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5 Simple Steps to Win More Consulting Projects (Make Sales Easier)

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Here’s how to win more consulting sales.

People often refer to it as “closing” more sales.

I’m going to offer you some insights, some mindsets, and ways of thinking about this to help you actually win more business.

The most effective consultants understand that it’s all about what’s going on in the buyer’s mind.

1. Forget About Closing The Sale (For Now)

The key to closing more sales is don’t focus on the close.

That sounds counter-intuitive and the opposite of what you should do, right?

“To win more sales, to close more — I shouldn’t focus more on the close? “

Exactly.

If you’re a consultant and you’re working with savvy and sophisticated buyers in well-established organizations, you don’t want to go in there trying to persuade or twist people’s arms to buy.

You don’t want to use some sales tactics that are “hypey” and uncomfortable. No one wants that. The buyer doesn’t want it. You don’t want it. So why are you trying to do it?

The first thing is don’t go in with a mindset of “we need to close this person.”

2. Focus On What Comes Before The Sale

Instead, what you want to do is you want to focus on what comes before that.

You want to focus on the conversation. It’s everything that happens before you go in to win that business — and before you go to close that business — that’s what counts.

In that conversation, you want to identify the value. You want to identify or communicate the value that the buyer cares about.

In order to do this, you want to ask the right questions.

3. Ask The Right Questions

When you ask the right questions, you’re able to identify — and then communicate — the value.

The value that the buyer cares about.

It’s not about your methodology, your presentation, the delivery, and how you’re going to do the work that the buyer is thinking about when it comes to a consulting project.

The most effective consultants understand that it’s all about what’s going on in the buyer’s mind. It’s all about what is important to them.

consultant asking a client what's important to them

What is the outcome that they’re looking to achieve?

What are the results that they care about?

What will the ROI look like for them so that they feel excited to make that investment?

You want to dig into some meaningful, deep questions to identify the value and the problem the buyer has to get them to see the cost of not taking action, not moving forward — and then communicate that value back to the buyer. So that they see that. So they confirm it and agree to it.

4. Get Them To Confirm & Agree

Effective consulting conversations are never about you going in and saying “this is what you need to do.” Or, “here’s what it’s all about.” “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

It’s not about that.

It’s that you identify what the buyer wants, going through a whole host of questions to really get to the core issue: what’s really going on inside their hearts and in their minds — and then getting them to confirm and agree to that.

So you asked them questions like…

  • Does that make sense?
  • Would that be a good fit for you?
  • Is that correct?
  • Do you also see it that way?
  • Is there anything else that that would be important to you?
  • Does that align with what’s important?

You want to get their confirmation.

Because when they confirm and they agree to what you’ve been talking to them about, they’re already giving you buy in. They’re already telling you like “that makes sense, that’s really what we’re looking for.”

That’s a very easy and very natural transition for you to go to number five: which is to make your offer.

5. After All This, Then Make Your Offer

The key is that in number three when you’re trying to identify the value — the ROI — is uncovering the cost of inaction.

You identify these things. You then get the buyer to confirm and agree on everything you’ve talked about: the value in terms of how much additional revenue can be generated for them.

Or…

  • The efficiency that will be created
  • The improvement in productivity
  • The effect on morale
  • How it can impact their stock price
  • How it will help them to capture greater market share
  • How it will help them to defend market share
  • How to reach a market first

Or whatever it is that’s important to them.

You identify what’s important to them, you get them to agree to it, and then you simply make your offer in a way that aligns with exactly what they’ve just told you that they want.

That’s how you win and close more sales.

You offer people exactly what they’ve just told you they want to buy in a way that connects and supports your expertise and experience.

consulting winning new business in a sales conversation

When you do that, you’ll make sales in a much easier way and in a much faster way — and with greater confidence. You’ll feel significantly more comfortable making those sales because you’re just helping someone.

You’re serving them. You’re providing value to them by helping them to identify what the best next step should be for them, and not by pushing on them.

Instead, you’re helping to identify what the best next step should be to overcome their challenges or problems — and then laying out what that would look like in terms of your offer, and also confirming that’s what they’re looking for.

Want To Win More Consulting Projects — With Help From The Experts?

When you put all that together, you go through these five steps, you’ll start to see that you’re able to make more sales.

You’ll speed up your sales cycle.

You’ll enjoy the process of consulting sales significantly more.

Put these five together and you’ll start to win more consulting sales and projects. You’ll also be able to do it at a higher value.

You can check out some of the other videos that we have here or go to ConsultingSuccess.com to learn more about how to increase your fees, how to win more proposals, how to structure your proposals — and a lot of other information to help you to take your consulting business and success to the next level.

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