Nine Ways of Attracting and Retaining Loyal Professionals Who Can Sell

by Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan, Organisational Provocateur

1. Accept the fact that part of your people's work is educating clients, and not pushing billable time. Hint: If you charge time-based fees for your service, you are already losing money left, right and centre.

2. Allow your people to operate as valuable resources for prospects and clients without being paid for every single activity. The real relationship starts after the first sale is done. Now your people have to nurture client relationships for long-term collaborations.

3. Never condemn your people to beating the pavement for new business. Fine-tune your marketing, so the right people can come to you, ready to do business with you. Whores beat the pavement for new clients not professionals.

4. Generate sales leads for your people. They are out there to do client work and deepening existing relationships, so do not waste their time by forcing them to generate their own leads. You only piss them off and they go to your competitors where the grass may be greener.

5. Let your people think years ahead and cultivate prospects for the future. It takes time to turn interested prospects into buying clients. Give your prospects time and space without pushing them. However, use that time for educating them.

6. Let your people realise that you work for them just as they work for you. Make sure they know you are creating the right business environment and culture, in which it is pleasant to work.

7. Involve your front line people in developing more effective marketing techniques. If someone, they really know the market. Take their suggestions seriously, and ignore them at your own peril.

8. Get rid of the commission payment structure for your people. Pay them decent salaries and revenue sharing, indicating you believe in them. Traditional commission payments have created the negative stigma attached to salespeople, and as long as you pay commissions, your people will be perceived as peddlers, not professionals. All your people must be on the same payment structure to make them feel they belong in the same team. Also, abolish individual rewards of any kind.

9. Regard your promo stuff as an investment in your future. Give your marketing a financial priority, for it has - if done correctly - the highest potential payback.

Bonus

10. Don't even think of assembling a dedicated sales force. In a well-structured professional service firm every single member must be able to land new business. Get rid of your geek and anal retentive number crunchers if they are not willing to learn selling skills. Relegating sales to a specific group to advance your business is the same as relegating lovemaking to your marriage counsellor to advance your marriage. Yes, the concept can work in theory, but in practice the effect is the opposite, that is divorce.

Copyright 1997-2010 Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan. All rights reserved. You are free to use this article in whole or in part. One favour though: Can I ask you to you include complete attribution, including a live website link. Also, can you please let me know where you plan to publish the article.

The attribution: This article was written by Organisational Provocateur, Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan of Dynamic Innovations Squad, a firm specialising in helping consulting firms to sell their expertise at the highest margins. Get Tom's free Practice Management Black Paper when you sign up for his monthly newsletter, Commando Consulting: Lessons And Practices From The Ultimate Professional Service Firm, The Military. Visit Tom's website at http://www.di-squad.com.

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