How to learn to sell professional services as an engineer?

Question

I would like to understand the sales process better and learn how to actually sell professional services (consulting) in a B2B context.I want to learn how you identify relevant companies, introduce yourself to them, convince them to give you the opportunity to present yourself and your services, convince them to hire you for a project etc. ?Any recommendations on how to learn this would be much appreciated.

user_agent · Accepted Answer

As someone who went thru 10+ years of corporate sales before becoming more technical, I can recommend a couple of books that are going to do the job for you - I built a career on the frameworks offered by them: - SPIN Selling, Neil Rackham [solution based selling is very important] - Major Account Sales Strategy, Neil Rackham [if you're going to work with Fortune 500] - Rain Making: Attract New Clients No Matter What Your Field, Ford Harding [that's a classic, but it's a little bit not in line with selling tech, although still worth reading, especially for biz dev]
There hasn't been ANYTHING new in selling for at least 30-40 years with an exception of the social selling trend, but that can be mastered rather fast over the net.
Yes, it's really that simple. Learn, apply, pivot. Repeat. You'd be surprised how many account / biz dev managers never had a chance to read. Therefore they speculate about "intuition" and "talent", which are obviously BS. Master the process and you'll shine (and your head is going to forever free from thinking endlessly if you could have done something better). I wish you luck.

brudgers · Answer

The way to learn is by doing. Pick some companies you think are relevant and introduce yourself and keep doing that for as long as you are in business.
A couple of things:
+ "your services" consist of whatever solves the client's problem.
+ don't waste time trying to convince people to hire you. People with real problems don't need convincing. You can spend forever trying to convince someone who doesn't have real problems.
+ consulting is a relationship business. Relationships take years to build. The best potential clients are in established relationships with established consultants. New consultants see a higher percentage of bad potential clients: amateurs and non-payers.
+ selling is hard. Almost everything else is easier.

silvat · Answer

Im currently reading a book on this exact topic called Rain Making, pretty good so far. Maybe a little old/outdated, can't really tell because I'm not actually in the business yet, just doing preliminary research

chrisbennet · Answer

I can't help you with your specific question but you can get gigs for companies that you used to work for (and others) by maintaining a robust network of former colleagues. Keep in touch with people you used to work for and 2 years down the pike (if they liked your work) you may get a call for a job. I've never actually looked for consulting work, I just finds me through my network.

johan_persson · Answer

The book &rdquo;lets get real or lets not play&rdquo; is a useful resourse. Reaching out on LinkedIn is a low friction way to gather leads (sales navigator and tools like six soup makes it easier). As others have said: it&rsquo;s hard, everything else is easier.

towelpluswater · Answer

Build relationships and network. It's a huge investment of your time, but it's the best way to start to build a pipeline of opportunities.

asmbaty · Answer

You can search and take a course in Coursera.org for example.