The Three Most Important Questions You Need to Answer When Developing Professional Services Sales Training

Twice a year, I produce a short training module for our sales teams to learn how to sell professional services. You may think that developing this sort of training module is unnecessary at a software company, or that selling consulting services are the same as selling products and subscriptions. However, for certain businesses, there is a definite need for this kind of training. This is an easy win to improve your sales processes and reduce the potential tension between sales and consulting.

Webinar results from February sessions

This week, I held two evening webinars on managing professional services firms. We brought together consultants, directors, and vice presidents from the east and west coasts to learn about the best practices for managing a worldwide consulting firm. My personal thanks if you were able to attend. On March 2nd and 3rd, we’ll be continuing our conversation and discussing the Quote to Cash process.

Going under the couch cushions, my favorite audience question from the Vancouver IEEE Consultants Network

Last night, I gave a presentation on the quote to cash process at the IEEE Consultants Network in Vancouver, Canada. My favorite audience question was, “how would you recommend a firm start encouraging our professional services managers to look under the couch cushions?”

“Going under the couch cushions” is my semi-joking name for a strategic backlog review. I have children, and there are only two things I find under my couch cushions: spare change, and messes that need cleaning up.

In professional services, the spare change you find in the backlog comes from those customers with an odd number of hours left and an open Statement of Work

Repeat after me: setting schedule expectations with clients

Very efficient sales teams use the availability of senior consultants to drive deals to closure.   As part of the sales cycle, they ask the client the date of when the project must be finished.  You should subtract the project duration, and then another four to six weeks.   The resulting date is when the client must complete their purchase without risking their schedule.

A recruiter can ruin your Professional Services firm’s reputation with a single email

Very few firms audit the outbound communications of their recruiters. Similarly, very few recruiters offer to allow their clients access to those outbound communications. This has greater potential for reputational damage than an errant sales person harassing a single customer, as that would affect just a single client relationship. In this case, a recruiter that makes your firm look incompetent can dissuade an entire category of skilled professionals from ever wanting to work there, or to recommend that company to a colleague. 

Is Your Services Team Getting the Recognition it Deserves?

Several years ago, I worked as a senior consultant at an embedded Professional Services Organization (PSO). Our team developed business processes and technical solutions that saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. We received no recognition from executive management, and it took time and distance for me to understand how to avoid the same fate for my current team.

What if your mentor forgot to mention a few important details about management?

The survey covers a small amount of demographic data—participants’ roles, how they learned to manage a professional services organization, and how many years they've been doing so. Current professional services consultants, managers, and executives can participate in the survey. There are twenty knowledge questions, drawn from a pool of over two hundred, organized around the eight areas of a professional services firm. This is to determine roughly how well each participant knows the topic; an exhaustive study would be possible, but also exhausting. This survey should only take about ten minutes for participants to complete.

Answering the most common question asked of Professional Services Managers

Professional Services Managers handle assigning consultants to projects. As a result, one of the most familiar internal emails and questions we receive from sales teams is, "when's the next time a consultant is available?" It is possible to see this request multiple times a week at the start of a quarter, and multiple times an hour towards the end of the quarter. Regardless of the structure of your Professional Services Organization, answering the same question for different people repeatedly throughout the day is entirely avoidable.

Social Marketing for Professional Services on YouTube

Just under a year ago, we started a web series at work for our senior consultants to work directly with clients in front of a live audience on YouTube. I’ve learned some things along the way that might help similar Professional Services organizations in their social media marketing efforts. Called, “the show,” the intent was to do something more ambitious than a dull vendor teleconference.

In the Hot Seat: A Proven Strategy for Evaluating a Job Applicant's Presentation Skills

We ask professional services personnel to perform a broad spectrum of tasks, regardless of their written job description. It is an essential skill to deliver a successful presentation, whether to a small working group, boardroom or an auditorium. As a hiring manager, you may have asked questions about applicants' presentation skills and techniques. You may even have gone so far as to ask for them to make a presentation to you and a colleague as part of the hiring process. In doing so, you may confirm that they can stand upright, narrate bullet points clearly, and advance slides on time.

Document and validate your assumptions

I recently had to pick my jaw up from my desk during a client kick-off call. While scheduling calls are a blight, kick-off calls for significant engagements are often worthwhile. These meetings serve to make introductions and validate assumptions. We had already agreed with the client on the scheduling via email, and the contract was signed. The shopworn phrase of how assumptions "make an ass of you and me" depends on if the Statement of Work documents the assumption.