Raintoday's Sales Tips & Techniques Podcast

Acquiring new clients is a top priority among services firms, but you want to make sure you acquire ideal clients. Do not take every and any client no matter how difficult things for your firm might be, says Randy Shattuck, President of The Shattuck Group. Determine who your ideal client is and then decide the best pull marketing strategy to attract them. Firms that do so will see greater revenue and profits.

Selling your services involves more than getting prospects to like what you have to offer. It also involves the buyer getting agreement from all parties and agreeing to change. To overcome this roadblock, Sharon Drew Morgan, author of the new book Dirty Little Secrets, says salespeople need to learn how to facilitate the buying decision. Do so and you can dramatically shorten the sales cycle.

Professional services firms that have strong unique value propositions (UVP) grow faster, produce higher margins, and sell at higher prices. One way to offer such a strong UVP is to include performance benchmarking, says Paul Collins, founder and managing partner of Equiteq LLP. Listen as Collins explains how a value proposition that includes performance benchmarking helps you stand out among competitors and leads to greater sales.

Cold calling--the phrase strikes fear in many sales professionals. It is challenging, but it isn't impossible. With these tips from Colleen Francis, Founder and President of Engage Selling Solutions, you'll learn how to prepare for cold calls, as well as techniques to engage prospects and get them wanting to hear more.

The moment someone picks up a pen to illustrate a point, the people around him pay attention. So, why not use pictures to solve problems and engage clients? Listen as Dan Roam, author of The Back of the Napkin, explains how services professionals can do just that.

By using Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, and other forms of social media, you can build your credibility and have people, including journalists in traditional media, seek you out for your expertise, says Dan Janal, Founder and President of PR Leads Expert Resource Network..

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When people buy professional services, their purchasing decisions are made at an emotional level. Something in a firm's presentation or values strikes them on a subconscious level. That is why it's imperative that services firms not only present themselves well with their websites and marketing materials, but they also differentiate themselves from others in the field. In this podcast Martin Lindstrom, CEO and Chairman of LINDSTROM Company, Chairman of Buyology Inc., and author of Buyology—Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, talks with RainToday.com Publisher Mike Schultz about his research into people's buying decisions, how service firms must make good first impressions on potential clients, and how service firms must set themselves apart from their competitors.

If you've been speaking at local events and getting rave reviews from attendees, you might be thinking about joining the circuit of big-name speakers. Before you take your speaking material to that level, however, listen to what Vickie Sullivan has to say. Speaking in the big leagues is very different, and you need to step up your game. In this podcast, Sullivan, President of Sullivan Speaker Services, explains the important aspects of a speaker's platform—and what should be included in that platform, talks about how publishing a book can lead to big league speaking engagements, and discusses the pros and cons of speaking at trade shows.

Social media networks are excellent tools for marketing your services, but it isn't enough to simply sign up to use those tools. It takes work. You can't confuse the tool with doing something meaningful with the tool, stresses Paul Gillin, writer and content marketing specialist and author of the book Secrets of Social Media Marketing. You have to have something interesting to say, and you have to be willing to respond to people who want to comment on what you say. Listen as Gillin advises beginners on how to get started using social media, explains some of the advanced things people are doing with social media, and discusses how you can incorporate social media marketing into your traditional marketing plan to create a symbiotic relationship between the two.

Too often professional services firms practice "random acts of marketing." They don't have a real strategy for marketing the firm or for generating leads, and as a result leads get lost or are discarded. To successfully generate leads, service firms have to do three things: identify the companies they should be working with, identify the right people within the companies, and nurture an ongoing dialogue with them and build trust. Before you can do that, however, you need to identify what is a good lead. Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch and author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, talks with Mike Schultz, Publisher of RainToday.com, about the importance of having a Universal Lead Definition. Build a profile of the ideal client, then marketing can use it to identify quality people and certify when someone is ready to talk to a partner, and sales management can use it to nurture a dialogue. (Time: 17:06)

In this day and age, when the Do-Not-Call list is so often put into action, you might think phone sales are things of the past. Not so, says Colleen Francis, Founder and President of Engage Selling Solutions. In fact, she says the phone is still the most effective sales tool. To succeed at cold calling, however, you need to have a different mindset and you need to follow certain best practices. Think about cold calling as new business development or opening a relationship. Listen as Francis offers advice for leading successful conversations and points out statements that will kill relationships before they even have a chance to get started. (Time: 11:56)

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If your referrals run dry, chances are you're going to have to turn to cold calling to bring in new business. That may seem daunting, and you might consider hiring an agency to make the calls for you, but it's better if you do it yourself.  John Doerr, Founder of RainToday.com and President of the Wellesley Hills Group, offers tips to ease the cold-calling process and help you establish good practices that will lead to sales. Advice John offers:•    Whether presidents of companies should make cold calls•    How to conduct a cold call•    If a prospect agrees to meet with you, how to prepare for that meeting•    What to do if a prospect says he isn't interested (Time: 12:54)

Services professionals know everything they need to sell their services. It's how they organize that information and how they approach prospective clients that determine whether or not they make the sale. Michael McLaughlin, author of Winning the Professional Services Sale, talks about how services professionals can convert a sales lead into a paying client.

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Chances are you've had difficult client relationships. Communication stops, the client doesn't give you what you need, and you don't get the results you want. Before you throw in the towel, you should make every effort to resolve the problems and get the relationship back on track.In this podcast, Andrea Howe, founder of BossaNova Consulting Group, talks with Mike Schultz, President of Wellesley Hills Group and Publisher of RainToday.com, about how to identify a relationship that's falling off track and what you can do to set things right. (Time: 13:24)

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Changes to a prospect's internal or external business environment could be just the thing to get you in their door and gain their business. Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies, explains the importance of tracking such triggering events, how to use them to engage prospects in conversation, and techniques for contacting prospects.Questions Jill answers:* How much time should you spend researching companies and trigger events?* How can you use trigger events to move a sale along?* How often should you contact people after a trigger event?* What language should you use when you talk to someone after a trigger event? (Time: 12:04)

Service firms oftentimes have no problem creating marketing plans. They have problems implementing them. John Doerr explains what it takes to get things done. Service firms oftentimes have no problem creating marketing plans. They have problems implementing them. And, even when they do implement them, they often stop prematurely, before the results have a chance to materialize, and declare, "Marketing doesn't work!" John Doerr, president of Wellesley Hills Group, founder of RainToday.com, and co-author of Professional Service Marketing, explains what it takes for firms to implement a strategy, wait until the returns arrive and more. (Time: 11:26)