Ford
Harding is the founder and president of Harding &
Company, a firm that helps management consultants, accountants,
architects, attorneys and engineers win new clients. Harding
has trained professionals in twelve countries in the art
of selling and marketing services.
Harding is the author of the classic book,
Rain
Making: The Professional's Guide to Attracting New Clients,
and Creating
Rainmakers: The Manager's Guide to Training Professionals
to Attract New Clients. His latest book, Cross-Selling
Success: A Rainmaker's Guide to Professional Account Development,
looks at how service providers can enhance their practices
by bringing more value to their established clients.
Before starting his own company, Harding
spent fifteen years with a consulting firm where he sold
a wide variety of consulting engagements. His client list
includes AT&T Solutions, CSC Consulting, DiamondCluster
International, Kurt Salmon Associates and Towers Perrin.
MCNews talked to Harding about how consultants
can benefit from his selling strategies.
* * * *
MCNews: Let's start with this--what motivated
you to write a book on cross selling?
Harding: I was motivated by the frustration
I hear again and again from professional firms about missed
sales opportunities. I remember talking to the head of
a consulting firm that had just lost out on a major IT
project for a long-term client. The consultants didn't
know the project even existed until it was awarded to
somebody else.
The justification for having multiple practices
in one firm is to provide additional value to the marketplace,
to your clients. If you aren't doing that, then why are
these different practices sharing one roof? I don't
think there is any firm with multiple services that couldn't
add 25% to its revenue if it just did cross selling more
effectively. Those are the main reasons I wrote the
book.
MCNews: How do you define cross selling?
Harding: Cross selling is about extending
services with your current clients into different areas
to meet their needs in a more comprehensive way. For example,
you might realize that another service area within your
firm could help your client with a problem, or it might
be that the same project you are completing for a client
needs to be done at another branch of the client's company.
In any case, cross selling is about focusing on the client's
needs and identifying new ways your firm can meet those
needs.
MCNews: Do you think clients want to
keep multiple consulting firms involved in opportunities
so they don't end up relying on just a single firm?
Harding: That varies with the client.
There are clients who do want to disperse the work and
make a point of doing just that. Of course, if clients
send that message clearly, you don't try to cram anything
down their throats.
But, there are many clients who want to
simplify the buying process and find that there are certain
benefits to using the same firm for multiple services:
the vetting process is faster and cheaper; the assurance
of quality work is often greater because the relationship
is deeper and stronger; the consultant has more at stake
in the account; and, the learning curve for the consultant
is lower in terms of understanding the culture and organizational
dynamics of the client.
MCNews: Are today's clients more, or
less, receptive to cross selling than in the past?
Harding: Some clients are inordinately
sensitive these days to any perceived conflict of interest
for professional firms, and for good reason. But there
are numerous cross-selling opportunities where there is
no conflict of interest at all. And, as long as consultants
handle cross selling in a professional manner, clients
welcome it because of the potential benefits I just mentioned.
MCNews: What is a "portal"
project, and what are the features of an effective one?
Harding: Well, a portal project is
one that gets you in the door with a client so you can
learn about those organizational dynamics and find out
how you can serve that client efficiently. It allows you
that opportunity when you otherwise might have difficulty
because other consultants serve the client, or the client
just doesn't know you that well.
Portal projects must be clearly in the client's
best interests, and you need to demonstrate their value
at the end. They also tend to be smaller relative to the
size of your firm's typical assignment, small enough so
they don't create a lot of price resistance from the client.
Sometimes they are even free, but not necessarily so.
Such projects allow you to get inside the
organization and talk to the people you need to know to
sell more services later. Typically, they address a question
the client needs answered right now. For instance, a client
might have a problem that requires a $40 million fix,
but the client may not be ready to face the expenditure
and the work needed for that fix. Maybe there is a piece
of that larger puzzle that the client wants to figure
out quickly, and you can help with that.
MCNews: Any advice on how consultants
can broaden their exposure within a client organization
without just looking like a salesperson?
Harding: First of all, I'd like to
challenge the underlying premise in your question that
it's bad to look like a salesperson. Most of our clients
make their living by selling something, and someone who
wants to sell to them, as long as it is done in a professional
and appropriate way, does not offend them. Clients expect
it and, in some cases, may be surprised if you aren't
looking for ways to add value by bringing to their attention
a problem they don't see.
While it's not necessarily bad to be
perceived as someone who sells, you don't want clients
to believe you are only interested in selling. A good
salesperson sells against a client's need, and doesn't
just push a product or service.
MCNews: Are there personal or professional
characteristics for a successful cross seller?
Harding: Yes, I think there are.
First, they don't have a strip-mining mentality. They
are not interested in making a quick hit now that might
hurt the client relationship later. Instead, they take
the long-term view of things. They want to be in that
account for years to come and realize that for that to
happen, the client must perceive that they consistently
provide value well in excess of the cost of the service.
They always put the client's interests first and clients
trust them in that regard.
Successful cross sellers are relentless
in two areas: quality of service and the development of
relationships. Relationships are the foundation for
selling additional work because they give you access to
the people who have issues you might address; they allow
you to have the conversations that uncover need and pave
the way for later sales.
The best cross sellers also have extensive
internal relationships. Within their own firms, they are
known and know others well enough to talk about each other's
services. They know how to behave together when they go
out and meet with a client, and so they work together
smoothly.
MCNews: What prevents consultants from
being more effective at cross selling?
Harding: One significant obstacle
is the silo thinking of consultants themselves. Generally,
consultants have functional areas of expertise, and they
are quite comfortable talking about that area with clients;
they are very uncomfortable talking with a client about
anything else. And, they may be just as uncomfortable
introducing consultants from other areas of expertise.
In fact, they may not even hear an opportunity
for another practice area when it passes their ears.
Another issue has to do with risk. If I
have a long-term, profitable relationship with a client,
I don't want to risk messing that up by bringing in someone
who might make the client unhappy. There are some grim
stories to that effect, so you can't be naïve about
bringing others to your clients. After all, every firm
has people and practices that are better than others.
MCNews: What is the most common area
in selling services that needs improvement?
Harding: There are a couple of areas
that come to mind. One is getting professionals started
early enough with the development of people skills that
when they get to the point in their careers when they
need to start bringing in revenue, they have the foundation
and contact base to be successful. It's appropriate to
say to junior people, keep your eyes open, your nose down
and do the work. You don't want them out there trying
to make big sales. But there are things they can do to
prepare themselves so that when they do make the transition,
it isn't such a brutal jolt.
In most of corporate America, selling becomes
a less and less significant part of your job as you rise
through the ranks. In consulting, it's almost a complete
reversal, with selling becoming more and more important
as you get promoted.
Selling is a skill, and it's more like
playing the piano than it is like studying physics.
People tend to mistake understanding for mastery. Smart
people, and consultants generally are smart, tend to confuse
the two. Mastery is the ability to execute under pressure.
It's not that hard to understand how a piano works, but
to play a Chopin piece at Carnegie Hall in front of 800
people is hard, even if you understand the fundamentals
of how a piano works.
Effective selling requires going back to
the basics again and again. In good sales organizations,
people are constantly refreshed in the basics. But in
the professions--including consulting--it tends to be
more of a one-time dunking. So, that's an area that could
definitely be improved.
MCNews: Thanks for your time today.
You can find out more about Ford Harding,
his books and services at www.hardingco.com.
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