Fear of Sales: Shifting your mindset to build new client...

As a consultant, you're a problem-solver, a strategist, and a collaborator. You build trusted relationships with clients. You work well in your project teams.

Then someone says you need to start doing 'Sales'.

Fear sets in. The term 'Sales' can often evoke images of pushy salespeople, incessant cold calls, and inauthentic, scripted pitches. Many consultants - me included - don't see ourselves as sales people. The prospect of having to sell can be daunting.

It doesn't have to be like that.

Shifting your perspective

A lot of Sales advice for consultants focuses on what I call the Toolkit. Not much on Sales Mindset. And very little on measuring the Impact of your behaviour changes as you start to shift gears from pure delivery to taking some responsibility for bringing revenue into your consulting practice.

I think of consulting business development and sales on these three dimensions.

• Toolkit: The 'horizontal' suite of practical things you do to roll projects, meet new prospects, write proposals, execute sales conversations etc.
• Mindset: The 'vertical' elements that inform how you personally approach sales, seeing lead generation as a process with helping others at the heart of it.
• Impact Analytics: Measuring the impact of your Mindset shift on yourself, your peers, your firm and your clients - as well as the classic outputs of leads, clients, revenue etc.

In my experience, the Sales Toolkit has very little value if you haven't addressed your Mindset on Sales. You may know what you need to do but still be blocked from doing it by your own fears. To fix that you need to figure out how to step through the fear that comes up when you think about putting yourself out there.

I've felt this personally in my journey to grow Honeycomb. As a founder of a small business there is no choice but to figure out sales. I haven't found that easy.

I have lots of emotional blocks around it - blocks on following up with warm clients, cold-contacting potential new clients, sending proposals. At the root of those blocks is a fear of judgement, the dread of rejection. These emotions can hold me back from putting myself out there.

The goal here is to shift your Mindset from "I need to win some consulting work" to "This person has a problem I can help with". That shift can be transformational.

Imagine one of your friends has a problem in their personal life. You've experienced similar problems many times in the past. In fact, you helped another friend with the same problem just last week!

Chances are, you'd be able to help the new friend with their problem.

Now - switch the word 'friend' for 'client' and you start to see the Sales Mindset shift I'm talking about. Do you really want to be in a position where you can help someone and you choose not?!

There's a very valuable book I recommend to help with this Mindset shift: 'The Irresistible Consultant's Guide to Winning Clients' , by David Fields. Fields talks about 'thinking right-side up', which means putting your client's needs centre stage. Imagine viewing sales not as pushing a product or service, but as offering solutions and value to potential clients who need them. It's a perspective that can transform the sales process from a source of dread to an opportunity for impact.

As a consultant that means seeing sales as an extension of what you already excel at - advising and solving problems. When I was a Consultant at Bain & Company I was involved in rolling a project into a second phase of work. I watched a Senior Partner, Mark Porter, handle a conversation with the CEO brilliantly and land a ~￡1.5m phase 2 in a 30 minute call.

Afterwards I asked him how he approaches selling:

??"The key is to separate the advisory conversation from the sales conversation. Structure an approach first. Show you know how to solve the problem. Then they'll be asking you to help do it."

Sales as Advice, Sales as Process

This speaks to the two pillars of shifting your mindset on Sales. First is the advice. Second is the process.

As consultants we are used to defining and executing against project plans. Setting out efficient processes that work to get us from point A to point B.

Sales is the same thing, repeated. You need to find a way to have conversations with people who have problems you can solve, feel urgency to get them solved, and are able to pay for your help. In those conversations you need to advise and (gently) nudge to a realisation that asking you to help is a good solution for them. Then you need to meet that demand with a proposal, agree fees and the work is won.

Each of those steps can be defined, tested, iterated and optimised. This is where the Toolkit comes in. Figure out what works for your clients. Rinse and repeat. Become robotic in your sales execution (figuratively, or literally using automations, just never lose focus on the client at the heart of it)

I have lots of thoughts on Sales Toolkit for consultants, but that's a whole other conversation!

The third dimension I want to briefly discuss today is Impact Analytics.

Ripple effects and emotional outcomes

Impact Analytics goes beyond merely tracking sales outcomes. It’s about monitoring the ripple effects of your mindset changes and behaviour over time.

How do you feel about sales activities? How are these feelings evolving? How are your relationships with clients and peers growing and changing? These might seem like subjective aspects, but they are valuable data points that can guide your progress.

When you start to shift your Mindset on Sales you'll start doing some things you haven't before. Changing your behaviours. Those changes will have impact on you. At first you may feel fear, but that will likely lessen over time. You may feel joy when you get a positive response (remember to treat that imposter just the same ).

Your behaviour changes will also impact your peers. They'll see what you're trying and how it's affecting things. You'll have impact on your firm - culturally, as well as financially. And you'll impact the current and future clients you're starting conversations with.

Getting a true picture of these immediate impacts and the ripple effects that spread from them is necessary if you want to fully understand your behaviour changes. It can also help identify positive movement in an industry where hard outputs - like revenue from a new client - can take months to realise.

Learning new skills is hard. Shifting your mindset is even harder. Finding ways to gather data on how your new approach is landing in the world can help you stay the course when things get tough.

From consultant to sales person?

As you navigate your consulting journey some element of sales is inevitable. Consulting firms can't live without clients and revenue. Whether that is building multi-year relationships with your clients or bringing new logos in the door there is no escaping the need for revenue as you get more senior.

If that is scary for you I invite you to embrace this three-dimensional view of sales. Toolkit, Mindset, and Impact Analytics. Remember, sales isn't about convincing someone to buy something they don't need. It's about showing them how you can help solve their problems, and in doing so, offering them genuine value.

To get started, here are 5 practical steps you can take straight away:

• Reflect on your fears and preconceptions about sales. Write them down. Acknowledge them. This is your first step in overcoming them.
• Write down the stages of a Sales process with 2-3 specific things you might do at each stage. Reflect on which of those you find the most challenging and why.
• Identify 5+ clients you know have valued your support. Write down their names and why they valued you.
• Call those 5+ clients and ask them how things are going for them. Be curious. Aim to learn. Ask a lot of questions. Don't try to sell.
• Identify 1 single theme from those client calls. Write a LinkedIn post about it (tag me when you do!)

Let's face into the blockers many of us feel when it comes to Sales and have an honest conversation about shifting our Mindsets. Good luck!

Thanks for reading! When you're ready there are 3 ways Honeycomb can help you:

1. Consulting Skills training courses (9.2/10 average from 300+ ratings)

2. Our new small group Masterclasses, launching soon with a focus on visuals and slide design. Interested? Get in touch at?[email protected] ?

3. 1-2-1 Coaching services with our qualified executive coaches. Enquire now at?[email protected] ?

If you'd like to discuss training needs for your consulting team then feel free to book a no obligation call with me here , I'd love to help

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