The vast majority of marketing and sales strategies are fundamentally misguided. Why? Because the focus is on the seller rather than the buyer.

Most of us sell out of self-interest. Selling enables us to meet personal and corporate goals. The more we sell of our services, the more successful we are. This is the basic motivation that drives us to read books and attend seminars that teach us how to “focus on customer needs” and seek “win-win relationships.”

Does it work? Well, people are buying. But salespeople still constitute the most distrusted profession in America. The reason is simple: We all perceive that the average salesperson seeks to fulfill his or her needs at our expense. The sale is the primary objective, whether or not we really need the product or service.

Given this widespread perception, is it any wonder that most technical professionals are uncomfortable selling? Let me suggest a better way, one that both the consultant and the client will appreciate—service-centered selling. As you might expect, it builds on the principles of client service that I discussed in previous articles.

This article summarizes some basic principles of service-centered selling and lays out four key steps. Consider the following strategies for substantially improving your sales process—both for you and the client:

Service-centered selling is based on the following fundamentals, which I assume we can all agree upon:

u We are in business to serve our clients. That's stating the obvious, but I am continually amazed how easily we forget. We get caught up in our bottom line, the practice of our expertise, our personal ambitions, etc. These are all important, but our corporate and personal success is ultimately rooted in how well we serve our clients. This should then be at the heart of how we develop new business opportunities.

u The "sales process" is simply seeking opportunities to serve. If we keep the focus on serving clients, the perception of sales changes dramatically. We are then no longer seeking to serve ourselves, but our clients. Does this mean ignoring our needs? Not at all! Remember, our success comes from serving others.

u Clients hate being sold but typically welcome our help. Don't like selling? Deep down you probably recognize that clients aren't crazy about it either. But the vast majority appreciate sincere efforts to help. 

u Trust is the most important factor in being selected, not expertise. Touting our technical expertise and experience is still at the core of most of our marketing and sales activities. But this focus is misguided. It's the feel, not the facts, that drive the sale. And a devotion to service is a great way to build trust.

We are all familiar with the seller-doer model of business development, which is the most common approach in the technical consulting and design industry. Let me suggest that we adopt a better strategy—what I call the "server-doer model." Here's the four key steps involved in this approach:

The old saying goes: “People love to buy but nobody likes to be sold.” On the other hand, everyone likes to be served. The first step in revolutionizing our sales approach is to redefine the activity. Instead of selling, we want to be actively seeking people to serve.

I’m not suggesting a simple change in semantics, but a fundamental shift in motivation. We want to be driven primarily by a desire to help, not by self-interest. After all, we are in a “service” business, aren’t we?

Consider the following questions to ascertain whether self-interest is the primary driver in your firm’s selling:

• Is the only time we really get committed to sales when we really need more revenue?

• Do we spend the vast majority of our time with prospective clients talking instead of listening?

• Is our desire to improve “cross selling” motivated by client needs or simply our need to sell more services?

• Do our proposals focus more on our firm’s credentials than the client’s needs?

Now I’m not advocating that we become nonprofit service organizations. I recognize the need to generate revenues and profits. But experience and research shows that our best financial returns come from clients with whom we have the strongest relationships. Professional services is clearly a relationship business. So our sales approach should concentrate on building relationships.

Every healthy relationship involves a balance of give and take. Now consider the start of the average sales process. What do we do? Ask for the client's most valuable possession, his or her time. What does the client get in return? To be honest, usually very little. Do you really think the client is glad to learn that still another firm is vying for his or her business, one that looks just like every other technical consulting or design firm he or she knows?

If we are committed to serving the client before the sale, we must respect his or her time. In the typical sales process, the only justification for taking the client’s time is to position our firm for the sale. We stress the importance of keeping in touch with the client purely for the sake of not being forgotten. Are such “touching base” sales calls a good investment of the client’s valuable time?

A better approach is to make serving the client the primary objective of every sales call. Develop what I call the entrée. Our entrée is a justifiable reason for the client to spend his or her precious time meeting with us.

Usually the entrée involves sharing useful information or insights with the client. Our entrée should be defined by the client’s needs, not what we’d like to sell. This enables us to both build trust and establish our relevant expertise. Every meeting with the client should involve a fair exchange of value—our help and insights traded for the client’s time.

For more information on this facet of the sales process, please read "Starting the Relationship Right."

Our natural tendency is to view the client’s needs from the perspective of the services we offer. This can bias our assessment of the real problem(s) we’re trying to solve. It’s helpful to recognize the three basic levels of client needs:

u Technical needs. These are needs that can generally be defined, analyzed, and satisfied through specialized expertise. Technical needs are more commonly articulated by the client in the form of an RFP, work order, or contract. Obviously, these are the needs we are more prone to identify, and specifically those technical needs that correspond with our expertise.

u Strategic needs. These are the needs that impact the overall success of the client’s organization. These include financial, business, and competitive issues. Strategic needs are typically the primary driver behind our technical projects. Yet we often focus predominantly on technical issues, ignoring the more important concerns from the client’s perspective.

u Personal needs. These are needs that are personal and subjective to each of the individual buyers and users in the client organization. They are often not articulated unless we ask, and are usually felt rather than intellectualized. Satisfying personal needs are at the core of building trust and strengthening the relationship.

As the diagram above indicates, the value we provide to the client increases when we are able to satisfy strategic and personal needs. So a service-centered sales approach should involve addressing all three levels of needs.

This is obviously the goal of every technical consultant or design professional. But just as we are often prone to mischaracterize the client's real needs, we can miss the boat in defining the specific solutions to meet those needs. I'm not suggesting a failure to meet the standards of our professional. Rather I'm talking about missed opportunities to provide the value-added solution that leaves the client truly satisfied.

Here's some common barriers to providing client-centered solutions:

u Focusing almost exclusively on technical issues, overlooking the strategic and personal needs that may be really driving the project. This obviously relates to the previous discussion on identifying the different levels of client needs.

u Failing to manage the client's experience. What the client experiences in working with you and your firm is at the heart of superior service. We often get so caught up in the technical aspects of the work that we don't properly tend to the working relationship. Don't overlook the fact that the client's experience is part of the solution!

u Favoring a specific solution, which biases your assessment of the problem. We are all prone to view problems through the lens of our expertise. We need to view them from the client's perspective, instead. Another common factor: When we've had a really successful project, we naturally are looking for opportunities to do it again with another client. But this can skew our understanding of the real needs and impair our ability to find the best solution.

u Failing to integrate the needs of other stakeholders. Most of our projects involve or impact multiple stakeholders, including the public, regulators, users, and other parties. Often it is the needs of these stakeholders that are really driving the project. Whether the owner or managing agency or architect is the primary client contact, you need to make the effort to identify the needs of the other stakeholders involved. Their satisfaction is often key to your primary client being satisfied when the project is completed.

With these tendencies in mind, what then characterizes client-centered solutions?

u They are shaped by client needs rather than your firm's credentials. None of us like to admit our inclination to define solutions based on our expertise rather than client needs, but the problem is real. Want evidence? Look how much we struggle to get our people to cross-sell. Client-centered solutions start with the ability to look objectively at needs, defining what's best instead of defaulting to what we're best at.

u They meet strategic and personal needs. The technical aspects of a project are often the least important to the client. He or she is more concerned with solving business or operational challenges, and taking care of their own personal aspirations, concerns, or frustrations. Client-centered solutions demand that we see projects through the clients eyes, which often give much less importance to our technical perspectives than we are inclined to do.

u They satisfy both client requirements and expectations. Requirements are the tangible dimensions of a project such as scope, budget, schedule, and technical specifications. These are things that we all understand. But for clients, the experience is also a crucial part of the project. This includes things such as being responsive, building trust, communicating proactively, and working collaboratively. Whereas requirements are typically clearly articulated by the client, expectations often are not defined unless we ask. For more on this subject, see the article "Uncovering Client Expectations."

u They engage the client's emotions. This is a difficult thing for many technical people to grasp. A new building is not just brick and mortar; it evokes a sense of pride. An upgraded wastewater treatment plant can mean the end of frustration trying to operate the old facility. A contaminated site cleanup eases fear of health problems and associated liabilities. Client-centered solutions satisfy felt needs, not just those needs that can be objectively defined, measured, and budgeted.

u They address the needs of all key stakeholders. As noted above, we shouldn't overlook the needs of other parties involved in the project. This obviously includes non-client stakeholders, but we should also recognize that even within the client's organization there are multiple stakeholders with different needs and perspectives. Service-centered selling requires engagement of all key buyers, since we cannot meet their needs until we identify what they are. Talking to only one or two people can hardly enable us to accurately characterize needs.

u They are ideally developed with the client's involvement. You will be much more effective in sales when you stop selling and start helping the client buy. In other words, actively engage the client in defining what solutions are best. While many of us view ourselves as designers or problem solvers, we all benefit when we first adopt the role of consultant. An effective consultant doesn't just provide solutions, but guides the client to better defining the problem and choosing the right solution.

There is obviously much more involved in practicing service-centered selling. But these principles will get you started in a sales approach that both you and your clients will enjoy and benefit from.