Create Passive Income

It’s one of the oldest phrases in selling : people buy from people they know, like and trust.

But it essentially applies way wider than buyer-seller relationships.

One of the fledgling observations from my research work into business development best practices is the significance of cross-selling particularly in today’s economic conditions. It’s much easier and better for consultants, lawyers and other professionals to sell more work to their existing clients – those who already know, like and trust them than it is to search out new business. And it’s also better for the customer too their risks  are greatly minimized by doing business with folks they trust and they know will be looking out for their best interests.

In short: cross-selling is one of the most important strategies in professional services marketing.

Yet sadly, most professionals aren’t great at cross selling. My research has identified 2 main barriers :

* Most professionals have really limited awareness of the services their fellow professionals can deliver. They don’t know who their ideal clients are, what to look for to identify a potential sale, or what to ask to begin to interact with the client.

* Unfortunately, many professionals also don;t have a high degree of trust in their fellow professionals enough to feel comfortable enough to pro-actively cross-sell their services. By this I don’t mean that they dis-trust them. Simply that they don’t know what they do in enough depth, or have enough experience of working with them to feel confident that they would definitely do a brilliant job. And if they’re not confident of that they may hesitate to promote them and put their existing client relationships in danger.

So actually succeeding in cross-selling is driven primarily by whether you Know, Like and Trust your fellow professionals.

How can we increase the level of this knowledge and trust in professional service firms?

One effective method for this I’ve used during the past is to hold an informal trade show event for staff. This is often an evening or Friday afternoon session where each practice area showcases its client work to the remainder of the firm.

But it’s not dry, formal, power point shows. Instead, each practice area or specialism hosts a box rather like at a trade show with posters and charts giving examples of client projects they’ve done. Each example is in story or real-world example form :

* Who was the client we worked with?
What was their main challenge?
* How did we help them? Did we do anything surprising or different for them?
* What results did they achieve?

They close with chatting about the type of clients they’re trying to find introductions to.

The other professionals organize into small groups ( preferably mixed from across practice areas ) and gathers round each booth for a Ten minute interactive presentation. As the presenter is speaking to a little group instead of presenting to the whole audience, there’s plenty of interaction, questions and debate. After 10 minutes, the groups move round to the next show which is repeated for them.

For a firm with Four practice areas the entire thing can be done in around an hour. But be sure to add at least as long after for informal networking and chats as individuals follow-up on interesting things they’ve seen and areas where they’ve spotted potential opportunities.

They trick is to keep it informal and client focused. No boasting about how great your team is, what fees you achieved last year, or how you are superior to that rival down the road. Concentrate on who your customers are, and what you’ve delivered for them.

By doing this, not only will staff get a much better understanding and knowledge of what each practice area does and how well they do it but by interacting personally in tiny groups they’ll begin to develop the level of trust between each other that’s necessary for cross-selling to work.


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