Marstan Blog

Any organisation providing professional services must get new Clients in order to survive. This is because you must replace Clients who have no further use for your services or who go out of business.

In order to sell professional services effectively, you must be systematic and consistent. You should always remember that there are some subtle differences between selling professional services and selling products.

This leads to a number of paradoxes:

1. Professional people are usually very poor at selling their services – particularly on the telephone AND YET the most successful method of selling professional services is to use the people who provide the service and it involves several stages of work on the telephone.
2. Sales effort takes a lot of time AND YET most professional people are very short of time.
3. Professional people are statistically more likely to sell their services well when they have been approached by the potential Client AND YET in order to sell effectively, you will have to approach the Clients.
4. It takes, on average, 7 contacts with a decision maker in order to win new business AND YET most people give up after 2 or 3 contacts.
5. Sales calls are most effective when carried out in large batches AND YET most professional people fit in one or two sales calls when they get a few moments.
6. There is more value to be gained from “mining” a database of existing contacts rather than seeking new names AND YET many organisations have no database or do not use them effectively.
7. Sales efforts work best when measurements are taken and adjustments made to the sales process or techniques AND YET few people measure the success rate of the sales process.
8. Follow up is essential in the sales process AND YET few people follow up.