support and helping businesses to prepare for digital accounting).

Considering setting up a business but not sure what type of structure to have (Partnership, LLP, Limited Company) - give them the pros and cons of each business type, based on your experience and/or based on what your clients have done. Leading to a conversation about how you can help business start-ups.

Whilst each of the above scenarios is a possible sales opportunity leading to specific services you may offer don’t worry about getting into ‘sales pitch’ mode.

If you simply talk to people in a language they understand, giving them helpful tips and advice, about a subject you work on every day, more often than not you won’t need to start a sales pitch. If people have a need for one of your services and you have been able to demonstrate you can help them, quite often they’ll ask you for the business. This takes the pressure off you to ‘go out and sell’ and makes the whole scenario more pleasurable for both parties.

As an example, I was recently talking to an accountant who had become licensed to provide probate services. He said he found an informal chat with the Executors to explain what steps they needed to take in the probate and estate administration process, invariably ended with them saying “would you be able to do that for us?”. He hadn’t tried to sell his probate service, just provided some information outlining what they needed to do.

So – be yourself, be helpful, be reassuring and you’ll find more people will come asking for your advice (and therefore services) without the need to put you or them through a high pressurised sales pitch.