Focus on Your Customers’ Business Objectives for Long-term Success
A few months ago, the owner of a small company called to see if I would give him a price for writing articles for trade publications.
“Why do you want articles for trade publications?” I asked. After talking with him for a few minutes, I learned that the company had always relied on word-of-mouth to generate leads, that they hadn’t done any advertising (ever), and that sales were down.
The owner, not knowing that much about marketing, just assumed that writing articles for trade publications would get him the exposure, and the leads, that he wanted.
We ended up having a couple more conversations and based on these, I was able to provide a quote for services.
Here’s the key, though: Instead of providing a commodity service – article writing – I was able to offer *marketing consulting* because I took into account the owner’s very real business objectives (”more leads and more business!”).
As Jill Konrath states in her article, “Use the News: How to Create Opportunities Fast,” companies care desperately about business results and outcomes – especially if they’re struggling.
“Personally, I’ve always found struggling companies to be excellent prospects,” Jill writes. “After failing to turn things around, leadership desperately needs new ideas. They’re extremely receptive to products and services that help them achieve critical business objectives.”
So how do you determine a company’s real objectives? You can ask the following questions for starters:
1. What are your business goals and/or objectives? According to Alan Weiss, author of How to Write a Proposal that’s Accepted Every Time, “the most essential ingredient for any successful consulting intervention is agreement on business-based outcomes.”
In other words – the desired business result.
By asking this question, you move from commodity-type deliverables such as, ”I need a price for a 12-page brochure,” to problems that require high-level expertise, such as “increase the number of leads we get.”
2. What other tactics have you tried in the past? This is a great question to ask because people will tell you everything they’ve done to try and solve their problem or challenge – making it easy for you to recommend new approaches and/or appropriate strategies that haven’t yet been tried.
Having this information saves you from making the same mistakes and frees you up to suggest new and creative ways to solve the problem.
3. How will you measure the success of this project? In his How to Write a Proposal book, Weiss discusses how to establish metrics of success.
Suffice to say, you can’t have objectives if you’re not measuring how you’ll achieve them. According to Weiss, “the client either has existing metrics you can use, the client asks that you suggest methods to measure success, or the client says no one has thought about measuring success.”
Once you have this information, add it to the proposal. This proves to the client that you will be accountable.
Talking to clients before providing a project proposal also gives you another advantage: it allows you to pick up clues about the client and the company and how they do business. This works in your favor in two ways:
First, focusing on a client’s business objectives can turn out to be pretty easy.
One client I worked with, for example, talked repeatedly about how the former marketing consulting firm she had hired wouldn’t listen to her ideas nor would they give her recommendations regarding specific strategies. Simply listening to this woman talk made it easy for me to develop a plan and deliverables geared toward her outcomes.
Second, by really listening and asking good questions, you’ll learn whether or not the person is a serious prospect, or if they’re calling to simply “pick your brain.” I used to spend a half hour or more with these tire kickers. Now I can sniff them out in under five minutes.
By focusing on the client’s business goals and objectives – and how you’ll help achieve those objectives – you move into value-based selling, allowing you to charge higher fees and gain more recognition for your work as you help your clients achieve success.
And that is what being a profitable consultant is all about!
