Manager, make it clear what exactly you expect from your people in terms of commercial performance...
Many managers these days want their highly skilled professionals to contribute to finding assignments. We're happy to help.
We sometimes hear managers sigh, "Surely you'd expect highly educated professionals to understand they can help a client and then offer to do so..." Unfortunately, our experience shows that's precisely what you shouldn't expect. Well, yes, you can, of course, but that doesn't help.
There are three significant obstacles facing business professionals in the professional services sector when it comes to acquiring contracts. These obstacles are much less common for the average salesperson or manager. Many professionals face one or more of the following obstacles when it comes to acquiring contracts. And if you don't pay enough attention to these, little will happen commercially:
Many professionals associate the image of acquisition with negative terms like "cold calling" and "pushing something on someone." This tends to make people less enthusiastic.
What exactly can you do now? To acquire business. How do you recognize a buying signal? And how do you respond to it? Staying in touch with former clients is a great plan. But how do you ensure you come across as confident (but not too confident)? How and when do you ask for a recommendation? How do you tell a client the value of your solution? How do you respond when a client requests something that's actually impossible?
And that brings us to the third element: discipline. The flywheel of acquiring assignments requires constant little nudges to keep them going. This requires discipline and habit, as well as coordination between professionals, managers, and the sales department, if applicable. So that acquiring assignments becomes a standard part of the job and doesn't only arise when there's no work to be done. Because then you're often too late.
This article is about dealing with the second hurdle: doing. If your professionals are still struggling with hesitation, it's best to address that first, because as long as people still believe deep down that selling is immoral, they're obviously not going to actually do it.
After overcoming any initial fears, one of the first steps in our programs is to clearly define what you do and don't expect from your professionals. Because the more specific you are in what you expect, the greater your chances of getting it. The problem often is that, as a manager, you don't really know what you expect, because you might be unconsciously competent yourself. And that makes it difficult to explain what you mean.
The trick is to be very specific in your expectations. We're not used to that with professionals, who are highly educated and highly task-oriented. Neither managers nor professionals are used to explaining things in detail. Managing professionals, not doing, is the title of a popular book for a reason. We support this approach when it comes to the professional's primary profession. As a manager, don't interfere with the content. Only when it comes to acquiring contracts does that same professional suddenly become significantly less task-mature. In that case, we believe it's definitely worthwhile for managers and professionals to work together to define SMART commercial expectations.
An example: it doesn't work like that
A rich source of assignments lies within the professional network. Suppose that in an organization with fifty professionals, all professionals maintain regular contact with their top three favorite former clients… That would mean 150 conversations a year with favorite former clients. The chance of new assignments arising from this is, of course, exceptionally high. But the problem is: many professionals don't maintain contact with their favorite former clients. They don't dare, they don't really know how to approach it, and they're already so busy. Therefore, it's of little use if, as a manager, you regularly tell people to keep in touch. Far too vague and too general.
In a personal meeting, for example: we agree that you will maintain contact with three people. And by maintaining contact, we mean calling twice a year and meeting once a year for coffee (or lunch, or a beer, whatever suits the relationship). If the manager and professional make the list together, fill in the names, and schedule the nine actions (six calls and three appointments) over time, it becomes much clearer for both the manager and professional. If the manager also checks whether the professional feels ethically and perhaps needs further assistance, the chances of something happening are much greater.
And just as important is to agree on what the professional NOT ALLOWED does in the commercial field. We are in favor of the professionals NOT ALLOWED to ask for cold calling.
One of the first steps in our programs is to sit down with managers to clarify expectations regarding the commercial role of professionals. We use a checklist for this, which you'll find below. Often, simply completing the checklist leads to insights and initial actions. Perhaps it will help you and your team too…
Giving fun and success to your professionals in commerce.
This article was written by Maarten van Os and Jan Willem van den Brink from DreamfactoryIt's based on a chapter from our book Why don't they just do it? – Make sure your consultants and technicians find and keep clients happy.
If you wish to use it, we would greatly appreciate attribution.
Want to know more about this topic or how we can help your organization? Email or call us at 0348-741670.