B2B sales, especially in professional services, is not so much about SELLING as it is about BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT. If you help your customer solve their business problems, they will gladly buy services from you. Everyone working in the consulting company needs to be aware of the customers' challenges; You need a sales oriented culture. This presentation summarizes my experience of selling consulting services and creating a sales oriented culture in consulting companies from the last 18 years.

1. FOSTERING A SALES-
ORIENTED CULTURE IN
CONSULTING SERVICES
Gustaf Brandberg * February 2013

2. GUSTAF BRANDBERG
2006 - 2010
Digital Service
Design
Consultant
Team leader
Founder and CEO Sales manager Angel Investor
CITERUS
Agile software
consulting company

3. GOAL STATEMENT GOAL STATEMENT
“ Increase managers’ “ Increase managers’
and consultants’ and consultants’
abilities to upsell and abilities to make your
crossell customers chose you
as preferred supplier

4. RULE #1
YOUR
YOU CUSTOMER
YOUR PROJECTS
You’re in the relationship
business, not the one-
night-stand business.

5. Your job is to boost
your customers’
careers.

6. TRUST
IS THE FOUNDATION OF ALL RELATIONSHIPS

7. Unlike your matrimonial partner,
a happy customer
will often help you
find new ones.
Reference cases Speakers at
seminars
Quotes on CVs Word-of-mouth
and LinkedIn

8. SO WHY SHOULD YOUR
CUSTOMERS TRUST YOU?
You understand what You deliver quality
they need work on time
You treat their money You keep your
SUGGESTIONS?
as your own promises
You give advice that You deliver quality
are in their interest service

9. MEANWHILE, INSIDE YOUR
CUSTOMER’S HEAD …
Did I chose the right supplier? Will the
consultant challenge my work? Do I
lose control? Why can’t they just get it
done? Will the smart consultants make
me seem ignorant? Are these guys
really good? Do they really care, or do
they just want my money?

10. FOUR TYPES OF
SALES SITUATIONS
EXISTING CUSTOMER NEW CUSTOMER
A need that
the customer Superplease Court
is aware of
Listen!
A need that
the customer Nurture Broadcast
is unaware of

11. LISTEN!
Ask the right questions and
do your customer’s business case
Increase shareholder
Increase revenue
value
Reduce risk Cut costs
- project costs

12. LISTEN!
Sources of knowledge
1. Industry knowledge 2. Customer knowledge
• User groups • Management visits
• Industry meetings • Reverse seminars
• Market research • Systematic team
debriefings
3. Project knowledge • Systematic feedback –
• Pre-study involving formal and informal
stakeholders
PPS Project Directives

13. LISTEN!
Example – SF Bio
• Understanding the business
case for popcorn, gift cards
and biomaterna™
• Selling tickets and candy
• Planning workshops with the
ledership team – getting
personal but not private

14. LISTEN!
A Service Quality Program
The responsibility of managers:
• Everyone working in the project
is aware of the business case.
• We collect formal and informal
feedback from the customer.
• We act on the information we
get.
LISTEN, DON’T SELL.

15. EXISTING CUSTOMER NEW CUSTOMER
A need that
the customer Superplease Court
is aware of
Listen!
A need that
the customer Nurture Broadcast
is unaware of

16. SUPERPLEASE
satisfaction =
perception - expectation

17. Perception
Quality
work
Quality service

18. Discussion
• When was the last time you got a
superpleasing experience buying a
service. What made it great?
• When was the last time you got lousy
service. What made you dissapointed?

19. Maximize perception
Always look for opportunities to superplease
(and be sure to leave some money on the table).
Manage
Managers: Make sure that the people
expectation
doing the job are involved in the sales
Don’t oversell
process.

20. The orange
juice test:
500 glasses of
freshly pressed
orange juice,
please.

21. EXISTING CUSTOMER NEW CUSTOMER
A need that
the customer Superplease Court
is aware of
Listen!
A need that
the customer Nurture Broadcast
is unaware of

22. Example

23. NURTURE
Set clear expectations
Sell
yourself
3 leads per year
Get LinkedIn endorsements
from customer

24. FOSTERING A SUPERPLEASING
CULTURE

25. THE ONE CULTURE
PRINCIPLE
Internal
behaviour = Behaviour
towards
customers

26. HOW TO CHANGE
YOUR CULTURE
Recruit superpleasing
and nurturing people
=
THE LAW OF PICKLED CUCUMBER:
When you pickle cucumber, the cucumber gets
more pickled than the pickle get cucumbered”

27. Discussion
• How can YOU set a good example?
• How can YOU improve the recruitment
process in order to get sales-oriented
people?
• What incentives and practices can YOU
introduce in your team to foster a sales-
oriented culture?

28. AGILE
HOW
METHODOLOGIES FOSTER
TRUST

29. Retrospectives
for learning
TRUST

30. SUGGESTED
READING
Many of the concepts in this presentation origins from….
Secrets of Consulting I and II
Jerry Weinberg
Managing the Professional Service Firm
David Maister
Agile Software Development with Scrum
Ken Schwaber and Robert C Martin

31. THANKS!
Twitter gustafbrandberg
Blog thefutureisalreadyhere.se
Email gustaf@gullspanginvest.se