Selling Consulting Services

The aforementioned details of Steve Dalton’s “Two Hour Job Search” will have to wait a while.  Steve is putting the finishing details on his soon to be released book of the same title.  Understandably, his literary agent prefers not to see his methodology published elsewhere at this point.  So we will move on to other topics…

In preparing for an introductory sales call for my consulting business recently, I had occasion to gain the assistance of four of the best sales-oriented folks in my extensive network.   That client phone call could not have gone better, lasting 90 minutes, rather than the planned 15.  Not that quantity trumps quality by any means, of course.

Selling consulting services differs a bit from selling yourself for a permanent job assignment, but I had four key takeaways, that may have some relevance to a job search as well:

Give to get.  It no longer works to  just ask questions and tell him you want to hear his issues so you can put a  specific plan together.  I started conversation after niceties, with “Would  you be interested to hear about 3 common issues faced by businesses like  yours, and how we’ve solved them?”  He later reciprocated with what his problems  are.

Use “we”, not “I”, when referring to your company, even if  on your own.  To address certain of his issues, I told him that someone  other than me, from my network, might be provided by my company, under our  umbrella.  This one is a bit of a stretch for the analogy to the job search, but it can’t hurt to bring up your network as a resource in tackling hard to solve problems in your next job assignment.  Even more reason to spend much time and energy in building and nurturing an extensive network across functions and industries.

Offered to complete the work for Day 1 of a resultant  project by giving him the rest of the day that I would visit to discuss  the project (sales call), at no charge, other than travel expenses, since I’m  there anyway.  WIN-WIN since he would pay my travel expenses for a sales  trip, and if he did not give me the job, I’ve wasted a few hours, but he is  not out much at all.  Again, you’ll need some imagination to apply this principle to the job search, but what value can you provide for the interviewer, other than to be an outstanding employee?

Be prepared with a price range, don’t use  the common tactic of stalling til later.  It alleviates anxiety.  A  high price helps to create value in the prospects mind.  If it’s not  high enough to scare him away, when you come in slightly lower with your  formal quote, it looks even better.  I gave him a range.  Common advice is to stall the salary question during an interview as long as possible.  I find, however, that this tactic is more annoying than helpful.

So far, I’ve not gotten the assignment, but we are still talking.  Not bad for a prospect which started only with a “cold call” email.