No, Not Another Sales-Driven Consultancy

"Idon't want any messages saying 'I'm holding my position.' We're not holding a goddamned thing. We're advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding anything except the enemy's balls. We're going to hold him by his balls and we're going to kick him in the ass; twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all the time."

This sentence from General Patton's famous speech on 31 May 1944, addressing the U.S. 6th Armoured Division, comes to mind when I think of a sales-driven consultancy.

Yes, I know in the books, revenue comes from sales, but let's put accounting aside for a moment.

Consulting is a trust-based business. Most consultancies' work is transformational not transactional. Can these people sell the same way as transactional salespeople like realtors or car salespeople? I doubt it.

If you close your eyes, and someone says "salesperson", what words come to mind for you?

In my workshops, I hear "peddler", "huckster", “pushy”, "scumbag" and similar words. And when I ask audience members what they think the salesperson's job is, they say, "Their job is to sell me something regardless of whether or not I need it or want it."

That's it then. Here we are with salespeople.

Yet, what I've heard from a good number of consulting practice leaders is that they want to turn their firms into more sales-driven firms.

Only a very few said they wanted to market better, so they can get better clients and better projects at higher fees.

What I've seen in other industries is that when companies want to become more sales-driven, sales directors, sales managers and salespeople take over the company and they dictate what happens and how it happens.

But the problem is that salespeople are short-term-focused, and they only focus on getting the job, and don't care about what sort of junk clients they get.

They don't realise that some other people have to work with those junk clients and please them in order to successfully complete projects.

So, handing the reins over to salespeople is always a disaster.

And this is what we discuss in this month's horrifyingly hysterical episode of Commando Consulting, entitled, No, Not Another Sales-Driven Consultancy.

Enjoy!