Messaging That Wins

Targeting your service messages toward sales goals
by Randy Shattuck, The Shattuck Group

Okay I know that “sales” is a dirty word in the world of professional services. We’re supposed to be above that sort of thing, right? We prefer certain synonyms like business development, organic growth and client acquisition. But maybe, just maybe, in a tough economy with lingering, languid consequences for all of us, we should re-think our aversion to sales.

After all, clients won’t just walk through the door. We have to invite them, to give them reasons to look in our direction, to entice them to give us their hard-earned money. If your organization, like many I speak with today, is re-thinking your position on sales, I’d like to offer you some pointers that will help you improve your “organic growth.”

Gaining perspective

In other articles I’ve written for Professional Services Journal, I’ve outlined the lead-to-prospect-to-client lifecycle. This is essentially a journey that you ask people to go on with you. But every grand sojourn begins with a single step. So the first question you have to ask yourself is this: why would people go on their journey with us?

As soon as you ask this question, you begin to look in the right direction — away from you and at the horizon that your ideal clients care about. Let’s take another step.

What goals, opportunities and challenges really excite, stimulate and vex your ideal clients? What big goals are they trying to accomplish in these challenging economic times? What are their opportunities for growth and economic advancement? What do they fear, and what circumstances are they trying to avoid?

As soon as you can answer these questions with confidence, you have the keys to opening the door to sales conversations.

It all begins with dialogue

Let’s be honest for a moment. As much as this process is all about your ideal clients, at the end of the day, it’s also about your revenue and profits. So while you always want to keep your dialogue focused on the clients’ needs, you also want to navigate the conversations toward a profitable economic end for you. That’s the trick. That’s reality.

Typically, a professional services sales campaign traverses something along these lines:

1.      Prospects’ presenting issues will cause them to reach out to you.

2.      You’ll suss out what they’re trying to achieve.

3.      You’ll match their goals to your capabilities and create a scope of services.

4.      You’ll navigate toward a close.

Simple enough, right? But the challenge is getting prospects to take that first step. How do you engage them in dialogue?

The hook

The single best hook I’ve ever seen for starting sales conversations is thought leadership. I’m not talking about thinly guised sales pitches that really don’t give the prospect good information and ideas. We’ve all seen this sort of tripe. I’m talking about real solutions to real opportunities and challenges.

Great content that addresses what matters to your ideal clients will almost certainly peak their interest. It will cause them to look in your direction. It will open doors for dialogue.

The line

Once you hook a lead, you need to pull it along toward a close. You need to create a match between the prospect’s goals, opportunities and challenges and the results your services can deliver. This is the role of — dare I say it — the professional sales person.

If you really want to make it easy for your professional sales people to close deals, create a strong tie between your thought leadership content and your services messages. For each service you offer, there should be a simple and clear value proposition statement that makes a promise that matters to ideal clients.

For instance, my company offers video development services. Our value proposition statement for this service reads: “Our video development services deliver the impact that our clients need to persuade their ideal clients, enhance credibility and shape buying behavior.” These are the results that my clients expect when they buy these services from us.

Your service value proposition statements should be consistent from one messaging medium to the next. Too often, I see websites with different messages from brochures and presentations, emails, data sheets and on and on. Consistency of messaging suggests stability in service delivery — something your ideal clients care about a great deal.

I recommend that you take some time and print out all of your messages about each service you offer and lay them on your desk in front of you: web pages, emails, brochures, presentations, white papers, etc. Look at the value proposition for each sales tool. Is it the same message from one tool to the next? Does it make promises that matter to ideal clients? Does it compel prospects to action?

The sinker

Professional sales people are also called by several synonyms like rainmaker, closer and consultant. No matter how you title them at your organization, the goal is the same — get prospects into dialogue with them so they can close deals.

If your organization is like most, you set specific goals for them and probably even give them revenue and profitability quotas. But what have you done from a marketing and messaging perspective to help them hit their marks? As a person who has worn the moniker of “rainmaker,” I can tell you that the right marketing support makes all the difference in the world.

For the sake of your revenue, your profits — and yes — the effectiveness of your sales force, take a close look at your messages, and strengthen them where needed.

About the author

Randy Shattuck is a senior marketing executive and founder of
The Shattuck Group, a full-service marketing firm that specializes in growing professional services organizations. You can reach him at randy@theshattuckgroup.com.