In Trust-Based
Selling, Charles Green (who co-authored The Trusted
Advisor with David Maister), titles Chapter 7 (pp. 70—74), "Sell
by Doing, Not by Telling," and relates the following story:
The "Chief Counsel of a Fortune 50 company" needed to hire
outside counsel for a critical project. Starting with
a dozen firms, they narrowed the selection to three finalists,
each of whom they invited in for a 90-minute presentation: "The
first two were very good; they had solid expertise, industry
knowledge, and had done their homework. Then came firm
three."
They said: "Look, we only have 90 minutes with you. We
can do our standard capabilities presentation—which we’re
happy to do, by the way—or we can try something different. We’d
like to suggest that we get started on the project with you
right here, right now. After 85 minutes, we’ll stop, and
you’ll have first-hand experience of what it’s actually like
to work with us."
Agreeing to the exercise, what do you suppose the corporate team
found?
Competence, to be sure: That much was "quickly
clear." But here’s the valuable, differentiating part:
"As we worked with them, we got to know them better;
instead of giving answers to questions, we had a dialogue. […] They
came to listen and to work, and to show their smarts in real
time, on our issues, not to report on theirs. You just
felt you could trust them."
What firm three was up to (and yes, for the record, they won
the assignment hands-down) was capitalizing on the fact that
buying a complex service involves two steps, which are too often
confused: First
is screening
and only then is selection.
Screening is fairly mechanical, and done at a distance: It’s
establishing that your firm has the "table stakes" to play. Here,
reputation within the industry, a personal recommendation from
a well-placed individual, or even a highly informative and intuitively
navigable website may be all you need to get to the next round.
But once you’re in front of the potential client, you’re into
selection, which operates under different psychological rules: They
already assume you can get the job done from a technical and
professional perspective, now it’s time for you to demonstrate
("doing not telling") how you would apply your skills to the
potential client’s specific issues.
Until you reach the selection stage, your expertise is, to
be sure, germane, but it’s also abstract. "German engineering"
is one thing; a test drive is another. Offer the potential
client a test drive. Demonstrate that you’re willing to
stick your neck out, take a risk that they might not like what
you can actually do, and take a chance on collaboration. Make
the abstract tangible.
We are all tempted, in offering our services, to over-rate
the importance of expertise. After all, we’ve all made
tremendous investments in training, professional development,
mastery of our micro-practice specialties, and so on. And
we’ve been rewarded for our deep grasp of technical fundamentals.
Reinforcing our temptation to focus on degrees, credentials,
and past triumphs is, often, the potential client themselves,
who—even if they’re not sure how to evaluate the answers—will
often ask technical questions because they think they "should,"
that it’s the responsible way to make a decision.
But it’s really about trust, about rapport, about establishing
a relationship grounded in jointly exploring solutions to the
issues at hand. And the quality of your performance in
that context is not any thing you can assert; it’s something
you can only display.
So next time, be firm three. What do you have to be afraid
of?
