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Most people think that sales and marketing is the same thing. ‘Not at all. Each requires a totally different set of tools. Marketing is all the things you have to do – especially when you are marketing services/intangibles – in order to set up the situation where you can easily convince the prospective customer to buy your service(s). Selling takes a different set of skills. You have to “close the sale.”

Many people make great marketers but couldn’t sell an ice cream cone to a four-year-old on a July afternoon. Others are crackerjack sales people, but don’t dare ask them to show any interest in market research, copy-writing, packaging, conducting workshops, writing e-newsletters, or posting to a web site.

How many times have you run into a situation where the number one salesperson has been elevated to the level of “sales manager or director”? Or where the best salesman in the firm has been promoted to the “director of marketing”? And they both fail? This happens frequently. Most often this occurs because one success does not necessarily mean that they will be just as successful in the other discipline; or the boss really doesn’t know the difference between marketing and sales.

There are two different skill sets here. Few are very good at both. Now add to this the fact that marketing and selling “services” – especially professional and practitioner services – is totally different again from selling hockey skates, lipstick, canned tuna, men’s slacks or pick-up trucks. You have a whole different kettle of turtles… (The fish were eaten by the turtles…just wanted to make sure you were still with me on this…).

Just how should a professional goes about marketing and selling his/her own services? Given that the prospective buyer is going to “buy” the consultant/professional/adviser/practitioner first, his/her company second, how does a professional (accountant, lawyer, consultant, financial planner, coach, architect et al) market and sell her services to prospective clients? There are some basic techniques…and some sneaky secrets too.

In part 1 of this series, we discussed the unique difference that marketing and selling a ‘service’ requires. We saw that if you happen to sell to professionals, consultants or service industry providers, you have a different kind of marketing task. You are selling a service, not a product. Services are harder to market and sell because they are invisible, intangible, and perishable. Unlike physical products, how do you market and sell something that you can’t see, touch, feel, smell, hear or hold in your hands? Services have to be experienced. How do you experience financial planning? ‘Insurance coverage? ‘Marketing consulting? I call this “experiential marketing.” Why? ‘Because you can only experience the results of such things.

In order to get yourself ready to market and sell to service industry providers, consultants or professionals, the very first thing you have to do is ask yourself the question: “where am I now?” You will answer this with the information you compile related to your competitive environment, your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, as well as all the information about the market, the segmentation of that same market, and the final definition of your target group.
Essentially, you will set out to answer the questions: what, when, where, who, why and how?  Think about it. I know this seems damned basic; but write these words down the side of your paper, then attempt to answer all the questions that pop into your mind related to each of these six words. If you do, you will uncover most everything you need to know about the competitive environment, the demand for services, all the characteristics (strengths weaknesses, opportunities and threats of both your competitors and yourself) that describe who, where, how, why and how you must compete to win; the people most interested in what you have to sell, whether they have the desire and the money to pay for them; how to reach, inform and motivate them to buy…from you; how to differentiate yourself from the other competitors.
Much of what you do next, in your planning will be determined by the answer to the question: who? Who will define your choice of target group? The chosen target group will determine which tactics you will use, which media you’ll employ, and how you will convince them to buy from you.

Part 3 of this series will address the importance of the target group and the formulation of the most critical and important aspect in marketing: the Unique Selling Proposition.