Complex, high-value services need to be sold - but not in the same way as a photocopier or a filing cabinet.

The selling task often falls to the professionals who will be delivering the service. They have to exercise great care to ensure that there is a seamless transition as the new prospect begins to see himself as a client.

Moreover, getting the right signature on a dotted line require an approach which is free of the pressure which many associate with conventional selling techniques.

Some professionals try to cope by leaving the client to make up their own mind, but in a climate of tough competition, this can leave them open to competitive activity...

Most people have a view of selling which is conditioned by their experience of being sold to badly. When asked to take on a selling role, they either shy away from it as a betrayal of their professionalism, or come on like a double glazing salesman on speed.

GET ALONGSIDE

The secret is to relax, and focus your thoughts on getting alongside the client, so that you can see things from his point of view. If you are so wrapped up in the logic of your solution, you can easily forget that your client may not see the problem in the same way, if at all.

THE INFORMATION TRAP

Everyone needs to establish their professional credibility, but if you think that this depends upon presenting information, beware! It is easy to subject your client to a stream of facts and arguments, which are difficult to absorb and may not seem immediately relevant. Having presented a case of faultless logic, you could be at a loss to understand why your proposed solution is not immediately seized upon.

The client, not you, should be doing most of the talking, especially in the early stages of the relationship.

LOGICAL SEQUENCE OF QUESTIONS

A sequence of questions, which you can work out in advance, should lead the client to the point where the logic is obvious. This may sound long winded but the client will often have to influence others to get the project through, and you are probably not going to be invited to prompt him at the critical moment.

AGREE ON THE PROBLEM

Your initial goal, is not to get an order, but to reach a stage where both parties agree to focus on a particular problem linked to a specific opportunity. If you are offering something new, you will have to help the client to see that symptoms in his business, which he had come to accept as permanent, can really be changed.

CONSEQUENCES OF NEGLECT

Before you put forward a proposal, ask the client about the real consequences of neglecting the problem. Otherwise he may compare the cost with other spending options, instead of seeing the real risks to his business. Your proposal must be seen in its true context.

TOO MANY BORING QUESTIONS

Many specialists get used to asking a stream of "fact-finding" questions to ensure their projects start off on firm ground. In the early stages of a selling relationship, too many questions of this type may bore the client.

It is better to ask a few, carefully focused, questions to establish the context, before going on to uncover the client’s problems and what their resolution will mean for the business.

FINISHING BADLY

Having proved your case, and made your offer, you may be tempted to pressure the client to say yes. On the other hand, if you leave the client alone, you will lose the opportunity to address those last minute anxieties which can get in the way of a deal. Having sold the concept, you could find that the business has gone to a competitor called in by the client "just to get an alternative view".

The best approach is to maintain a reassuring availability. This can only be done if you have "got alongside" the client right from the start. In selling a high-value service, the problem is rarely failure to close properly. It has much more to do with how the seller opens up the issues at the start.

If you feel that selling high value services is a skilled process, best left to the sales professional, you would be both right and wrong. Right, because there are skills which have to be learned. Wrong, because leaving them to the sales professional is not always the answer. The truth is that many sales professionals do not have the right approach. Much of their training will have focused on techniques such as closing, which have little relevance to selling a high value service.

Fortunately, small changes in behaviour on the part of the seller, whether a professional or a specialist thrust into the role, can have a dramatic effect on the outcome. More often than not, the client will prefer a technical professional who makes some attempt to follow the rules, to a sales professional who does not.