How I Will Teach Myself Consulting Sales If I Have to Start from 0
For everyone who is interested to learn about sales but has no idea where and how to start
No business schools teach sales as part of their 4-year program.
It is not a surprise. After all, sales is a practitioner sport. Unless the professor in front of me runs a business, at profit or loss, I will not take him (or her) seriously.
A library of experience and exposure matters when it comes to enriching the cashier till.
That is the advantage people in business have over academics. We know what we are talking about when it comes to sales.
The Cornerstone of Consulting Sales
One of my colleagues in my 9–6 told me this casually over lunch.
“How difficult can sales work be? Isn’t it just telling the person in front of us that we have a great product and they should buy from us?”
I cannot disagree with her more.
And her results show. She signed her first deal after 9 months in the company. Naturally, the Chief Revenue Officer is not impressed.
You see, the sales transaction is a result of what we do. It gets attention because a dollar value is attached to the contract.
However, it is not what we do.
This is what we do.
- Constructing contract duration variations
- Beefing up a product & service catalog
- Increasing customer lifetime value
In brief, sales work, especially in consulting, is about building and extending the existing pipeline of work we have from today till perpetuity.
Constructing Contract Duration Variation
This is 100% of your focus if you start the 1-Man consulting practice from scratch today.
Very many will disagree with me. Peers around me believe that rolling in dollars matters more. I understand.
But I say this.
How will your prospecting pitch go if you cannot present a list of contract duration(s) and explain why each option is desirable for different purposes?
Take a pause. Think about it.
We must recognize that varying our contract duration gives us more opportunities at the deal negotiation table (or virtual conference room).
Take, for instance, the following.
- 6-month consulting contract — This is for pilots
- 1-year consulting contract — This is for clients ready to work with us
- Multi-year consulting contract — This is for mature clients who know what they want
Contract durations tell a good story. Ultimately, it gives us room to secure clients depending on their risk appetite and budget.
The Product and Services Catalog
You cannot sell nothing.
Allow me to repeat.
You cannot sell nothing
Yes, we sell industry knowledge as 1-Man consultants. But knowledge is an arbitrary concept. It needs to be anchored to real or virtual offerings.
Products and services are the 2 main pillars of consulting offerings. I would go as far as to say that the consulting services you offer are based on the products you sell.
If you are into software subscription sales — think about training workshops.
If you are into the hardware leasing business — bring in other vendors selling complementary accessories for hardware sales. You can charge project management or a one-stop service fee for that.
Shore up your product offering first. And then wrap consulting services around it.
Increasing Customer Lifetime Value
This is a critical thought process. I think about it all the time.
Ask yourself this question.
“How can I get existing customers to buy from me again?”
That is the entire idea of customer lifetime value.
You see… it is costly to acquire one customer in terms of time and budget. Maybe you will need 3 months to convert a prospect? Perhaps it requires $2,000 in advertising spend?
As such, we must make every customer in our account portfolio worthwhile. You can make a list of what to do for a start.
This is my list.
- Accelerating adoption of software — Meeting indirect clients with multiple offices around the region
- Selling digital transformation support — For clients interested in connecting various software
- Conducting user training workshops — For clients with a high human resource churn
There are many things to work on once we are working with our clients at arm’s length. Therefore, it makes economic sense to spend more time with existing customers, increasing their lifetime value, instead of aggressively converting cold or warm leads.
Parting Keynotes
Sales is a practitioner sport. You must be doing it to understand what needs to be done.
I spent a big chunk of my time working in consulting sales. It applies to my 9–6 and the 1-Man consulting practice I run.
I made many mistakes and blew plenty of money on unnecessary tools, marketing gimmicks, and sales courses that did not deliver.
As such, it becomes important for me to regroup.
I will focus on the following 3 areas in consulting sales if I must start all over today.
- Constructing contract duration variations
- Beefing up a product & service catalog
- Increasing customer lifetime value
I will also keep pitching to prospects to understand what they like or reject. And from there, I can take their feedback and feed it into the 3 bullet points mentioned above.
That will form a firm foundation of consulting sales from one deal pitch to the next.
As a content contributor, I write my observations from daily life and my business exposure. Because our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.
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