Business Owner Psychology for Consultants
(When to treat a symptom as the cause)
True story…
My first consultancy prospect asked me to train his sales team as they were “useless at selling”.
Straight from acquiring and running businesses in corporate life I was confident that it was probably not the whole picture as he could well be looking at just one symptom of his lower than hoped-for sales performance, and likely making a wrong diagnosis.
So, I insisted on taking a quick look at the whole business first. He wasn’t too happy about that, but I ignored it and he was even less happy when having done so I reported that a number of other things might be wrong including product and service quality, pricing and distribution.
I said I wanted to do a proper consultancy job (for £25K) on the business as a whole to eliminate the causes of which poor sales were probably just one symptom.
He became visibly annoyed and terminated the meeting, saying he would “think about my proposition and get back to me”. He never did and wouldn’t take my follow up calls.
A year later I met an experienced consultant at a networking event to whom I told the story. And he said “if you mean ‘Joe Bloggs’, he told me about you and…
…I’m going to upset you with the sequel!”
He went on to say that my assessment had been dead right, but my approach had shot me in the foot. He explained that the boss had also asked him to “train his useless sales team” to which he had simply agreed and got started. The sales team soon raised issues with him around customer resistance during the training. So, he decided to go on some sales visits telling the boss that he needed to see the selling in action to understand more about the sales techniques being used and therefore in need of improvement
That gave him the chance to speak directly with customers and prospects and to hear their views and ideas on the products and services whilst seeing how the salespeople were handling themselves.
He then asked the boss if he could use the sales team to carry out a large survey of customers past / present / potential to teach them how to keep in touch with what their market was thinking and expecting. The boss thought it odd but agreed on the basis it might be useful everyone may learn something.
It was a valuable exercise and did indeed teach the sales team how to secure and assess feedback about user ‘needs and wants’ before making a sales pitch.
And even more valuable, it served the consultant’s secret agenda which was to understand what improvements to products and services would encourage more customer purchasing.
The consultant then persuaded the boss that a powerful development for the sales team would be to present their learnings and findings to a senior management meeting and ask for their feedback.
So, at the meeting were heads of all the functions: Marketing; Operations; Systems; People; Finance. The revelations the sales teams presented led to a serious debate around the table not just about sales techniques, but all the issues that had emerged from the research ie: marketing strategy; website; social media presence; support material; customer attitudes; prospect impressions; product performance; service levels; returns; complaints; warranty credits; after sales service strategy.
Everything came out, because between them all they knew the problems and mostly the solutions. There were problems in every part of the business that collectively added up to the reasons for poor sales. And everyone was agreed.
So, the boss turned to the consultant and said “you are a very clever man. You’ve made us look at ourselves by stealth, unlike that other consultant I didn’t like, and it’s clear we must act, so what next?”
And the consultant said (In so many words) …
… “I will lead a £50K project over the next 12 months to ‘manage change’, which the boss accepted
Grrrrr!!
The understanding was that the project would pay for itself in within 6 months through raised sales, profits and productivity and deliver a full return in the second 6 months. Which was achieved on time and within budget because the groundwork was good, the issues agreed, and everyone motivated to get things done.
The boss was so pleased that he introduced friends with businesses who went on to buy the same treatment, £200K of work and still counting.
So, what are the lessons from this about selling consultancy?
Don’t be a smartass
The client is always right - especially when he isn’t
Don’t be the bearer of bad tidings - messengers get shot
Help the people to discover the problem
Liberate them to work on solutions and they will own the changes that follow
Real power is when the boss asks, “so what shall we do?”
How does The Runagood® Business System help?
With fast technology that:
Flags up all the symptoms across the business
Forecasts the potential for improvement in each and the £payoff
Identifies the options for action
Confirms the steps to take
Sets out a joint implementation programme – Client and Advisor together
Compresses the learning curve by 90%
Produces affordable but profitable solutions