Create Trust, Gain a Client

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Nothing improves business development more than gaining the trust of the potential client. Yet few consultants do what it takes to be trusted. We sell in ways that destroy rather than create trust because we misunderstand the buying decision.

Clients talk as if they focus only on features and price, but that’s not how they really decide. In contrast to the one-dimensional, linear models of the sales process that we all learn, their decisions are the result of a two-step process. The first step is screening, which is done fairly rationally. But the second step, selection, is much more emotional. Clients are not just rational decision makers calculating discounted present values and minimizing downside risk. They are also human beings, and human beings buy with their heart and then justify it with their head.

Our Errors

We undermine our efforts to build trust by making four basic errors:

We are overly rational. We forget that buying is an emotional as well as cognitive process. People need not only to be convinced but also to feel comfortable with their decisions. Above all, they need a consultant who listens to them.

Being right is vastly overrated. Earning the right to be right is where the action is and where most consultants fall down. An ounce of listening—paying attention, paraphrasing, conveying empathy, going where the client goes—is worth a pound of correct answers, references, and credentials.

To convince clients rationally, we must also approach them emotionally.

It’s too much about us. Clients usually ask us to tell them about ourselves.They don’t really mean it. They just don’t know what else to ask and don’t want to look ineffectual.

Imagine going out on a blind date with someone. Would you want to hear the person talk about the last 17 people he or she went out with? Of course not. Yet somehow we expect clients to be enthralled with all our past relationships. But their favorite subject is everyone’s favorite subject—themselves. Talking about ourselves doesn’t make us trustworthy. Talking about them, and particularly hearing about them, does.

Clients pay attention to us only if we first pay attention to them.

We are control oriented.Most sales training programs say to set goals for each meeting. Most consultants are delighted to take that advice. We say, “Just wait a bit, I’ll get to that in the next section.” We look at our watches when the client is talking about something other than our objective. If the client wanders to other topics, we gently but firmly bring the discussion back to our objectives. If we’re running out of time, we abandon lively client-driven conversations in order to get to our objectives. And if we walk out without our objectives achieved, we feel we have failed.

There are only two good objectives for every sales interaction. The first is to move the relationship forward, and the second is to help the client. If you have achieved the second objective, you’ve almost always achieved the first.

You gain the most control by giving it up.

We focus too much on the transaction. Most approaches to business development come from sales models for nonconsulting industries and are rooted in competition-based views of selling, in which the whole emphasis is on “getting the deal.” This is wrong for the consulting industry. Instead, the emphasis should be on “doing the next right thing for the client.” Getting the engagement becomes just another point in a developing relationship.

The best transactions happen when we do not focus on transactions but on relationships.

Our Emotional Resistance

While buyers are partly emotional, consultants are even more so. Even our resistance to the idea of selling on trust is itself largely emotional. There are several reasons for the emotional resistance that lies at the root of the sales process errors noted before.

We overrate content mastery. Most consultants work in subject areas that require in-depth technical competence. We’ve been hired, trained, compensated, and promoted almost entirely on the basis of technical mastery since the second grade. And so we reject selling based on “simple” or “soft” approaches because it sounds too “easy” or it “doesn’t seem to make sense.”

But that rejection has nothing to do with ease and everything to do with unease. We’re just not comfortable with processes that don’t depend on cognitive mastery. Our comfort zone is intellectual complexity. We distrust and are ill at ease with the messy emotional aspects of personal sales. We want to “think” our way into effective selling.

We focus too much on competition. The reigning paradigm in business is competition, not collaboration; me, not we; competitive advantage, not shared destinies. The competitive paradigm is ingrained. Think of the two most common metaphors for business: athletics and war. In neither is there a client. The very language of business reflects a preoccupation with competition. It’s difficult for anyone to leave such unconscious biases behind.

Many consultants haven’t sorted this out and are at odds with themselves. A part of them believes that selling is unethical; hence the desires for euphemisms like “business development” (phrased in the passive voice, as if to distance ourselves from any tainted intent). Those of us who feel this way become suspicious of trust, fearing that, if we use it, we might become manipulators. This view doesn’t give our clients much credit for thinking independently.

We’re unable to think paradoxically. Most consultants are linear thinkers. The ideas of dialectical logic (“we are never so alone as when in the middle of a crowd”) or paradox (“you gain the most influence by not seeking influence; to be heard, first listen”) is very difficult to accept. Paradoxes violate our comfort zone model of thinking, and thinking is something in which consultants are—paradoxically—very emotionally involved.

We cannot give up control. Most consultants desire control and dislike being controlled. But a need for control conflicts with transparency, collaboration, and client focus—three fundamentals of trust-based selling.

As long as a consultant believes the purpose of business development is to get sales (engagements), trustworthiness is at risk. The key is to reframe “sales” to mean the professional obligation of a consultant to help clients envision an alternate, preferable reality and then to help them get there. If we can see how things can be better for our clients, it would be unprofessional not to point it out to the client. That, by another name, is selling, which can be done in a way that creates trust during the business development process itself.

The Principles of Trust-based Selling

The only way to be trusted in consulting is to be trustworthy. Intent matters; there are no shortcuts. You can use the business development process to build trust by adopting the following four principles:

1. Client orientation for the sake of the client, not the consultant.

“Client focus” for the seller’s sake is the bogus focus of a vulture. True client orientation means we seek to address the client’s best interests, in the sales process as in all else. If that means another firm is best for the client, we say so, knowing that in the long run we get credit from present and future clients for being client focused for the client’s sake.

2. A medium- to long-term perspective.

Focus on the relationship, not the transaction. Perhaps we should say, “The relationship is the client.” Acting with a medium- to long-term perspective in mind also solves the usual sellers’ concern about the economics of trust: It means the economics of a particular project or transaction should be discussed in terms of fairness in the long run, rather than in competitive terms. A couple in a marriage quickly compromises on who takes out the garbage rather than belabor it to get the best deal. There is much more at stake in a serious relationship than getting the best deal in each transaction.

3. A habit of collaboration.

Business developers demonstrate trustworthiness by constantly involving the client-to-be. Don’t speculate about what clients are thinking—ask them. View the proposal-writing process as something that can be done collaboratively rather than as a competitive exercise in putting the best face forward. Value meetings over phone calls, and phone calls over letters and e-mails. Practice putting all issues on the table for joint discussion rather than negotiating from competitive positions.

4. A willingness to be transparent.

Nothing destroys client trust faster than the consultant who appears to be withholding information or trying to control the client. When you don’t know something, say so. When you haven’t got the perfect staff, say so. Be willing to be open about your pricing policies, leverage structures, and even staffing procedures. What you lose in control over perceptions is more than compensated for by the goodwill you get for being transparent.

Trust-based selling is not a sales process model but a powerful way of creating shared value for client and consultant alike. It is the application of these four principles to whatever process model you happen to use, as well as to the key aspects of business development: pricing, qualification, branding, staffing, dispute resolution, project management, and cross-selling

Addendum: How to Create Trust During Business Development

Write your next proposal sitting next to the client.

Instead of using FedEx or pdf files to submit your proposal, write it while sitting next to the client. Bring all your required information, and ask the client to do the same. Leave the room only when a joint proposal is finished, one understood by all and representing the best effort possible by one particular client and one particular consulting firm. Then detach yourself from the results, knowing you’ve done your level best to help the client.

Listen by paying attention.

A lot of what passes for listening in the consulting world is just waiting for the client to finish talking so we can start looking smart again. And, while we wait, we are thinking about what we are going to say to achieve that goal. We camouflage it through a variety of behavioral techniques—mirroring, head nods, and other nonverbal actions—but the fact is, our thoughts are elsewhere. The myth of multitasking is just that. Sadly, our clients know the truth when we nod knowingly (and absently) as they talk.

The most powerful way to listen is, very simply, to pay attention and to drop all else from the conscious mind. This does not just mean put the Blackberry away. It means stop thinking about what you’re going to do with what you’re hearing and just be there, fully, to hear what your client is saying. Period. Make listening a gift of your attention, not a skill you practice to use on others.

Think out loud.

The biggest reason we don’t listen by paying attention is that it’s scary. If we don’t think ahead, we might look silly, or worse yet, stupid. We might not be able to come up with a good idea on the spot. We might blurt out something we’d regret. We need the time to rehearse mentally. We need to put together a good response that moves the ball forward. Or so we think.

It is indeed risky, and risk taking requires courage, the courage to say, “Well, let me just try and process what you’ve told me here, uh, thinking out loud, now. Now, if what you say—I mean—no, wait, if the process time is really linked to the temperature range, like you said—didn’t you?—then, um, the temperature range also has a direct impact on customer satisfaction. I mean, isn’t that one of the implications of what you’re saying? And—well, say, how does that play in the rest of the organization? I don’t think I’ve heard others say that, is that right?”

Thinking out loud makes it clear that you’re not putting one over on them. It is the essence of collaboration; you are inviting the client to think with you, sharing even your thought process. And it is truly client focused. Not the focus of a vulture but focus for the client’s sake. Thinking out loud also increases your credibility and invites, by example, an increase in intimacy. The willingness to share the most precious thing we have, our conscious attention, demonstrates caring in the most fundamental way.

Sell by doing, not by telling.

Practice sample selling.Don’t tell clients how good you are; show them—using their issues. Don’t blitz them with credentials; demonstrate to them what your credential can do for them. People are far more impressed with actions than words, particularly actions on their behalf,

Say what you don’t know, as well as what you do know.

Many consultants try to sell by telling people how good they are. But most clients want to know about limits. They know you’re not perfect, no one is; they just want to know with whom they are dealing. Help them out, be straight with them. They will appreciate it.

Get in the habit of talking about yourself for only 90–120 seconds.

When your time is up, say, “But enough about me, let’s talk about you.” If the client wants more, give them more—another 90–120 seconds, then say, “But enough about me . . . .”

Be insatiably curious.

If you’re constantly curious, you’ll ask questions. You’ll learn. You’ll come up with great ideas. You’ll notice things. But most important, you’ll be focusing on the client, not yourself. Nothing creates genuine trust better than focusing on the client, not as a means to your ends but as an end in itself.

The Business Case For Trust

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Be honest. When you think of growth and profitability, is trust the first thing you think of? I doubt it.

The things that often come to mind when we talk about a successful practice are much more likely to sound like sustainable competitive advantage, hardball, you get what you negotiate, be number one or two in your market, first mover advantage, lowest cost producer, or share of wallet. But trust?

Usually we think of trust as an element that is nice to have, something associated with genteel behaviors which we can afford when things are going well but which have to take a back seat when push comes to shove. However, for those in the consultative professions or other complex intangible businesses—nothing could be farther from the truth.

What A True Trust Relationship Looks Like

A lot of what passes for trust isn’t. Trust isn’t high client satisfaction ratings—it isn’t even “client delight.” It’s not loyalty, as measured by retention rates. And it certainly isn’t being “client-focused,” because a great deal of client focus is done solely for the sake of such things as increasing the seller’s profitability and share of wallet.

Trust is personal, not institutional; it’s emotional, not just rational. Above all, it has to do with the firm’s intent. Is your intent to help the client, or is it to make money by helping the client? Your client knows the difference.

In one study of 2514 buyers by Bill Brooks and Tom Travesano (You’re Working Too Hard To Make The Sale, Irwin Professional Publishing, 1995), 94% of buyers who bought on the basis of needs said they would “certainly” consider buying from another provider.

And 91% of benefits-based buyers said they would “probably” do so. But in stark contrast, 99% of those who bought on the basis of wants said they would “absolutely not” consider buying elsewhere. That’s a dramatic difference – and it’s the kind of difference trust makes.

Howard Schwartz was the head of the financial services practice at a consulting firm, when he got a call from his counterpart at McKinsey. “One of our clients has urgent need of a project. We have tried twice and failed to deliver satisfactorily. This work has to get done – would you folks do it?”

Howard couldn’t believe it—a front door invitation to a McKinsey client. He took the job and his team did great work. But when he asked the client to consider doing more work with them, the client said “Thanks very much, great job, but we would never leave the firm that was big enough to bring you in. We know they’ll always do what’s right for us.” “And,” Howard said, “I couldn’t blame them a bit.”

The Economics Of Trust-Based Relationships

What happens when you get 99% declarations of absolute loyalty—when clients say they’ll “never” leave you on principle? The economics are massive.

A Harvard Business Review article (Collaboration Rules by Philip Evans and Bob Wolf , 2005) by BCG suggests that the US GDP is comprised of roughly 50% transaction costs and that the primary strategy for reducing those costs is trust. 50% of an entire economy is pretty big.

Now, on a micro-level, consider what happens when a client really trusts you. Your advice is taken; your insights are sought. Decision processes are fast-tracked. The costs of auditing, legal, and tracking disappear.

Your recommendations are taken at face value. The likelihood of RFPs is greatly reduced. You get asked in at earlier stages of issues. Disagreements are sorted out in furtherance of a long term good. Information is shared between professional and client, and points of view are welcomed rather than suspected.

The payables clerk gets your checks out on time, and you’re upgraded to preferred provider status so “on time” means what it says. Pricing is accepted as “fair.”

Finally, client loyalty based on trust is far higher and stronger than loyalty based merely on things like business processes or pricing. Mechanically, this raises the firm’s profitability through reduced sales costs and higher margins. But, more importantly, it makes the firm far more effective in helping its client.

The Client Benefits Of Trust

What about the benefits to the client? Economic benefits are even greater and come at three levels. First, the direct costs per transaction with a trusted provider are lower.

Second, when a provider understands client needs, that supplier is likely to make more appropriate suggestions, to better anticipate emerging needs and to make better recommendations. Those benefits are indirect, but probably outweigh first level benefits.

The highest client payoff of all comes from the ability to trust immediately and completely the advice of a talented outside expert without spending any time or resources on tweaking, critiquing, hedging checking, auditing or second-guessing. At this level, professionals are as dependable as our most-valuable employees, yet with the added benefits of expertise and objectivity that come from being an outsider.

With that confidence in the pocket, a firm can afford to fast-track processes, make far faster decisions, and take bold actions without fear. The benefits go past mere cost reduction, and instead towards achieving significant revenue and strategic enhancements.

The business case for trust ultimately rests far more on effectiveness than on efficiency. A trust-based client relationship enables far more effectiveness in the marketplace for both parties than do conventional relationships built on negotiations, contracts, and other indicators of arms-length treatment built on self-interest alone.

The Economic Paradox

It’s tempting to ask, “If all that’s true, why isn’t everyone doing it?” The answer is, because most of us have a really difficult time being trustworthy.

If a client trusts their provider in the way described above, the provider will be highly profitable and high-growth. But, if the firm sets out to be highly profitable and high-growth by means of being trusted, it will not work. Intentions matter and intentions are critical to being trusted.

The only way to be trusted in the way I’m speaking of is to be worthy of trust—to be trustworthy. The critical element to being trustworthy is to have the client’s best interests at heart all the time. And that goes to intent.

To intend to place the client’s interests first raises some radical implications. For example:

  • The purpose of a sales call is not to get the sale, but instead to help the client;
  • Your focus should be on work that needs doing, not on work that you can do;
  • Your ultimate strategic goals should be client service, not competitive advantage;
  • You should share, not hide, your economics with your client, because transparency fosters trust;
  • You should write your proposals sitting next to your client.

The paradox is: If you are willing to let go of your own short-term, self-oriented goals, you will achieve those goals. Your influence is greatest when you’re not trying to influence. Your profit is highest when your goal is not profitability by client service.

Barriers To Trust

Can it be done? Absolutely. Many successful individual professionals know the lessons of trust very well. But at the firm level, we have been seduced by the “reigning belief systems” of business: in particular, the ideas that business is about competition, and that ever-further refinement of measurements, particularly around client relationships, helps the economics.

Just because you can run division-level client profitability studies every week doesn’t mean you should do it. Just because you can calculate client share of wallet and hit rate on sales opportunities doesn’t mean you should focus on it. Those efforts turn clients into objects, means to our own ends.

Too many firms are focused too much on short-term measures and competitive definitions of success. We need to remember that the best short-term performance comes from executing on a long-term plan or set of principles.

Trust is the goal. The powerful economics of trust are merely a byproduct.

Clients, Values and Guiding Principles

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Vision, values, customer focus, guiding principles, trust. Those words are among the leading candidates for top business buzzwords of the last few decades. They do for eyes what Krispy Kreme does for donuts—put glaze all over.

Yet they do have meaning. Consider these three propositions concerning complex, intangible services businesses1 (CISBs):

  1. Four core values are axiomatic: client focus, collaboration, long-term perspective, transparency
  2. Vision matters less than values
  3. Clients matter more than competition

Of these, the first is the most fundamental. If we can get past the glaze-over effect of that proposition, the first two can almost be deduced from it. Let’s look at each of the 4 core values in turn, then at the issues of values vs. vision and clients vs. competition.

Value 1: Client Focus

By “client-focus,” I mean a pervasive set of both mindsets and behaviors that drive a client-based perspective and a habit of noticing and paying attention. At its heart is the deep belief that “if I consistently do right by my client, I too will be rewarded.” Here are just nine reasons why client focus is so critical to CISBs:

  • Consistent focus on the client’s best interests increases trust;
  • CISBs deal in complex problems—client-focus improves problem definition;
  • CISBs don’t know all the answers—client focus allows constant learning;
  • Clients won’t let you earn the right to offer solutions until they feel you’ve understood their situation—and that comes about by truly paying attention;
  • True client-focus is a competitive edge—few people really practice it;
  • Client focus encourages the client to share more, open up, give more access;
  • Client focus leads to collaboration by the client;
  • Client focus fosters acceptance of recommendations;

Being client-focused begins with a state of mindfulness, of paying attention and being open to a client’s issues and situation—as well as to a client’s concerns, desires and fears. Things which detract from this state of mindfulness are therefore destructive of client focus. Consider this very short list of unconscious, “harmless” things which actually serve to destroy client focus:

Destroyers of Client Focus—a small, partial list

  • Seeking to control the agenda or outcome of a meeting or phone call
  • Focus on one’s own “share of client wallet”
  • Waiting too long to talk about money issues
  • An inability to confront clients on difficult issues
  • A belief that problems will get better if just left alone
  • Focus on beating the competition
  • Cross-selling for its own sake, not the sake of the client
  • Pushing for a job when another firm is more qualified
  • A focus on credentials, rather than client issues, in the selling process
  • Seeing selling as unrelated to adding value
  • Being motivated by fears of how a client will perceive us as individuals
  • A preference for working “back at the office” rather than on client-site
  • Any attachment whatsoever to “winning” an argument
  • The belief that there are trade-offs between clients’ interests and our own

Some of these views may seem unduly restrictive. For example, how can there not be trade-offs from time to time between our interests and those of our clients? The answer is, because there is no good rule for deciding when we should act in our own interest vs. that of our client. Anything short of “the client’s interest rules” will destroy the client’s faith in whose interests we are serving, take away from client focus, and so on. The rule of client focus is truly a very demanding one, of necessity. Dialing back 10% on client focus reduces bene-fits disproportionately. Basically, client focus “when I feel like it” is a contradiction.

Value 2: Collaboration

If your interests are truly those of your client, then there are many reasons to collaborate. Benefits include sharing of perspectives, enhanced creativity, greater efficiency, more buy-in, greater honesty, fewer misunderstandings, greater trust, and division of labor, to name a few.

Why not collaborate? A loss of perspective must be guarded against, to be sure. You can’t afford to confuse collaboration with co-dependency. Yet, it is possible to retain strength of identity and objectivity and still work very collaboratively.

The truth is—the absence of collaboration is almost always due to a shallowness of belief in common goals, and/or an inability to confront. What things are hard to confront? Conflict; billing rates; personalities; staffing; and our own egos. Like client focus, collaboration has to be lived “hard” to get it right. Here are five stretch indicators.

You know you’re being truly collaborative when:

  • You write the proposal with the client
  • You run a sales meeting like an early phase project meeting
  • You openly discuss staffing, fees, rates and personalities with the client
  • You aren’t afraid to say “I don’t know” when you don’t—which is often
  • Both you and your client have strong points of view freely expressed.

Value 3: Long Term View

In the long term, there is no such thing as a win for the client and a loss for the firm; or a loss for the client and a win for the firm. In the long term, there are only two possibilities—win-win, and lose-lose. Seek one out, avoid the other.

The long term is the right perspective from which to view issues of investment and return. If you truly believe you will in the long term do well by serving your client, then you will be willing to make certain investments, perhaps even recommending someone better qualified for a particular job.

Don’t let this excuse low margins and “investment pricing.” The long-term view means that the provider firm must also prosper in the long run. A client doesn’t benefit from a few cut-rate golden eggs if it means killing the goose. You need the ability to have honest discussions with your client about the mutual levels of benefit accruing from a long-term view. In the long-term context, short-term problems often fade.

Five considerations for the long-term:

  • Sprinters don’t win marathons—in fact, they lose them.
  • Imagine doing the same deal 100 times. Would you and your client both take the deal—same price, terms, timing—all 100 times?
  • Be willing to push back on internal short-term pressures like sales goals and contests.
  • Learn to like deferred gratification.
  • Include long-term benefits, like annual savings, compound growth and cumulative reductions and increases, as well as short-term benefits like payback time.

Value 4: Transparency

Transparency in business is one of the most challenging values to uphold. CISBs have legitimately confidential information, that which pertains to privacy, proprietary technology or trade secrets. But much more non-confidential information is withheld from clients simply out of fear, either that a competitor might gain an advantage if they were to gain access to that information, or that the client would gain an advantage, either to challenge pricing or (worst case) to do the work themselves.

The real threat of any competitor gaining an advantage from non-confidential information is actually quite low. Even if they did know a firm’s pricing structure, methodology, client list, they likely wouldn’t have the structure or the ability to duplicate the results. There might be some small advantage, say undercutting pricing, but that would also likely be short-lived.

Similarly, clients hire CISBs to do work they don’t want to or cannot do themselves. Just because they see how you do your work, doesn’t mean they can do the work.

The real fear should be of the damage withholding information can do to a client relationship. Hiding information creates suspicion, which leads to fear, and less trust.

Be more transparent:

  • Talk about price early on, even before the client asks.
  • Answer direct questions directly, with no spin control.
  • Introduce all the customer-facing team members to the customer; make email addresses and phone numbers available.
  • If you’re worried about competitors getting hold of information you share with the client, ask them to keep it confidential.
  • Let your customers know your profit model.

Values and Clients, not Vision and Competition

For business at large, “strategy” largely means “competitive strategy.” The vocabulary of business is revealing—taking share, market penetration, competitive advantage, core competencies, segment strategies, scale advantage. All these terms are rooted in a perspective of “us” vs. “them,” where “them” is the competition. Companies win if their visions are more compelling, and their organizations more aligned to deliver. The marketplace is the arbiter of a zero-sum contest between winners and losers.

This system works well when customers also benefit directly from competition. But that connection is far more distant in complex, intangible services businesses. There may be many ways to distinguish a Jaguar from a Saab; but they pale in significance next to the different ways a simple piece of litigation can be handled.

When the problem is unique, when the seller and deliverers are individuals, when the product is abstract to begin with, then there exist infinite opportunities for nuance. If we can differentiate salt, chickens and water, then the opportunity to differentiate on the basis of human interactions is rich. This comes about by being client-centric.

Success in complex, intangible services businesses lies not in competitive differentiation, but in superior customization to the client at hand. Trust—built on client-focused, collaborative relationships with a long-term perspective—is the single most powerful reason for clients to join and stay. Do great and courageous work for your clients, and the market will take care of itself.
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1. Consulting firms, commercial banks, accounting firms, HR/benefits firms, law firms, enterprise software consulting, insurance and brokerage firms, private banking, search and staffing firms, architects, advertising and PR agencies, and internal functions like HR and IT.

Selling by Doing, Not Selling by Telling

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I found myself on the dais at a law firm offsite with the chief counsel of a Fortune 50 company, who told this story.

“We were going outside for some specialized counsel; we had reviewed the specs of a dozen firms, and really wanted top-notch capabilities. We narrowed it to three, and invited them in for 90-minute presentations.

The first one was excellent; great expertise, clearly knew our industry, and had done some homework that even gave us a few free answers. I thought it was over right there.

Then the second firm came in. They were if anything even better—more expert, more experienced, more value-added. Now we had a tough decision.

Then came firm 3. They said, “We have 90 minutes with you. We can either do the march of a thousand slides—which we’re happy to do—or we can get started, right now, and begin to work with you. After 85 minutes, we’ll stop, and you’ll have first-hand experience of just exactly how it feels to work with us.”

You know, I think they had me right there. But we did the 85, and sure enough they were very competent. There was no question about our decision; they had focused on us, not themselves; we got to know them better; instead of making great guesses, they asked us. They came to listen and to work, and to show their smarts in real-time, on our issues. You just felt you could trust them.”

What this firm did was simple and sensible. But just what did they do? Was it listening? Client focus? A sense of theater and willingness to take risks? A shrewd way to differentiate?

It was all these. But first and foremost, it was Selling by Doing, not Selling by Telling. Most providers of complex intangible services (law, accounting, consulting, software systems, commercial banking) think there is a big difference between doing and selling. Some even distinguish the roles. The good news is—the best selling is doing.

That is good news because we professionals already have confidence in our ability to deliver—it’s selling that’s often scary.

Why Is Doing the Best Selling?

Complex, intangible services are—well, complex and intangible. They cannot be grasped physically; even their consequences are hard to evaluate. They are hard to understand, even for buyers of those services. The seller knows more than the buyer; in fact, it is access to precisely that expertise which the buyer seeks.

Buyers thus have a choice—they can try to evaluate the expert’s level of expertise, or they can assess how much they trust the expert. To properly evaluate expertise, the buyer would have to possess the very expertise he is trying to acquire. Not surprisingly, buyers prefer to screen on acceptable levels of expertise, then base final decisions on trust.

Complex intangible services have one thing in common with perfumes and wines—they are best bought by sample. Sampling an expert means having them practice on your own issues—not on someone else’s. You can hear lists of qualifications, but you don’t know if they apply to you. You can hear a dozen testimonials, but you have no way of knowing if your situation is comparable. A 3rd party’s opinion doesn’t carry the same emotional weight as one’s own direct experience.

Selling by Doing means giving samples—doing real client work, in real-time. It makes all that abstract expertise directly relevant. Selling by Doing shows an other- orientation, demonstrates a willingness to take risk, and exemplifies collaboration. It adds value rather than talking about adding value, and shows a commitment to the client.

Selling by Doing adds value, feels genuine, is client-focused, collaborative, and makes the abstract feel tangible. No wonder it beats Selling by Telling.

So Why Do Sellers Still Sell by Telling, not by Doing?

Two factors lock sellers into “Selling by Telling,” not Selling by Doing. First is that Selling by Telling is the norm in other businesses, and therefore the norm for most sales books, sales training and salespeople.

But other businesses are different; here are just a few examples. Quality in other businesses consists of zero defects, not of an unlimited upside. Sales contracts typically imply a change in legal title, with financial implications like insurance and liability. You can touch and see the goods. And most sellers speak plain language, rather than that of a profession.

Secondly, sellers overrate the importance of expertise. They do so because of the huge investment they have made in mastering their area of expertise, and because all of their career—including rewards and reinforcements—has been focused on increasing technical mastery. Buyers contribute to this as well; for their own complex set of reasons, buyers also act on the surface as if the evaluation of technical expertise is what is important to their buying decision. They frequently ask technical questions, even if they’re not sure how to evaluate the answers, because they feel it is a required part of their role as buyer.

Most sellers therefore practice Selling by Telling. They put a great deal of stress on credentials, qualifications, years of experience, office locations, functional depth of capabilities, industry credentials, and so on.

Credentials are key to getting in the door. Once in the door however, the continued repetition of credentials is useless or even harmful. Doing so is about the seller, not about the buyer, whereas every buyer prefers to talk about him- or herself rather than about the seller. And it doesn’t provide the opportunity to buy by sampling.

Think back to the most recent client sales opportunity you faced. Ask yourself what proportion of your prep time was spent on how to communicate credentials and qualifications, vs. how to ask great questions and engage the client in meaningful dialogue about the real issues at hand.

Then think about your concerns just before the meeting. Were you worried about how to control the meeting to get your points across? Or about how to collaboratively move toward a joint understanding of the issue at hand? Finally, in the meeting itself, how much time was spent by your firm talking about your capabilities, vs. how much time spent by the client giving you answers to rich, open-ended questions?

Remember: you’re in a samples business. Let your credentials get you in the door. Then help your clients by giving them a sample of how you work; do so by genuinely asking about and beginning to work on their own real issues. That’s how trust gets created, and business won. Sell by Doing, don’t Sell by Telling.

What Buyers Really Want

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The head of marketing for a US East Coast major law firm was recently asked by 3 partners to help rehearse and prepare them for a key sales meeting at a major potential new client. “If only we can convince them that we are absolutely the best in this area, which we are,” the lead partner said, “then they’ll have to go with us.”

This point of view seemed so self-evident to the senior partner that it didn’t feel like an opinion; it seemed like an obvious truth. Unfortunately, not only is it just an opinion—it also is not particularly accurate.

Lawyers, accountants, bankers, actuaries, consultants—all behave more often than not as if the key to selling lies in a powerful display of expertise. Most complex intangible services sales are sold with the implicit, if not explicit, belief that expertise is the issue. But that doesn’t make it right. And if it’s not right, then we must answer three questions:

  • if expertise doesn’t sell best, then what does?
  • don’t buyers seem to want to buy expertise?
  • if selling expertise isn’t the best approach, why is it the dominant one?

Good questions all. The answers lie in the psychology of buyer and seller of complex intangible services, and in trust—which is what really lies at the heart of successful sales.

What’s the Alternative?

If buyers don’t primarily buy expertise, then what are they buying? The answer, in a word, is trust.

Take a simple case. Imagine you have recently moved to a new city, and must find a pediatrician for your 2-year old child. You have a list of 6 doctors, referrals from a combination of health plans, co-workers and neighbors. One doctor clearly has a slight edge in reputation of medical school; another has the most years’ experience; another is on staff at a teaching hospital and has written several articles.

But there is one who hits it off immediately with your 2-year old. This pediatrician connects with and seems genuinely focused on your interests as a parent and on those of your child, rather than on getting you as a new patient. In other technical respects, this physician is in the top half, but not number 1 in any category.

What do you do? Not everyone, but a majority nonetheless, will go for the pediatrician who seems to care, as long as he or she is within an acceptable range of expertise. And, they will use the word “trust” to describe their decision. There are exceptions, of course; a few people always buy purely on the basis of technical specifications, a few more buy only on price, and occasionally one seller is overwhelmingly dominant in the technical realm.

But the majority behave as if expertise has an acceptability threshold. Achieving that threshold is a necessary condition for getting hired—but even expertise beyond the threshold is not a sufficient condition. Given an acceptable level of expertise, people prefer—strongly—to buy from someone whom they trust. In other words, expertise serves as a first-order screen in the buying process—but not as a final decision-making criterion.

To put it simply: most buyers of complex intangible services prefer to find an expert they can trust, rather than to evaluate expertise across experts.

Then Why Don’t Buyers Behave that Way?

They do. They just don’t say so. There’s a difference.

First, buyers are a little intimidated by the role of buyer. Usually the seller has greater expertise. There is often a lot at stake, and the services are costly. It is often truly hard to choose between several very competent sellers. So, buyers feel a need to display some level of technical expertise themselves, partly out of natural human ego, and partly to keep the seller on his toes.

Second, corporate buyers of complex intangible services are usually professionals themselves—they worship at the same altar of expertise. And, they are particularly concerned to be able to justify their decision. Justification in business almost always consists of rational, mostly financial, arguments. Therefore buyers drive discussions in the technical direction, even while looking to assess their level of trust with the sellers.

How does this play out? Buyers look for rational reasons to justify what is finally an emotional decision, built heavily on trust. The most commonly accepted rational reasons are price and features. (Price is a very comfortable excuse for saying no—it is quantitative, impersonal, and only the buyer has all the numbers. However, price is rarely given as a positive reason for selection). Very few chief counsels will say to their CEO or board nothing more than, “I think we should go with XYZ because, basically, I think like them better and trust them more.” Yet that is how most of us do behave when buying complex intangible services.

Then Why Do Sellers Sell Expertise?

Professionals over-emphasize expertise for three reasons.

First, that’s what they think (falsely) the buyer wants— and the buyer encourages them in that belief.

Second, expertise is what we professionals are most comfortable with. Very few lawyers went into law because they wanted to sell, or because they wanted to work with people. They went because they love the law, and the vast majority of their learning, development, evaluations and study consist of greater and greater mastery of content expertise. The same is true for consultants, commercial bankers, accountants and actuaries. Why would anyone want to sell on any other basis than what they’re good at and spend all their time and energy at?

Finally, professionals have an emotional vested interest in selling on expertise. It is not comfortable to believe that success in selling might depend on something other than what we spend almost all our time and energy focused on. Still, it’s the truth.

Most buyers of complex intangible services prefer to use technical expertise as a screening mechanism, and then make final decisions based on trust. Sellers who recognize this will listen more, talk less, and focus on the issues of the client at hand (rather than those of past clients). These simple client-focused behaviors are the ways buyers assess trust. Get yourself in the door by focusing on expertise; but once in, drop it and focus on the client, not on yourself.

Ten Myths About Selling Intangible Services

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The biggest difference between selling “things” and intangible services is the pivotal role of trust. Trust is even more critical to selling intangible services[1] than it is to selling things. Sellers of intangible services intuitively know this, but think that “selling” is destructive of trust. Many intangible services providers feel that selling is even unprofessional and unethical. Their professional lives are therefore fraught with contradiction. Not to mention they sell poorly!

All this angst and low performance comes about because intangible service providers believe a few myths. These myths comp partly from the world of selling “things,” and partly from projecting ideas about technical expertise onto clients. The myths seriously get in the way of developing business. Even more importantly, they keep providers from fully serving their clients—despite their best intentions.

Myth 1. It’s About Winning

Thinking in terms of “winning” leads insidiously to thinking in terms of winners and losers. Few providers consciously want to “beat” their clients—but they end up behaving that way! They talk about “share of wallet,” about bargaining or negotiating with their clients, about “controlling the agenda,” and about “managing expectations.” Each of these frames of reference sound innocent enough, but they rapidly degrade into a competitive perspective.

The world of selling things is full of zero-sum metaphors. Flight magazine ads say you’ll lose the sale to someone who can negotiate better. In technology businesses you’ll hear that only the paranoid survive. GE’s strategy was to be number 1 or number 2 in every business. The message in all these zero-sum pieces of wisdom is you’ve got to beat out someone else in order to win, and winning is everything. That works for selling things. But when it comes to selling intangible services, those insights pale before one other:

Do the Right Thing for the Client


Choose your mantra and repeat frequently:

  • “The only win worth winning is win-win”
  • “The only way I win is if my client wins”
  • “Winning a win-lose proposition is losing”
  • “I will always and only do well by doing good”
  • “If I focus on helping my client, it will always eventually pay off for us both.”

Myth 2. Selling is Unprofessional.

Take this three-part self-test. First—if you saw, with crystal clarity,

an opportunity outside your own area of expertise for a client to significantly improve her business—would you consider it a professional obligation to point it out to her?

Second: suppose that the opportunity you see so clearly isn’t imm

ediately

obvious to your client. Do you have a professional obligation to spend a little ti

me working out the best way

to communicate your insight, so your client can also see the opportunity?

Finally: suppose that the crystal-clear opportunity also happens to be within your area of expertise? Do you have a professional obligation to spend a little time working out the best way to communicate that value?

If you answered ‘yes’ to all three questions, then ask yourself one last question—what exactly is the difference between selling and what you just described? If you are honest with yourself and your client about the value of what you have to offer, then it is the essence of professionalism to aggressively and pointedly help the client see that value as well as you are privileged to see it.

There is of course one critical caveat in all the above. You do have to be right about the technical issue. Selling based on trust doesn’t mean you can avoid expertise; in fact, it means you have to assume it.

Myth 3. Clients Know What They Want.

They don’t. Particularly when they insist they do.

If clients knew what they wanted, they could (and they sometimes do) draft their own wills, design their own information systems, manage their own financial portfolios. But the daily stock in trade of an intangible services provider generally looks like a black art to the client. We all know the basics about cars and hamburgers, but not about probate or XTML or media buys.

Remember, clients are also victims of sales myths. They are afraid of being conned by salesmen, so they respond by tightly bounding the problem statement, to prevent being taken advantage of. The most fearful clients end up using RFP processes. Only the most self-confident clients admit that they themselves don’t fully understand the problem—which is precisely why they seek out experts. A well-defined problem makes the answer look easy. The real expertise and art lie in defining the problem.

Myth 4. Clients Mainly Want Experience and Credibility.

Most providers think that clients are focused on experience and credibility. No surprise there—most clients would say the same thing. But dig a little deeper.

Of course, clients use experience as a qualifier—to see who makes the short list to be invited in. They also use it as a justification to anyone who might question their choice. Clients also want to impress the provider with some level of knowledge, partly to guard against being taken advantage of. But those are all ways of narrowing the field or preventing harm. They don’t positively help assess trust.

Remember—clients don’t want to be experts in the provider’s field. If they did, they’d have gotten their own degree or certification. They also know they will need that expertise again in the future. What they would really love to have, if only they could be so fortunate, is confidence in an expert on whom they could then rely repeatedly. Clients don’t seek to trust their own expertise—they seek experts they can trust.

Most providers try to create trust by talking about their experience and credentials. Clients therefore assume that these are the important criteria to talk about. So most client/provider sales dialogues end up being a lot about experience and credibility. The implicit message is—“you can trust me because I’m telling you I did well by someone else who you don’t know, but who I’ll tell you about.” Which is why most buyers throw up their hands and focus on features and price.

The alternative is to establish real trust. Real trust gets established by working on this client’s issue, not the last client’s issue. Real trust comes from being demonstrated, not just talked about. Clients aren’t really interested in what you did for your last client; they want to know what you can do for them.

Clients’ main vehicle for assessing trust is your ability to address the issue facing them, head-on, with all its emotional complexities. The great news here is—you sell by doing. This is a samples business. You don’t sell intangibles by talking about them, but by demonstrating just what it feels like to work together.

The beauty of that is—it’s what you already do for a living anyway.

Myth 5. Just Do Good Work, the Business Will Come.

Providers wish that they could be judged on their merits, on the basis of the good work that they do. Hence one of the most pernicious myths about selling; the idea that “the best way to sell is just to do good work.”

This is not all wrong—certainly good work has a significant effect on a client’s predilection to buy more. And occasionally clients do in ask you to start work on the next project. But usually you have to take some action.

In the world of selling “things,” the admonition is usually “you’ve got to ask for the business.” But it’s different with intangible services. For intangible services, just “asking for the business” rarely works, particularly if your only qualification is good—even great—work on the last project. Great work on the last project just says you’re best qualified to do the next project. The real issue to be addressed is—just what is the next project?

If the client doesn’t see—viscerally, tangibly, emotionally—what the next project is, you can “ask for the business” all you want, but the client won’t see any business to be given. You won’t look like a hustler; but you will look out of touch with reality.

To sell the next project, you have to help the client see:

  1. that his or her business can be improved
  2. how it can be improved
  3. how you would go about improving it. Which you do by doing.

And as we saw while exploding Myth 2—that’s just part of your job as a professional. Focus not on your service offerings, but on what the client needs. Figure out how to deliver those needs. Start working.

Myth 6. Our Integrity is Constantly at Stake.

Stop making life so hard. Clients rarely challenge our integrity; we do that to ourselves by seeing things in terms of ego conflicts. There’s no need to engage on that level, and it usually just leads to conflict.

Do you find yourself muttering, “My client is a jerk?” Does your firm have a favorite story about the sale you walked away from rather than compromise your integrity? Are you constantly feeling pricing pressure or “scope creep” from your clients?

If so, you are caught up in a variation of Myth 1—the idea that our clients’ interests are at odds with our own. If there is an ego struggle with our client, then our client may or may not be in the wrong—but we definitely are. All those thoughts are simply variations of a failure to find common ground, a shared perspective. And if there is no common ground, there is no basis for win-win.

Differences of opinion are a fact of life. If we approach them calmly, we always have two choices—we can keep trying to find a common ground, or we can walk away. Sometimes it is right to walk away. But when that walk is colored with emotion, angst and a sense of moral righteousness, it’s rarely about integrity. It simply means we have let our ego get engaged. And ego engagement is self-focus, not client-focus. Give it up.

Myth 7. Being Right is Critical.

Most intangible services providers think and behave as if having the right answer is the critical element to the sale. It isn’t. Having the right answer is not even a necessary condition for getting a sale; it is far from being a sufficient condition.

How many times have you known with great certainty that your proposed solution to a client was the best one—highest value, least expensive, easiest to implement, best in the long term, and so on—and yet had the client reject it? It is tempting to impugn the client’s intelligence when this happens; but it simply indicates that you did not earn the right to offer a solution.

This doesn’t mean you can stop working at being right, or that it’s easy. You can’t, and it’s not. Intangible services are complex, requiring great study and continued diligence to stay on top of. Unfortunately, if you work hard and stay on top of things, all you have earned is the right to earn the right to be trusted. Your hard work won’t sell itself, nor even differentiate you from the many others who have worked equally hard and are (nearly) as expert as you.

Myth 8. Client Focus is a Matter of Process Design.

A fast food chain, an automobile company or a computer manufacturer may be able to engineer customer focus into its business processes. But for a provider of intangible services, customer focus is a self-willed psychological act. It is inescapably personal, human and individual.

It is tempting, particularly for large intangible services organizations like banks or accounting firms to borrow a page from the sellers of “things.” They can design processes to systematically track leads through stages in a funnel process, or bring CRM systems to bear. In the world of intangible services, these processes end up being places of refuge for people who are nervous about client contact. They end up filling out forms rather than meeting with clients. And since intangible services selling is so personal, that ends up being destructive rather than helping matters.

Clients buy on trust. A client knows in his or her tummy whether or not you are paying attention, whether or not you care about them, and whether or not you are truly listening to what they say. You can’t fake client focus. It’s personal. No CRM system in the world can overcome it.

Myth 9. It’s About Me.

It’s not. It’s about the client. Always.

It’s natural enough for a provider to feel the pressure personally. After all, the client very much is evaluating the trustworthiness, the personal characteristics, of the seller. But the client has his own fears; he doesn’t care about yours. Truth be told, he may be more afraid of you than you are of him.

You make it worse, not better, by obsessing about your tie, your PowerPoint slide deck, your rehearsed points, your litany of capabilities. Do not try to look smart. Do not worry about looking dumb, or wise, about solving the problem or controlling the agenda. Do not count the names you drop, the methodologies you explain, or the references you plan to mention. Come prepared to have all these things, but plan to use none of them. It’s not about you. It’s about the client.

What you think adds to your credibility usually either intimidates or bores the client—because it’s about you, not about the client. Limit yourself to 60-second answers, maximum, then turn it back to the client. Anything more is about you, not about the client. And it’s about the client. Always.

Myth 10. The Objective is to Get the Sale.

Revisit the mantras from Myth 1. The point is not to get the sale—the point is to help the client. If you help the client, you’ll probably get the sale. If you don’t get this sale, you’ll probably get the next one. If you don’t get that one, you’ll get another. If you don’t get that one, write it off, and return to step one—help the client. If you consistently do that, word will get around. Because that kind of caring is rare, and highly prized by clients.

Bonus Myth 11. Leads are Scarce.

In the world of selling things, leads are scarce. Airlines, hotels, automobile companies all fight fiercely for share points—with good reason. There are only so many airline flights that will be made; so many hotel rooms that will be booked; and so many automobiles that will be bought.

There are fewer boundaries in the intangible services. Every client is miles from perfection on dozens of dimensions. Each could have better marketing strategies, more customized systems, more effective customer service or fulfillment processes.

In other words, every existing client is brimming with potential leads. Yet many intangibles firms spend huge amounts of resources on leads, making three mistakes:

  1. Focusing too much on new clients they don’t know, instead of on existing clients
  2. Talking with each other about potential client needs rather than with the client
  3. Focusing on service offerings rather than on client needs.

Firms do this for various reasons, but chief among them is that they are focused on themselves, not on the client. They have forgotten the truth that:

If given the choice, buyers of intangible services greatly prefer to buy the things they need from someone they trust.[2]

If you help your client explore solutions—to all their problems, including solutions you yourself can’t provide—you’ll get your share of sales. Does that mean lawyers should point out systems needs? Yes, if they’re real and you can see them. Does that mean you should refer your client to a competitor? Yes, if the competitor can address a particular need better than you can. Stop worrying about yourself; serve the client.

Leads are not scarce—they are a commodity. What is scarce is imagination and generosity. Imagination to see the potential in alternative realities. Generosity to give of our attention to help focus on making our clients’ lives better, believing simply that if we do so, we too will prosper.

1. Intangible services include: the professions—law, accounting, consulting, advertising and PR; HR, internal consultants and staff functions like law and accounting; many financial services—private banking, financial advising, insurance, and brokerage; B2B software—ERP and CRM systems and databases; and various out-sourced corporate functions like call centers, telecom/computer service contracts, benefits administration, and real property management. (return to top)

2. Credit for a variation on this insight goes to Bill Brooks and Tom Travesano, You’re Working Too Hard to Make the Sale, McGraw Hill, 1995.

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Conducting the Sales Conversation

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People in intangible services businesses[1] often don’t like being seen as salespeople; and they especially don’t like seeing themselves as salespeople. At the heart of their discomfort is the face-to-face sales conversation itself, which many professionals feel is somehow unprofessional and unethical. They want to be trusted, and they feel that selling violates trust. Until they resolve that contradiction—until they believe that trust and selling are not inconsistent—they never will feel at ease selling.

Buying a professional service is less about rational decision-making than it is an exercise in risk-reduction. Simply put, trust is potentially the most powerful driver of client buying behavior for intangible services. When genuine trust is present, it overwhelms other considerations. Buyers focus less than providers think on evaluating solutions, and more than they think on assessing trust. Buyers don’t trust themselves to be experts—they want experts they feel they can trust.

It isn’t just providers who cause lapses in trust creation. Clients—almost always without meaning to do so—frequently derail the trust creation process. The main reason for both parties’ lapses is fear. The provider is afraid of rejection, of losing the business, but especially of not having the answer—a failure which he or she experiences personally as a failure of professionalism. The client’s primary fear is being bamboozled—taken advantage of through ignorance of an area where the provider is the acknowledged expert.

When the trust process is followed by both buyer and seller, trust is created and trust-based buying can happen. When the process is violated—usually by jumping ahead in the sequence—trust is not created, and may even be destroyed. The buyer is then forced back to choosing on the basis of features and price—something he or she would prefer not to do.

The development of trust can be described in a five-stage process — shown in Figure 1 — that is the heart of trust-based selling. The potholes of selling arise from violating the five-step sequential process of trust creation.

Figure 1. Trust Development Process (ELFEC)[2]

Engage the client in an open discussion about issues that are key to the client;
Listen to what is important and real to the client; earn the right to offer solutions;
Frame the true root issue, without the language of blame, via caveats, problem statements and hypotheses; take personal risks to explore sensitive issues—articulate a point of view; create by giving away;
Envision an alternate reality, including win-win specific descriptions of outcomes and results, including emotional and political states; clarify benefits—make clear what’s at stake; be tangible about future states;
Commit to actionable next steps that imply significant commitment and movement on the part of each party.

There are two players in the trust game—provider and client. Each can violate the five steps of trust creation; 2 players x 5 steps equals 10 potholes on the road to trust.

Figure 2 shows how providers—and clients—can violate the trust process by getting stuck in the potholes.

Figure 2: The Ten Trust Process Potholes

Potholes can be caused by the Provider…
…or caused by the Client

Each trust process violation results in a different, specific mistake. Words are sometimes the cause and sometimes the effect of problems, but always provide the clue of what pothole we’re stuck in. Table 2 shows the typical language by which we can recognize each mistake. Play back your own sales conversations in your mind and see how many potholes you recognize.

Table 2: Spotting the Ten Potholes—Verbal Tip-Offs

Actor
Pothole
Provider Client
Engaging too long P1.”Let me tell you all about us and about all our past clients.” C1. “So, tell us more about you, and why we should use you”
Listening 1- dimensionally P2.”Let me get the following data; OK, got it, thank you very much.” C2. “I’m busy, let’s stay focused, what do you need to know, here’s the data.”
Framing too soon P3. “Your problem is XYZ… and we’ve seen it before” C3. “Let me tell you our issue, and what we need you to do”
Envisioning unclearly P4. “This is really going to make X, Y and Z a whole lot better for you” C4. “What we need to get out of all this is…”
Committing too soon P5. “Why don’t we…” —”What if we…” —”What you need to do is…” C5. “You’re the expert, what do you recommend?” —”So, um, what should we do?”

Following is a pothole-by-pothole listing, including what drives us into the pothole, why it is a problem, what can be done about it, and—especially—what to say.

Pothole P1. Provider Engages too Long

“Let me tell you all about us and about all our past clients.”

Why It Happens

Providers believe that clients are interested in their credentials. After all, that’s what they asked about, what the provider spent so many years accumulating, what the provider’s peers always talk about at conventions, and what client conversations are usually about. But clients are only interested in credentials as qualifying tools—they are table stakes. They expect you to have expertise; the question is, are you the expert who can make them confident and comfortable?

Why It’s a Problem

Clients have probably spent a considerable amount of time deciding whether or not to invite you in for a conversation in the first place. Once you are in the door, they are not particularly interested in rehashing the reasons that got you there; they want to hear what you have to say about them, not about your last client. And, they are impatient to find out, no matter how polite they may sound (see C1). Since clients are on some level afraid of the experts’ expertise, continued display of that expertise actually has a negative effect.

What to Do

For the most part, talk about credentials only if the client asks about them; and then, limit the amount of time you spend talking about them.

What to Say:

“Let me speak briefly about us, then move on to you. I’ll expand on any point you wish, but I want to make sure our focus is on you.”

Pothole C1. Client Engages too Long

“So, tell us more about you and why we should use you?”

Why It Happens

This is usually a “holding pattern” comment by a client who is afraid. It may be a client who is inexperienced at dealing with professionals. It is natural, when a problem is still not clearly defined in the client’s mind, to feel hesitant about sharing that lack of clarity with someone who feels like a stranger. In either case, until trust is created, fear rules.

Why It’s a Problem

When a client over-focuses on qualifications, the real client issues are not being talked about. The implicit message is that the client will make the decision alone, without benefit of any real “sample” of the provider’s ability applied to the issue at hand. You wouldn’t choose a pediatrician for your child by reviewing credentials alone; you want to see how your child and the pediatrician interact, then make up your mind.

What to Do

Answer the questions directly, then ask for permission to move along the real issues.

 

What to Say:

“Well, one significant thing about us is [XYZ]. People use us for different reasons, however, depending on their situation. Would it be OK to talk about your specific situation? Then I could say more about why us, or not us.”

Pothole P2. Provider Does 1 Dimensional Listening

“Let me get the following data; OK, got it, thank you very much.”

Why It Happens.

The main reason providers listen one-dimensionally is they think the sales conversation is about content mastery and expertise. That is what the provider has prepared for. He or she then believes that the role of listening is to confirm or disconfirm rational hypotheses created in advance of the meeting. But that’s only one role of listening, and in many ways not the key role.

The second reason for inadequate listening is fear of appearing ignorant. Most providers use too much airtime. What passes for listening is really time spent waiting for the client to stop talking so that they can demo more content expertise. You know when this happens to you; so do your clients.

Why It’s a Problem

All client interactions must involve listening in three dimensions. The first dimension is obvious—getting the data. The second dimension is understanding the context. The vital third dimension, often overlooked, is acknowledgement.

You may have asked all the right questions, even made sure to understand the context, but if the client doesn’t know that you understand what you have heard, then you will not have earned the right to proceed further in the discussion. You may move on to framing, envisioning, and commitment—but if you haven’t earned the right, the client is waiting for you way back at listening, and you will not get the sale. Understanding is only half the battle; the client must have grounds to know you understand.

All this applies, by the way, not just to rational data, but to the non-rational side of things as well. If you don’t remember to ask how your client feels about an issue (data), or why (context), much less forget to acknowledge their feelings (empathy), you will equally fail to earn the right. Listening is a three dimensional activity.

What to Do

Focus a bit more on context, a lot more on acknowledgment. Resist the urge to fill up quiet spots by talking, wait for the client to talk.

What to Say:

“Tell me more. How did that come about? What’s behind that? I want to make sure I’ve got this right, let me play it back. Wow, that must have been…”

Pothole C2. Client Invites 1-Dimensional Listening

“I’m busy, let’s stay focused, what do you need to know, here’s the data.”

Why It Happens

Providers can be somewhat in awe of their clients; they forget that the clients are also somewhat afraid of them! A perfectly natural client response to this concern is to keep the conversation in a tightly bounded area by controlling the agenda, the time, and particularly by keeping the discussion within largely rational bounds (“You take the risk, Mr. Consultant, I’ll just lay back here and second-guess you.”)

Why It’s a Problem

If the agenda is too controlled, the time too tightly managed, and the discussion limited to pre-determined and largely rational areas, then the issue can’t be fully explored. Any outcomes are compromised from the outset. Even if you happen upon the right answer, you haven’t acknowledged the client’s feelings, which means that on some level you haven’t earned the right to move forward—even if it was the client who kept you from earning that right.

What to Do

Take on 98% of the responsibility for understanding the issue. Ask for help, furrow your brow, confess ignorance and profess concern for getting it right. Make yourself unthreatening and willing to take guidance from the knowledgeable party, the client.

What to Say:

“All right, I see what you’re saying. Now—please help me understand what led to that problem, what’s behind it, how you came to see this is as the central issue—please tell me more so I can understand it almost as well as you. Let me make sure I got that; gosh, that must have been…”

Pothole P3. Provider Frames too Soon

“Your problem is XYZ…and we’ve seen it before.”

Why It Happens

Most providers evaluate themselves on the basis of their technical excellence. They expect their clients to do so as well. When they listen, they are listening mainly to “figure out” the problem, the answer, and how they can help solve it.

Why It’s a Problem

Being first with the answer may have been important in school, but it doesn’t help create trust—it can make you look smug. You may think it adds credibility to say you’ve seen a client’s problem before, but the client can experience it as trivializing their problem and as depersonalizing the interaction. Be careful.

What to Do

Just “don’t go there.” Don’t do it. Resist the temptation to speak. Until, that is, you’ve really completed the Listening phase.

What to Say:

If you really can’t resist the temptation to speak, you might say, “Let me just make a note to come back after we talk more and ask you about XYZ as an issue here; now, please go on, tell me more.”

Pothole C3. Client Frames too Soon.

“Let me tell you our issue and what we need you to do.”

Why It Happens

Most clients think it is their responsibility to define the problem clearly. Many are afraid that if they don’t, they will be taken advantage of. And many have a vested emotional interest in their issue statement, having gone through various difficulties to arrive at it.

Why It’s a Problem

The real problem almost never turns out to be what the client said it was in the first place. This has nothing to do with any client inadequacy; it is the nature of complex situations that they are not transparently clear at first sight. Jumping too soon to framing the problem statement sets in concrete something that needs to evolve. Framing too soon means plans, budgets, expectations, work steps and mindsets are all locked in. And once locked in, they are difficult for both parties to revisit.

What to Do

Work the trust process sequence—go back to listening. Don’t fight framing with framing—don’t argue the case. Move back to listening, and seek to understand what went into the framing. If it’s incorrect, it’ll be revealed in due time, without anyone having had to appear wrong. Do not engage in a framing debate before you have a shared view of the data; you will simply frustrate the client and lose the argument. The only thing you’ll convince the client of is that you are argumentative and arrogant.

What to Say:
“All right, I see what you’re saying. Now—please help me understand what led to that problem, what’s behind it, how you came to see this is as the central issue—please tell me more so I can understand it almost as well as you.”

Pothole P4. Provider Envisions Unclearly.

“This is really going to make X, Y and Z a whole lot better for you.”

Why It Happens

Envisioning is the most comfortable of the five trust process steps for both client and provider. This is because it deals with optimism, the future, blue-sky and possibilities. Clients and providers are both so glad of a chance to agree on positive, forward-looking things that they can end up nodding their heads in agreement to something that doesn’t really exist. Finding common ground is indeed critical; but you can’t afford to find it just by climbing up the ladder of abstraction. Good envisioning has to include some very concrete, tangible examples.

Why It’s a Problem

Envisioning is a key part of the trust-building process that is sometimes overlooked. It articulates desired end-states. It helps clients see what is at stake, and helps identify measurements of success. But if not preceded by listening and framing, envisioning alone can be vague and overstated. It can lead to misunderstandings unless anchored in specifics. The risk is that the client will make tacit assumptions about what you’ve said; and tacit assumptions are disagreements-in-waiting.

What to Do

Pepper your visioning discussion with tangibles. Ask general questions, but then follow them up with specific questions or ideas to make the general idea tangible.

What to Say:

For every general question like “Let’s think about this three years out,” ask three tangible questions, like ” what would a typical day look like?” or “how many customers would we have then?”

Pothole C4. Client Envisions Unclearly.

“What we need to get out of all this is…”

Why It Happens

As noted above, both clients and providers want very much to be in agreement with each other. Ironically, in their haste to find common ground, they sow the seeds for later disagreement.

Why It’s a Problem

Many clients don’t naturally envision; a client that does so is quite helpful. The risk is that the provider and the client don’t share the envisioning jointly. What feels to you like a general directional statement aimed at alignment may be heard by the client as a commitment to a specific end-state deliverable. That is a recipe for misunderstandings of a very high order.

What to Do

If a client says, “We expect this to have a major impact on our corporate culture,” you need to have a specific discussion about what the end-state corporate culture will look like. Note: this is not the same as discussing how to get there; that is step 5, commitment.

What to Say:

“Well, that’s an intriguing thought that we should definitely explore. Tell me how that compares to some specific baseline measurements now; and how we would want those same baselines to look in the future?”

Pothole P5. Provider Commits too Soon.

“Why don’t we…what if we…what you need to do is…”

Why It Happens

For a hundred reasons, providers think their job is to find “the answer” as soon as possible. They think clients share that view, but they don’t. Clients want the assurance that someone with expertise cares enough about them to understand their situation and give them the appropriate answer. They calibrate trust, not answers.

Why It’s a Problem

This may be the pothole that providers fall into most often. Recommendations made without “earning the right” by going through the full trust process will fall on deaf ears. Worse yet, if you violate the trust process and try to recommend the right answer, you will have compromised its acceptance. Being right is just table stakes.

All human beings reject advice if the advisor hasn’t earned the right to give it. Being right hasn’t got much to do with it. Otherwise, each of us would have quit smoking / started exercising / eating right the first time someone told us we should.

What to Do

Just don’t do it. Not until you’ve been through the sequence of listening (including paraphrasing and empathizing), joint framing, and joint envisioning.

What to Say:
Don’t say anything at all, until you’ve actually earned the right to explore specific action steps and commitments by having gone through steps 1-4. When you’re finally there, the familiar who, what, when series of agreements are appropriate guidelines for discussion.

Pothole C5. Client Seeks Commitment too Soon.

“You’re the expert, what do you recommend?” “So, um, what should we do?”

Why It Happens

Clients frequently ask for action steps, quite unconsciously. They may do it out of a need for control, out of sheer curiosity, because they are worried about getting to “the answer,” or simply because they are not sure what to say and want the burden of the conversation to go back to the provider.

Why It’s a Problem

Moving too quickly to commitment is a mistake committed at least as often by clients as it is by providers. It presents a real dilemma for the provider. If you don’t give an answer, you appear evasive. If you do give an answer, you may be wrong. Providers routinely do the wrong thing—they provide cautious half-answers, hedging their bets and asking for time. This only makes clients more suspicious.

What to Do

This is only a problem because the process hasn’t been completed; and that’s just what you need to say. Say that because the situation hasn’t been clarified, there are still multiple options—and then say exactly what those options are and are not, based on the perspective available at that point. Pointing out the variety of options is precisely what legitimizes going back in-process, usually to the listening step.

What to Say:
“Well, if I had to guess right now, I’d bet the answer will be A. It is also possible that we’ll end up recommending B or C; I don’t think D or E are likely possibilities at this point. To figure out whether it’s A, B or C, we’ll need to understand X. Can we go back and explore X now? Then we can revisit your question based on solid understanding.”

Safe Driving

The material above discussed how to avoid and get out of “potholes” in the sales conversation. How does one use the trust process to avoid them in the first place?

A fuller discussion of the trust process is contained in the book The Trusted Advisor [3], where a whole chapter is devoted to each of the steps in the trust creation process. However, Table 3 applies those steps specifically to the sales conversation; it shows both some sample phrases to be used at each stage of the conversation, as well as the phrases that indicate closure of one stage and the start of another.

Table 3: Language for Safe Driving: Selling via the Trust Process

Stage in the
Trust Process		 In the Stage Closure
Engage I understand you’re concerned about XYZ; is that right, and might I share some thoughts with you on the subject? It sounds like we’ve got something worth talking about; are you willing to spend some time telling me about your situation?
Listen Tell me about X… What was the context for X… So, if I’ve got it right… I see, that must have been… All right; let me play back these key points so we’re both sure we’ve got the same understanding, OK?
Frame What is the problem statement? What does that imply for everyone, including us? It seems to me that what we’re facing here is….; is that the essence of it?
Envision What would that look like? What would be different, and how? So, the to-be state looks like this, and has these benefits and tradeoffs; is that right?
Commit What has to be done to get from here to there? So—who, what and when—and how can we make sure we’re both honest about progress?

The key is staying in process—that is, in the trust process. Buyers of intangible services are not simply super-computers who approach problems supra-rationally. They are that of course; but they are also human beings, with all the complexity and richness that implies. They greatly prefer to buy from other human beings they can trust; people who are credible, reliable, perceived as safe, and who care about them. Trusted advisors.

1. Intangible services include: the professions—law, accounting, consulting, advertising and PR; HR, internal consultants and staff functions like law and accounting; many financial services—private banking, financial advising, insurance, and brokerage; B2B software—ERP and CRM systems and databases; and various out-sourced corporate functions like call centers, telecom/computer service contracts, benefits administration, and real property management. [return]

2. For detail, see The Trusted Advisor; Maister, Green, Galford; Free Press, 2000 [return]

3. ibid [return]