On this episode of Work Winning Ways, host Gary Williams of Questas discusses the evolution of the work winning employee and what your client wants from them. Also hear all about what it takes to become a trusted advisor, and just as importantly, how to keep being one.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Clients are becoming more and more demanding. You have to add good commercial acumen, understanding what the client wants to achieve. They also want you to show that you understand the world in which they work.
The differentiator in winning work can often be a grasp of the things that affect the clients environment and the ability to talk in their language with the terms they use.
Under promise and over deliver. If you’re saying what the client wants to hear and over promising, then if you don’t deliver, trust is broken. Expectation management is crucial.
Clients will also expect you to manage them. Do you make their life and their job easier?
Be proactive about meeting client’s needs. To be proactive you need to know your client and what they will need and when. You will also need to know what they need but haven’t asked for yet.
BEST MOMENTS
‘You need the ability to talk in the client’s language’
‘Projects happen through people’
‘10 pm is not close of business, it’s Monday morning’
ABOUT THE HOST
Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.
Managing the client experience is vital, because we all know that a happy client is your best advocate. That is why it’s so important to understand the tools needed to successfully optimise the client experience, and maximise the positive encounters that clients have when working with you.
Winning Work From An Existing Client
It is said that it is five times easier to win work from existing clients than it is to win work from new clients. And certainly this is true, in terms of the cost of winning work from existing clients versus new. To help you to improve and understand the importance of the client experience within your own organisation, we held a free webinar (which you can now watch on our YouTube channel) which revealed the tools and skills needed to optimise the client experience and turn your existing clients into your greatest advocates.
Client Experience Key Takeaways
In this webinar, Questas founder and CEO Gary Williams covers a range of topics, including:
What is ClientExperience Management? This can mean different things to different people, and we explore how working with existing clients that you have relationships with can positively effect your win rate.
The Business Case for Investing in Client Experience Management: How the personal experience we have in the B2B world is almost as important as the product we are providing, and how a positive client experience is key when it comes to business growth.
How To Deliver A Great Client Experience: The practical ways in which an organisation canoptimise the positive experiences your clients are having with you, and their importance of the customer journey.
How Individuals Can Deliver a Great Client Experience: The importance and the power of the individual within an organisation and how to build on those important personal relationships that can help a business to grow.
Listening to Understand: The importance of listening to clients, their world and their needs.
Watch the webinar
Ready to start improving the client experience in your organisation? Watch the full webinar by heading to our YouTube channel or clicking below:
Want to Win More Work?
Questas regularly hosts free webinars on how to win more of the right kind of work from the right kind of client. If you’d like to know more about our free live webinar events, drop us an email and we’ll keep you posted! Email us at hello@questas.co.uk or follow us on LinkedIn for event update. You can also follow us on YouTube too for useful information on how to win more work.
In this episode of Working Winning Ways Gary Williams talks to Edd Stone of The Technology Partnership. Hear all about how Edd works with, understands, and builds strong relationships with people. These relationships can last over an entire career and span different companies.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Relationships in business development are very important and should be nurtured over long periods of time. Many of their clients didn’t predict that they would need work with The Technology Partnership again. Because those connections it made the choice of who to go with easy.
It’s the people who are trying to solve the problems within organisations who are the ones who will come to us to help them solve it. No matter which business they’re working for.
You shouldn’t assume you know what is best for a client at a particular time. Firstly, you need to really listen to their needs and understand the nature of the problem in front of you. To do that you need to recruit great communicators who can make sure you’re on the same page.
Hard technical things are very rarely a solo endeavour. Therefore they require lots of people from different backgrounds to work together.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Cambridge is a low-risk place to do risky things’
‘At the end of the day it’s got to hinge on commercial viability’
“That curiosity is an aspect of being a great business developer’
ABOUT THE GUEST
“Cell and gene therapies have shown the ability to cure some of the most terrible diseases. I am passionate about finding ways to get these treatments to more patients and revolutionizing how we manufacture them.
For over 15 years, I have been fortunate to work with some of the world’s most innovative companies to help bring new life science products to market. The last 7 years I have dedicated to cell and gene therapy manufacturing. Spanning from commercial strategy through technology development and onto production.
I have worked with clients to develop new technologies. I have enjoyed the challenges of finding technical solutions and undertaking risk analysis. This includes performing due diligence, creating new IP and meeting with regulators.
The Technology Partnership is an independent technology company where scientists and engineers collaborate to invent, design and develop new products and technologies.”
Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become more skilled. They will become more confident in selling themselves and their services.
Did you know that understanding the psychology of selling can help you to win more work? Are you responsible for winning work but not a salesperson?On the Questas Academy’s Professional Selling programme, we work with candidates to equip them with the tools and skills required to win more of the right kind of work from the right kind of clients.As part of this 12 week programme, we explore many aspects of how to grow sales, with an entire course module dedicated to focusing on the psychology of selling and how by having the right mindset we can all motivate clients to buy from us.
Understand Emotions To Win More Work
Facilitated by emotional intelligence expert Alison Coates, the Psychology of Selling module introduces us to the science behind emotions. As Alison explains, “It’s such an important concept because when we can understand that our emotions, our decisions, and our behaviours, we can start to see how we might be able to influence performance.”Once we understand how we can influence people through our own behaviours, we can help clients to makes decisions in the right direction. If you are a little bit reluctant as a salesperson or if it’s not something that you would normally do every day, this can be a really powerful tool to learn. It is a really great way for us to be able to understand how to take steps and influence conversations with clients that can lead to more positive outcomes.
High angle shot of a group of businesspeople shaking hands during a meeting in an office
Practical Learning & The Psychology of Selling
As part of the Professional Selling programme, each cohort takes part in group practical sessions to bring learning to life, as explained by our expert Alison:“We do a wonderful exercise in module one, where people actually get to experience the science of emotions through doing an interactive exercise. And with that understanding, we can then move into the conversation around what kind of mindsets a person who takes on a sales role be most likely to have. It really gives you that understanding around mindset and how the brain works in helping us to make some of these decisions and to motivate others.”
Positive Outcomes
The aim of the programme is to leave students with skills that they can immediately put into practice into their work. We share tools that candidates can apply in their relationships, (both personal and professional )which will really help to motivate people to take the right decision towards a positive productive outcome, and hopefully, as sale!If we have more of an understanding of how we are engaging with people and the psychology that is going on in our clients minds, we can adopt behaviours that help us to reach more successful outcomes and will motivate people to want to want to come towards us and work with us.
Key Takeaways on the Psychology of Selling
Somebody who is good at selling is usually just someone who is good at listening. It doesn’t matter your background or skills, because if you can listen and build relationships, you can sell.
Listening is a skill that can be learnt. It can be improved and perfected. There are varying ways to do this. Alison’s favourite way is to recognise and own our own distractions. One way to do this is to try and to maintain eye contact when the other person is speaking.
Having an awareness of self is the first building block to emotional intelligence and growth.
There is a common myth that to be a good salesperson you need to be an extrovert. But this is simply not the case. Often introverts have a high level of authenticity and emotional intelligence. These are great skills for selling.
Want to win more work?
If you want to understand more about the psychology of selling how it can help you to win more work from the right kind of clients, register nowfor the Questas Academy’s Professional Selling programme. Click below to register your interest and find out more about our course dates that are taking place throughout 2022.
Head to our YouTube channel and watch our video of Questas founder and CEO Gary Williams and Alison Coates talk about the psychology of selling and how we approach it on the Professional Selling programme.
Do you want to win more work in 2022? Here are 7 steps that will help you to win more of the right kind of work from the right kind of clients. These are based on our years of helping consultancy, engineering and professional services firms create opportunities, convert them into business and retain their best clients.
1. Focus
When it comes to successful business development, you need to really understand your target market, so ask yourself these questions: What are the problems that you can solve? Which organisations or people have those problems? What solutions to those problems can you provide? Then you should analyse the clients that you have already and ask, who buys your service? Which sectors have you had the most success with?
2. Win More Work With A Good Plan
Always have a plan! We use our unique Create, Convert Retain planning tool when it comes to planning Business Development activity. It shows you how to focus on building trust and awareness with potential clients, helping you to create your best reputation with clients, increase your visibility, and sharpen your relationship skills to help you to win more work.You can find out more about our Create Convert Retain approach here: https://questas.co.uk/what-we-do/
3. Understand the buying journey
Take the time to understand your clients problems. 75% of your market place right now don’t know that they have a problem that you can solve. So what can you do to let your client know you exist and that you an offer a solution to their problem? This could be valuable marketing content (ie, free advice or downloads) that makes you appear a useful relationship for the client to nurture.
4. Network
Winning more work in professional services is all about people, and building new and existing client relationships. When you are networking, you need to make sure you are approaching it effectively. Make sure you do your research about who it is that you’re meeting, and don’t be afraid to fake confidence if you need to. and introduce yourself to people. Be interested in what others say, rather than trying to be interesting yourself. You just need to listen and make people feel listened to and understood. This will make you memorable! Then ensure you follow up by connecting with the person afterwards, whether that’s on LinkedIn or via email, and start to interact with them. Take it slow and build up the connection over time before you suggest a meeting.
5. Make The First Meeting Count To Win More Work
When you hold that first important meeting, we use our unique 3i approach when it comes to structuring that meeting;
We have a model called the 3is – Inform, Investigate, Inspire; which is useful when preparing for a sales meeting. – Spend the beginning of the meeting building a rapport and looking for what you have in common. Question and listen to them, and use this time to tell them about yourself and your organisation.
If you want to win more work in 2022, writing a compelling proposal is vital. When you are writing a proposal for a prospective client its important to keep these key points in mind:
Opening paragraphs – Use You and Your, not Us and We
• Demonstrate you know their world
• Outline their ‘problem’
• Explain how you solve it
• Show evidence of having done it(ideally with clients like them)
• Paint a picture of the future after they have bought you.
7. Systemise everything!
Want more BD success in 2022? Then the time to systemise you and your teams Business Development activities!
Continue to prioritise researching and being knowledgable of your industry, target clients and sectors.
Strategise your networking: Plan which networking events your will be going to, who are the best people to attend specific events?
Marketing activity: Embrace your marketing, which gives value to your clients. Can you be writing articles on industry websites or guesting on podcasts?
Ask for referrals: Don’t be afraid to ask trusted clients forintroductions and referrals. You will be amazed how many people want to introduce you to their contacts. A personal referral is a truly valuable way to win more work.
Want to win more work in 2022? If you want any more information on how to win more work and grow your business, get in touch. Email us at hello@questas.co.uk or connect with our founder and CEO Gary Williams on LinkedIn.
We are a business development consultancy which is passionate about helping our clients develop processes, skills and behaviours that will result in increased sales and improved margins.
CONVERT
Selling skills
‘Selling’ can be a dirty word for some of our clients, but without the ability to sell we will struggle to be successful. Our sales training has been developed over years into an approach designed for our technically-minded clients. Courses include presentation and pitching, sales conversations and negotiation skills.
Bids & tenders
Learning how to write a winning bid is one of the most important business skills you can acquire. The layout, language and style you use may make the difference between a successful bid and one that comes close. See Courses
RETAIN
Client management
Existing clients pay your wages. Proactive client management ensures that you deliver services on time and on budget while meeting their expectations and nurturing a positive working relationship.
Client development
Delivering projects well is the first step in developing further opportunities, but it’s not enough. We need be proactive in building relationships, understanding our clients and their objectives, and positioning ourselves as trusted advisers.
Raising up leaders
Questas offers both one-to-one coaching and leadership training courses. This both embeds newly learned skills and establishes a culture of strong, skilled leadership. See Courses
CREATE
Reputation
According to research, your reputation – and that of your organisation – is the most important factor for clients when choosing who to consider for projects.
Relationships
People matter. It’s people (in most cases!) who make decisions. A strong network of relationships with clients, influencers and referrers will go a long way to helping you create opportunities for work. See Courses
