Raintoday's Sales Tips & Techniques Podcast

Mike Schultz, President of Wellesley Hills Group, talks about the state of the professional services market and what leaders must do to navigate their firms through the recovering economy.

Teresa Poggenpohl, Executive Director of Advertising and Brand Management at Accenture, explains how Accenture built its strong brand, how it handled the Tiger Woods incident, and what firms of all sizes must do to build a strong brand.

If your firm isn't performing at high levels, it may need an alignment. Start with your vision and then determine if your culture matches your vision, if your strategies advance your vision, and if your client experience advance those strategies. Only when all of those are working in concert will your firm achieve high performance levels, says Joe Calloway in this interview with RainToday Publisher Mike Schultz.

Believe it or not, it's often a good thing when a client or prospect voices objections. It gives you an opportunity to ask questions and understand what the true issue is. Then you can explain and perhaps offer another solution and get them to say yes. As John Doerr, founder of RainToday.com, explains in this interview, no doesn't have to mean no.

Acquiring new clients doesn't necessarily lead to profitability. Often it's better to sell new services to existing clients than it is to sell existing services to new clients. But getting clients to buy additional services means signing on ideal clients who believe you offer great value. Listen as Randy Shattuck, senior marketing executive and founder of The Shattuck Group, explains the importance of building your value proposition and your brand and what you must do to attract ideal clients.

Because a client bought from you once, it doesn't mean they will continue to buy from you. You must nurture that relationship and build trust. Listen as Colleen Francis, President of Engage Selling Solutions, explains the two essential pieces of a client retention strategy, the most common reason why clients leave, and the best thing you can do right now to start successful relationships with clients.

Listen as Tom Davenport, 13-time author of books such as Thinking for a Living and What's the Big Idea and Babson College professor, talks about the benefits of thought leadership, what it takes to become a leading expert, and how to set yourself apart from others trying to do the same thing.

For professional services firms, blog websites work better than traditional websites for cultivating client relationships and selling services, says Ian Brodie, owner of The Rainmaker Academy.

The competition for clients is fierce—even more so these days as a growing number of firms vie for fewer budget dollars. You need to differentiate yourself and give prospects a reason to choose you. How can you do that? With competitive analysis, say Sean Campbell and Scott Swigart, principals at Cascade Insights.

Case studies are fantastic tools to facilitate professional services sales, as well as share with the world client success stories. But like anything, their success requires following certain best practices. In this week's podcast, Casey Hibbard, founder and president of Compelling Cases and author of Stories that Sell, reveals some of the best practices of creating case studies and how to use them to build trust with prospects and win clients.

Professional services firms traditionally have done business by developing relationships and networking. While that's still an important part of how you develop business, more and more people are turning to the Internet to find and research service providers. And firms that know how to take advantage of the power of the Internet and search engine marketing definitely have a leg up on the competition. Mike Cooch, founder and CEO of Everon Technology Services, explains in this week's podcast.

You may not think it, but when you deal with your public—your prospects and clients—you're doing PR. You are developing relationships with them via traditional and social media. That's why it's important to include a PR strategy in your marketing campaign. Listen as Drew Gerber, CEO and founder of Publicity Results, discusses the types of media outlets professional services firms should reach out to, what's required for a good PR campaign, and the success firms can see as a result.

If traditional marketing methods no longer get clients' attention, then it's time to consider content marketing. You want to think like a publisher and create compelling information that's educational, not sales-related. Listen as Joe Pulizzi, founder and chief content officer of Junta42 and co-author of Get Content Get Customers, explains what content marketing is, describes how to develop a content marketing strategy, talks about how to measure content marketing efforts, and gives an example of a firm that is doing content marketing right.

When selling professional services, you're bound to make a mistake at some point in your career. The biggest mistake, however, is selecting or going after poor prospects, says Dan Seidman, sales coach and author of Sales Autopsy. Listen as Dan talks about how to find the perfect client, explains the importance of the "dairy queen", and shares some sales horror stories.

It doesn't matter if you're giving a keynote, talking in a meeting, proposing ideas to a client, or talking one-on-one with someone, you must have good presentation skills. Listen as Tim Wackel, founder and president of The Wackel Group, explains how good presentation skills help prospects and clients trust you, outlines the two-step process for giving good presentations, and reveals the worst thing he's seen happen as the result of a bad client presentation.

Professional services firms must break down marketing and business development silos if they want to be effective and productive. They must shift from doing a craft to running a business, and that requires making cultural and structural changes. Listen as Suzanne Lowe, author of The Integration Imperative: Erasing Marketing and Business Development Silos – Once and For All – in Professional Service Firms, explains what executives must do to break down barriers and grow their firms.

Traditional outbound marketing methods are becoming less and less effective. Society is tired of being marketed to, and people are better at blocking such things as email and cold calls. So, what's a marketer to do? Pull people toward you with inbound marketing tactics, says Brian Halligan, co-author of Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. Take advantage of the modern way in which people learn and shop.

Demonstrating your thought leadership is one of the best marketing techniques for service professionals, and Twitter has quickly become one of the tops platforms for doing so. It's a great way to do lightweight marketing, says Sarah Milstein, author of The Twitter Book, as well as to network with prospects and clients. Listen as Sarah reviews how to get started using Twitter, what you must do to get people following you, and the business benefit of using Twitter.

You can throw a sale off track is by starting an inappropriate conversation with a client. Prevent such conversations by keeping records on clients and prospects in a CRM system. Listen as David Taber, author of Salesforce.com Secrets of Success: Best Practices for Growth and Profitability, explains the benefits of various CRM systems, how to implement such systems, and tricks to getting people to use the systems.

The B2B buying process has changed, and that means your marketing and sales tactics must also change. No longer can you simply say you're the leading provider. Buyers want you to prove it. Listen as Ardath Albee, author of eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, explains why traditional sales prospecting and marketing methods no longer work and discusses tactics firms must use instead.