Breaking the Mold of the Traditional Services Sales Model
How teams outperform individuals

By Mark Hordes and Bryan Becker
Mark Hordes Management Consultants, LLC

The problem: Traditional services sales models rely heavily on outside
product sales representatives to manage the life of an opportunity
throughout the sales process and cycle. Slow professional services sales and
weak business growth usually occur because product sales representatives
are occupied with uncovering product sales and sifting through unqualified
prospects first rather than moving qualified opportunities through the
services sales cycle.

This problem is compounded when the pre-sales services group is not
involved in the pre-process. No amount of money invested in hiring "high-
priced" sales talent will provide the structure needed for a faster sales cycle,
unless a specific services sales strategy has been developed and market
tested.

To draw an analogy, the relay teams in track always outdistance individual
racers over the same distances. When it comes to speed and efficiency, a
well-practiced business development team will consistently outperform an
individual salesperson.

For sales organizations, the same rule holds true. Typically, traditional sales
models require outside sales representatives to run most of the race alone
without the services organization involved in a team-selling structure.
Unfortunately, when a single person is responsible for so many steps, the
sales process slows down considerably, and many opportunities fade away.

Also, this model poses a problem for management because it is increasingly
difficult to identify, hire and train the most talented people in the business,
who not only have professional services sales experience, but understand
how to sell large, complex services engagements.

The solution: A more efficient approach is the insertion of a "business
development team" made up of a professional services representative,
business development expert, researcher, subject matter specialist and a
rain-maker, to run the middle portion of the race between marketing and
sales. In the same way that a relay team leverages the speed and power of
the lead and anchor runners to win a race, business development continues
the momentum begun in marketing and provides the outside sales team the
freedom to focus on closing business in record time.

Typically, Traditional Sales Approaches have Two ModelsTraditional sales models have slow sales cycles because they rely on the
single person to carry the bulk of the sales cycle responsibility.

Model 1: Marketing and outside sales components

This model has a couple of distinct disadvantages. First, this approach,
having marketing work with outside salespersons, is too simple to be
effective for complex value-based propositions. Secondly, while this approach
usually requires fewer employees, it is expensive to find, train and
compensate the caliber of sales people required to reliably perform all of the
steps necessary to consummate a complex services engagement. The many
sales cycle steps act like hurdles in a race, breaking the momentum of the
sale cycle so that the overall process takes longer to complete.

Outside sales representatives are expected to do almost all of the
groundwork. Initially, marketing generates interest in a product or service via
various media forms, trade shows, etc. Sales people then make cold calls to
these leads at random until they identify a "good fit" and bring a prospect
through the sales process. In this scenario, the lead-to-closure ratio is
terrible because so many hurdles stand in the way of the outside sales
people; therefore, the bulk of leads fall by the wayside. These hurdles
include:

Poor qualification. Most sales organizations do not have a methodology for
identifying services sales opportunities worth pursuing. In effect, their sales
people have no profile or information about a prospective company, much
less qualifying information about the prospect's buying intentions.

Too many steps. After making several unsuccessful cold calls, working
through a long list of contact names at a prospective target company
becomes inefficient and tedious. Researching such a large number of
contacts and companies is next to impossible in addition to the everyday
tasks required of a sales representative. What's ironic is the common
complaint by sales leaders that their sales people aren't adding more
opportunities to their pipelines.

No message relevancy. Sales people often don't know enough about a
company when they make an introductory call in order to make a compelling
argument for why their product or service answers a prospect's need.
Messaging varies from call to call, and best practices can't be monitored. This
problem is compounded when the sales representative has little or no
credential portfolio to showcase or ROI examples to share with a prospect. At
least six showcase accounts with specific ROIs are recommended to be
developed in conjunction with your marketing organization.

No relationship building. Often, there is no forethought or sales cycle
sequence in call patterns. Prospects are sorted into one of two categories:
those who are ready to buy now and everyone else. Countless prospects whocould have developed into opportunities are lost because sales
representatives must focus time on closing deals rather than building rapport
and trust with a prospect.

Creating Trust and Relationships Is Critical

Relationship building is critical for a services sale. Many companies have
begun to realize that "consultative and trust-based" selling approaches are
much more effective, as clients are asking for specific solutions for complex
problems from people they trust. In many situations, this trust is established
by a technical expert who they have worked with on-site for many months,
as well as from the consultants assigned to their project.

Of course, traditional product sales representatives can also apply "trust-
building" concepts to their sales approach. The results can be quite positive,
as prospects soon realize that "I'm not just getting a sales pitch" but working
with someone who listens, shares my concerns, expresses empathy,
communicates effectively and explores my concerns, issues and challenges
before pushing me to some expensive solution!

Model 2: Marketing, inside sales and outside sales components

This model attempts, often unsuccessfully, to rectify the problems from the
first model by inserting an inside sales team (tele-mkt-sales) between
marketing and outside sales. The inside sales team manages introductory
cold calls and then turns leads over to an outside sales rep. While this
approach may finish ahead of the traditional sales model, it sacrifices quality
for speed, resulting in even more hurdles:

Inexperienced callers. Most inside sales representatives have little or no
experience in the target industries and are unprepared to engage in a
meaningful introductory conversation with a decision-maker. Thus, they are
limited to a generalized, scripted pitch, which won't resonate with the
decision-maker over the phone.

Most of us have experienced personally the evening calls from (tele-mkt-
sales) representatives who know nothing at all about their offering or are
struck silent when you ask them a question. Telemarketing often works fine
for product sales, but due to the complexity in services marketing, consider
other approaches (white paper development and delivery, Webinars, e-
newsletters, books, etc.) to establish credentials and generate qualified
leads. Hurdles include:

Poor qualification. Often, the conversations that take place during most
inside sales "cold calls" tend to be very high level and don't really determine
whether the prospect fits an ideal client profile. Thus, a potentially qualified
prospect (good fit) who is not ready to buy will be thrown out with
unqualified prospects.No opportunity management. Once inside sales (tele-sales-mkt) makes the
handoff, it is often taken out of the picture. This puts immense pressure on
sales teams to juggle the needs of "hot" opportunities with the needs of
slower moving opportunities, threatening the time previously invested.

The alternative business development sales model: Marketing, business
development and outside sales components

Transitioning inside sales people to a business development team
methodology and process is a significant refinement of the traditional sales
model. This derives much greater leverage from your organizational
investment by dramatic acceleration of pipeline development.

Build the Inside Sales Team

In this model, you create a structured sales methodology that invokes
ownership of the prospect from womb to tomb, transforming raw services
marketing material into actionable opportunities and consummated sales. In
effect, this team develops and maintains long-term relationships with
prospects from lead generation through closure and beyond for follow-on
opportunities.

Adopting this model provides immediate advantages. The business
development activities outlined below are proven to produce the most
qualified opportunities for complex value propositions.

Profile and qualify. Profile an "ideal" client and locate market segments with
the right prospect characteristics. Research prospective companies and
gather enough information to warrant pursuing the decision-makers at each
company with a relevant message.

Segment audiences. Once a profile begins to develop about a prospect,
segment the prospect by group or industry need so that a specific approach
to each segment can be refined and retargeted.

Segment Your Marking Opportunities

Not only does this model clear the hurdles compared to traditional sales
models, but having a business development team completely leverages the
efforts of the marketing and sales teams to accelerate the overall sales cycle.
Segmenting your marketing opportunities through the following activities
makes this possible.

Establish relevance. Make your message relevant by directly connecting the
offering with a prospect/industry need. Closely track and review feedback
from introductory calls, refine value propositions, and develop valid
responses to common objections.Build relationships. Beyond initial contact, continue to communicate with
those prospects that fit the profile, even if they aren't prepared to buy
immediately. Persistence, coupled with relevant messaging, collateral and a
professional approach, will keep your offering top-of-mind for these
prospects.

Demonstrate credentials. People with experience in a wide range of business
areas should make up the business development team. Their professional
background and ability to communicate a relevant message will make a
strong and consistent impression on decision-makers. This combination of
qualities enables them to qualify more expertly and create better
opportunities that go into the sales funnel.

Manage opportunities. When a prospect agrees to a meeting with an outside
sales representative, inside business development people should facilitate
introductions and leverage the relationship built thus far. This makes it easier
to feed a prospect back to the business development phase for nurturing if
the prospect is not ready to buy.

Because the prospecting and nurturing component of the business
development team is not under direct pressure to "make the numbers," team
members can focus on the quality as well as quantity of actionable
opportunities to deliver in the sales funnel. In record time, the sales pipeline
fills with qualified, interested prospects to fuel outside sales activities at an
accelerated pace. To facilitate this, the following three areas must work in
tandem:

Service marketing leads the sales cycle by compiling a list of companies it
has touched during a marketing campaign. However, unlike a traditional
sales model, marketing sets metrics and receives feedback about the quality
of each prospect. This is accomplished via building prospect profiles and
tracking each marketing campaign and/or sales interaction. This allows for
the measurement of marketing ROI, hence the opportunity to improve the
direction and success of future campaigns.

Business development initiates the research, continually refines the prospect
profile and manages the initial and follow-on communication with each
prospect/customer. In effect, this team establishes the continuity from lead
generation through closing and then add-on sales.

Outside product sales representatives invest their time in closing deals and
expanding business with existing customers, thereby creating sustainable
trust. They are tied at the hip with business development to understand the
profiles, review progress and coordinate messages and sales steps. Due to
accelerated sales cycles, they only enter the sales cycle when the prospect
has shown buying signals. At this juncture, usually a reasonable amount of
information is known about the prospect so that the sales representativescan now devote their time to positioning and closing deals. A winning
combination!

Final thoughts: What You Can Do to Be Successful!

When it comes to speed, a balanced sales methodology and team will always
beat traditional sales models because they share the risk in sales cycle
completion. The team approach consistently reaches the finish line faster
because team members have the depth and breadth of skills and horsepower
to remove existing hurdles and leverage the efforts of marketing and outside
sales to win the race. Strengthening the core of sales cycles with the
business development team component transforms a sales and marketing
organization from a bunch of exhausted middle-of-the-pack runners into a
winning relay team.

Second Place Is Not for Winners!

To learn more about how you can build an effective services sales and
marketing environment, contact Mark Hordes at 713 523 0551, email him at
mark@hordesconsulting.com Or visit, www.trustedadvisortraining.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About the Author's

Mark Hordes is Managing Director with Mark Hordes Management
Consultants. LLC. Mark is a well-recognized global professional services
business consultant, business author and advisor to senior executives. Over
the past 25 years, he has consulted with organizations worldwide, been
profiled in business journals and newspapers, and interviewed on radio and
television.

Bryan Becker is a senior consultant with Mark Hordes Management
Consultants, LLC, and focuses on services process management and finance.