Selling Your Services is Selling Yourself - 5 Simple Steps
Most professionals loathe to admit to themselves that selling their services is selling themselves. We are our own products, and no matter how good our technical skills and experience are, clients still fall back on trust as one of their key reasons for buying from us. Their buying isn’t rational, it's run by their emotions. And, if our trust-earning skills are not up-to-scratch, we could find ourselves losing bids for new work repeatedly, and missing the reasons why we aren’t winning.
No one rings up and tells you “We went with Excellent Architects because their lead architect was friendly, engaging and personal in his interactions with us, while you were cold, unemotional and technical.” They simply say, “Your bid came in in the top three and was technically the best bid, but we have decided on Excellent Architects this time. Maybe next time.”
Heard it all before? I am sure you have. And no one likes to probe too hard for further reasoning, because we, as sellers of ourselves, are all afraid of having our faults pointed out, or our weaknesses and insecurities uncovered.
In a services business, trust is built from an array of intangible experiences, often resulting from the judgment of our interpersonal skills, personality and ability to handle fear and concern. The best way we can build trust with a target client is by interacting with them, readily and regularly, giving them a taste of our uniqueness. But how do we really do this? How do we connect in a way that is honest, genuine and worth the effort? We can do this by:
1. Delivering great project outcomes. There is no better way to build trust than with “super-servicing” and delivering a great outcome on a live project.
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