What Options Do You Offer To Buyers?

Have you ever thought about the differences between bees and wasps?

Many people can't even distinguish them by sight.

Maybe not by sight, but there is a major difference in their stings.

On the surface, they are similar. But their stings are different.

The bee’s poison is acidic, so you need something alkaline, like baking soda mixed into a little water, to neutralise the pain. Mind you, you still have to deal with the barbed harpoon the bee uses to deliver the poison and gets lodged in under your skin.

The wasp is a completely different ballgame. Its poison is alkaline, so you need something acidic, like vinegar or lemon juice, to eliminate the pain. The good thing is that its harpoon is barbless, so after stinging its victim, the wasp withdraws it and happily flies away, leaving its victim in pain and more frustrated than a bear with an ingrown toenail.

So, if you can have an option, there is a good chance you prefer being stung by a wasp to a bee.

But you often don't have a choice if you get stung by a bee, wasp or even a NowWhattian boghog.

Luckily, buyers of your consulting services always have many options to choose from.

And that is both good and bad.

If you offer take-it-or-leave-it type proposals with one choice, you have 50% probability to lose the gig.

But if you offer two options, the probability of losing the gig drops to 33.3%.

With three options, it's only 25%.

While logic says,"have more options and you have less chance of losing", psychology overrules logic.

Having more than three options can backfire and the probability of losing goes up again.

So, in this month's morbidly magnificent issue of Commando Consulting, we take deeper look into this option dilemma.

The masterpiece is masterfully entitled, What Options Do You Offer To Buyers?

Enjoy!

What Are Some Tell-Tale Signs Of Bad Consulting Sales Copy?

Ask a Chinese chef what he means by baking, boiling, broiling, frying and grilling, and he tells you they are cooking processes used in traditional Chinese cuisine.
Now ask a Chinese military general or military historian the same question, and he tells you that they are ancient Chinese torture and execution methods.
Quite a difference.
As a result of boiling, broiling or frying, you can be either well fed or well dead.
I mention this humble little factoid because this is the exact problem when two people look at sales copy.
For most consulting firm leaders, copy is just an imbecilic dump of over-hackneyed rhetoric and vending-machine clichés based on an almost random dump of haphazardly patched together words and phrases that no one reads and gives two shits about.
So, they think if copy is just some filler of some eyesore white spaces, it must be produced as cheaply as humanly possible.
So, they go and find someone in India, Bangladesh or Albania who can write copy for as little as $5 per hour or less.
But a few consulting firm leaders regard copy as the foundation of their good marketing that creates their brand and "premium" perception in the marketplace.
So, they see valuable, engaging, action-oriented so-called "authority" copy that buyers can notice, read and act on, and happily pay north of $1,000 for a blog post, $5,0000 for sales landing page or $25,000 or more for sales funnel development. Funnel and copy go together. In multi-step B2B sales, one can't exist without the other.
They know what good copy or copy-enriched content (content pieces that lead to sales) can do for their businesses, so they naturally want to hire the best copywriter whom they can afford and who are willing to accept them as new clients.
So, let's see what difference good and bad copy can cause to your consulting firm in this frighteningly fantabulous episode of Commando Consulting, expertly entitled, What Are Some Tell-Tale Signs Of Bad Consulting Sales Copy?
Enjoy!

Why Sales Goals Are Destroying Boutique Consultancies

And, of course, on the top of the shuffling madness, there was John Henry, and nice, happy-go-lucky chap in England.

In fact, his full name was John Henry Bonham. He was the drummer of the legendary rock band Led Zeppelin and the composer of the equally legendary song, Moby Dick. Sadly, he died in 1980 at the tender age of 32.

Nevertheless, our story today has nothing to do with him. Not a dickybird.

Our hero for this literary masterpiece is a completely different John Henry. Yes, without the Bonham bit and without significant drumming skills.

Our John Henry was a huge African-American bloke who was a steel driver working on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad in the 1940s.

He was drilling holes and hammering steel spikes into rocks with his 14-pound hammer.

What made John so outstanding in his profession and so valuable to the railroad company was that he could make 10-12 feet of progress in one single workday. No one else came even within spitting distance of his incredible performance.

Then his day came. Now he could really prove himself in a significant way.

Out of nowhere, a salesman showed up and started bragging to management about his steam drill and how that drill could out-work any human.

"But not me!" – first thought and then shouted John.

After some argument, the contest was set between man and machine.

John picked up a 20-pound hammer in each hand and got to work.

In very a tight contest, John eventually won.

In triumph, he raised his hammers to the sky as his co-workers and managers were cheering and celebrating him.

Then the celebration suddenly ended and panic took over.

John felt dizzy with exhaustion.

The hammers fell from his hands and he collapsed to the ground.

Within minutes, he was dead as a doornail. He died from a burst blood vessel in his brain.

Yes, the human beat the machine… for fleeting a fleeting moment and victory killed him.

And the machine beat the human… forever.

Setting aspiring sales goals can give you a temporary lead, but they alone can't guarantee that you actually reach them.

Just look at your peers. They have sales goals up to the wazoo, but many of them keep falling short on those goals time and time again.

I reckon, John Henry's goal was to be the company's most valuable worker, and it had worked for him for a while.

Then with the arrival of the steam drill, the shit hit the fan and soon after, John hit the ground… not exactly running but, well, lying still.

Yes, John defeated the drill machine, a.k.a. the system, but only for a short time. C & O Railroad's greatest driller, the legendary John Henry was dead. Even the drilling legend couldn't beat the machine.

And the sad reality is that while John was busy walloping spikes in the 1940s, almost 100 years later, many boutique consultancies do the equivalent of manual spike-walloping in their own firms: Using unnecessary manual labour to generate sales leads and convert them to clients despite the fact that 100% of lead generation and the majority of the lead conversion process can be automated.

In fact, many firm leaders are proud of their hard work to drum up new business.

Continue reading ... Why Sales Goals Are Destroying Boutique Consultancies

Enjoy!

Client Acquisition For Boutique Consultancies With The Right Automation-Humanisation Balance

Have you ever heard about bearcats, those oddball-looking beauties native to Southern Asia?
Are they related to bears or cats?
No!
They are related to... weasels.
In fact, they look like some kind of bear-cat-weasel-raccoon cross with a long furry body, bushy tail, claws, and a weasel-like visage.
And no one knows for sure what it actually is.
And the same happens when consulting firm leaders want to automate some of their business functions that should be kept human and want to humanise functions that could be automated.
Has it ever happened to you? Most probably, yes.
Many years ago, I read an interesting study about the profitability (revenue per employee) of different industries.
It turned out that professional service firms, including consultancies, are behind manufacturing companies, cheap motels and junk food joints.
Yes, the comparison is really hard because they all have different business models, but it's still strange that a profession that consists of highly educated and dedicated people with all sorts of Ivy League advanced degrees performs more poorly than an industry that is made up by schoolkids with a general couldn't care less attitude.
Back in 2001, Michael Gerber told us at the E-Myth Mastery Academy, "Systems make it possible for ordinary people to produce extraordinary results."
And while junk food joints need different levels of automation from consultancies, if consulting firms could find the right automation-humanisation balance, they could generate significantly higher revenue per associate.
When it comes to sales, marketing agencies are at least 20 years behind the most cutting-edge industries. According to a Hubspot survey, 44% of agencies don't use a CRM, 42% haven't defined their ideal client, and 90% describe referrals and word of mouth as their main source for new business.
And consulting firms are pretty close to marketing agencies in terms of their business models.
Traditionally, consulting firms are filled with highly schooled people with MBAs and other degrees, so it's only fair to say that most of them passionately resent and look down on marketing and selling.
So, let's see what good marketing automation can do to maintain the right level of personal touch in this morbidly magnificent episode of Commando Consulting, expertly entitled, Client Acquisition For Boutique Consultancies With The Right Automation-Humanisation Balance
Enjoy!

Top 10 Post-Internet Sales Trends For Boutique Consultancies

Have you ever considered that potatoes belong to the same family as the deadly nightshade?
But while the former can feed you (although not exactly healthy), the latter can kill you.
Roughly this is the difference between selling consulting services and selling things.
But this is also something that gets ignored.
Many boutique consultancies hire salespeople with impressive histories in selling things, and when they fail to perform, firm leaders feel those salespeople have deceived them into believing how good they are.
But they are good. Very good. But at a different kind of selling. They are good at bludgeoning people until they give in and buy something.
And then upsell them and dump more unwanted and unneeded crap on them for good money.
Based on my long observation, I can safely conclude that many boutique consulting firms fail to change as the world of sales has been changing around them.
Or more correctly, they change. They enlarge their tactical capabilities but fail to grow their strategic capabilities.
My difference is that "enlarge" is merely doing more of the same at a tactical level, whereas "grow" is doing things differently.
Instead of effectiveness (doing the right things), the focus on efficiency (doing - often the wrong - things right, very, very streamlined)
That is, they hire more and more junior associates to perform low-level commodity-grade manual labour that shouldn't be performed at all.
They spend a small fortune on things that can be easily changed but requires no change in associates' mindsets at all.
People keep their old beliefs and start frantically changing on the outside.
And doing more of the same, they expect different results.
A while ago, CRMGuru, Selling Power Magazine and Search CRM did a survey and identified the top ten sales trends that can also impact boutique consulting firms, and this is what we try to discuss in this euphorically electrifying episode of Commando Consulting, fiendishly entitled, Top 10 Post-Internet Sales Trends For Boutique Consultancies
Enjoy!

Seven Inbound Marketing Tactics To Reach Cream Of The Crop Consulting Clients

The time was 1898, and the very first urban planning meeting took place in New York City.
The topic was horse shit pile-ups in big cities.
By the end of the third day of the 10-day conference, the experts concluded that horse shit won't be a problem because, in 100 years, all big cities would be gone forever with their buildings, bridges and horse shit.
All destroyed by horse shit.
This is exactly where traditional consultancy marketing was a few years ago.
Consulting firms were busy doing their normal marketing activities, like cold calling and responding to RFPs.
No, they didn't advertise because they thought it was beneath them as professionals.
They had the self-delusional idea that the more RFPs they respond to, the more clients they can land.
And it worked.
It also backfired.
They landed lots of non-ideal clients at high cost of sales and low margins. Lots of over-scoped projects with tremendous labour intensity.
The way the world has changed with the Internet means that buyers can look up an army of consultants on the Internet and then, equipped with all sorts of information on them, they would contact their top choice consultants when they're ready to engage them.
Today, people make pretty expensive purchases without talking to salespeople. Even in consulting, buyers don't talk to consultants until a pretty late stage (57-73%) in the buying cycle.
And consulting firm that make their first contacts in that 57-73% window will end up being price-shopped.
So, in this article, we look at some aspects of inbound marketing that consulting firms can use to acquire ideal clients with ideal engagements.
But what is inbound marketing anyhow?
And this is what we discuss in this pretentiously pompous episode of Commando Consulting, expertly entitled, Seven Inbound Marketing Tactics To Reach Cream Of The Crop Consulting Clients
Enjoy!

Is This Buyer Persona Thingy Real Or Glorified Bullshit For Consultancies?

Can you remember that, in 2007, the Pentagon spent a whopping $28 million to equip the Afghan army with forest camouflage?

It was amazing considering that over there, only about 2.1% of the terrain is forest or other green areas and the rest is desert.

Apparently, it was the decision of the former Afghan defence minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, just because he liked the green uniforms.

So, Wardak ordered from the US what he wanted, not what his army really needed.

And this is what I see when consulting firms get obsessed with buyer personas, instead of just developing a perfect client profile.

The obvious question is...

What's The Difference Between A Perfect Client Profile And A Buyer Persona?

Well, they are both similar and different, but what I see is that the buyer persona concept goes a tad too far and essentially creates a target market, but fails to consider the industry, the company and the would-be engagement this person represents.

I reckon, this is why the buyer persona concept is so popular among marketing agencies, since most of those "one stop shops" operate on a "we do anything for anyone for money" mantra.

So, since they don't have specific target markets, at least they can call the buyer persona some kind of targeting.

So, back to the differences...

So, as long as the buyer...

• Is a 37-year-old woman with shoulder-length chestnut brown hair and green eyes
• Who lives in a condo in New York on the 17th floor
• Has two divorces behind her and two small boys
• Is a C++ programming ace
• Has a Harvard MBA
• Owns a blind Persian cat, a deaf Golden Retriever and two (female twins) Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs that can speak both English and French
• Whose parents died during the 9/11 attack
• Who drives a 2012 white BMW 312i with slightly overinflated tyres and one broken tail light...

...this is our buying persona.

Well, you've just painted yourself into a corner, because there is maybe one such person in the world. And that can make you more doomed than a lonely house mouse at a cat convention just before lunch...

And this is the concept we try to discover in this month's bodaciously beleaguered episode of Commando Consulting, expertly entitled, Is This Buyer Persona Thingy Real Or Glorified Bullshit?

Enjoy!