Customer Reviews

Winning the Professional Services Sale: Unconventional Strategies to Reach More Clients, Land Profitable Work, and Maintain Your Sanity

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I picked this book up to read on a flight home. I have been consulting for over 30 years and quickly found this to be one of the most insightful books written about selling consulting services. I usually skim a book's introduction, but I read this one twice... it lays out a precise framework that McLaughlin will then build around in the rest of the book. His basic Connect - Collaborate - Commit framework succinctly nails how the nature of professional services sales has changed. He consistently takes conventional wisdom and changes how you think about it. The value of this book is how McLaughlin gets you clearly focused on not only what is important, but how to do each step.

Even if you don't immediately read the entire book, each "Sanity Check" tip box is worth reading as soon as you get a copy. These are practical, immediately implementable tips that will quickly improve how you interact with your potential clients. Kudos to Michael McLaughlin for a great business book that cuts through the jargon and gives you perspectives that you can actually apply.

P.S. You also have to love anyone who can paraphrase a Ricky Ricardo / Lucille Ball quote and work it into a business book (page 36)!

The book argues that times have changed and the prospective client must be dealt with differently. That's true. Using the old presumptive close, for example, no longer works nor should it be attempted. However, I found the book lacked a good deal that actually goes into dealing with prospective clients. And, in some areas, it was just wrong. The part on negotiating, for example --- a good service seller does not cut price without cutting deliverables. That's not the position the book takes.

I have yet to find a book as useful as Harry Beckwith's "Selling the Invisible." I wish I could find one but so far my search is illusive.

However, if you've not read anything on this subject and want to get your feet wet, it can't hurt.

- Susanna K. Hutcheson

"If there ever was a time when professional services sellers needed new strategies and tools, this is it." So says Michael McLaughlin in this book. He says that today's services sellers must be active in the market, offering ideas and solutions that generate client demand, and then they must be able to put together a winning sales strategy to satisfy that demand.

The book provides a detailed analysis of the sequence of events involved in a successful strategy for selling professional services. The sales process is no longer a matter of the seller just presenting its credentials; the seller must now attempt to gain strategic insights into any problem which the client may be facing, and craft a customised solution which provides a demonstrable and measurable advantage to the client.

Most professional services providers have been trained in how to provide their particular professional service; they have not been trained in how to undertake a strategic assessment of a client's business and come up with ideas that add quantifiable value. Accordingly, selling their services is intimidating for them. This book provides a very helpful step-by-step guide to success in the professional services sales process.

As I first started reading, I got the impression this book was written primarily for service providers dealing with big, corporate type clients. I was bummed out, since I'm a small firm dealing with small to midsize businesses and didn't think the book would help me.

However, as I continued to read further, I discovered a practical goldmine of valuable and actionable information regarding dealing with decision makers and buyers of all size companies, a section on how to write winning sales proposals, and how to deal with your clients after you make the sale.

Bottom line: Buy it! This book will be valuable to any service providers that need to sell there solutions to businesses of all sizes, from 1 man shops to big corporations.

My expectations were low when I purchased the book, but I was pleasantly surprised and used my highlighter far more than expected. I've spent the last 15 years in professional services sales, and this book crystalized the PS sales process. Every professional services person--from sales to associate--should read this book. Now so you'll know this isn't a totally puff review, my only criticism is that some topics were discussed rather lightly. After reading this book, you won't suddenly become a professional services sales guru, but you will be better than most. Consider this book not a 50,000-ft look at professional services sales, but more like a 20,000-ft look.

A very valuable book and at the front of my line to be the sales book for 2009 IMHO. There is just too much great stuff in this book to summarize for you. The author published with Jay Levinson Guerilla Marketing for Consultants, which I also found very useful. The core (book jacket) is rather than pressing the sale, salespeople must help clients buy-the way that works best for each client. Only by fully understanding a sale from every angle, including its impact on the client's business and career, can salespeople thrive in the new era of the service economy. He really makes the point that selling is getting harder all the time, and the pro salesman must always search for and learn new things. I really liked hearing his comments on long term clients expecting more from you over time as well as expecting you to be always getting faster at doing it.

If you are a service professional of any type, this is an essential addition to your bookshelf. It is written in a breezy, easy-to-read, at times humorous style that makes absorbing its in-depth, battle-tested content an enjoyable task. Michael McLaughlin, who earned his stripes as a senor partner at Deloitte, gives the reader practical, step-by-step guidance for how to win every sale. His insight into the mind of the client is both penetrating and lighthearted. This book will help you avoid the mistakes that most professionals make on a regular basis (e.g., jumping too quickly to write a proposal, focusing too much on you/your firm, overloading the client with PowerPoint slides, not being memorable, spouting platitudes, not spending sufficient time to really understand the client's goals and issues, and so on). More importantly, if you follow only 50% of McLaughlin's guidance, you will increase your proposal win rate.

I was a great fan of Michael McLaughlin's first book, Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants, which he co-wrote with Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of Guerrilla Marketing. Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants helped many of my clients make the most of the middle years of the current decade.

Michael is back with an even better book, Winning the Professional Services Sale, which provides new insights and updated for today's environment, where relations between buyers and sellers are undergoing radical transformation. As McLaughlin writes, "Buyers are demanding ever more knowledgeable, solution-savvy sellers and real time responses. They want salespeople who are subject matter experts and who know as much about the implications of solution implementation as they do about selling."

What's needed to win professional services sales today are "Seven by Seven Sellers." Michael describes the 7 roles that today's sellers must be able to perform using the 7 necessary skills described throughout the book and summarized in Chapter 14.

Winning the Professional Services Sale breaths new life and relevance into a crowded field. It stands apart from its competition because of its tight, logical, organization and accessible writing styles.

Examples, lists, pullquotes, and frequent subheads are used to organize the book's contents and make it easy for readers to apply the book's recommendations to its principles to their next sales interaction.

Winning the Professional Services Sale is a great book, backed-up by the author's resource-filled website and blog at www.mindshareconsulting.

Michael McLaughlin doesn't write a new book each year, but when he does come out with a new book, I've learned to pay attention. This is a true thinker's book, and it enjoys the support of top marketing leaders like Seth Godin, Jay Conrad Levinson, Jeffrey Fox, Tom Sant, and Ford Harding all of whom are respected authors of other books in the field.

I really enjoyed reading this book. The organization of this book may be what I liked best about it, very nicely formatted. I picked up this up based on a recommendation of a colleague and I must say I was not disappointed. Good Info that any salesperson would benefit from learning. Another book that I just finished reading, which I'd rate just as highly as this one is Why did my sales trainer not tell me this?. I'd probably recommend these two sales books before any other, very good stuff!

Michael McLaughlin blends hard-hitting reality checks and real-world strategies in this book. His ideas are a credible alternative to outdated cookie-cutter sales programs. This is stuff only learned in the trenches and reflects how buying decisions are really made. A must read for any one selling high-ticket solutions.