The three books in this gift pack have been selected to do a very good job of solving for service professionals the biggest problem they tend to have – struggling to make ends meet or to run a profitable business or practice, or even to stay in business. And it’s usually the best at what they do who struggle the most!
A big part of the problem is that school teaches service professionals that technical competence alone ensures success, and so, for most of them, marketing and self-promotion goes hard against the grain. But like the first book in this pack argues;
“In large part, service marketing is a popularity contest. Your competence, your excellence, your talent – just pay the entry fee. Be professional – but more importantly – be personable.”
If you're gifting to your loved one or a colleague who you know is full of potential but is struggling in a services business where others who wouldn't hold a candle to his skill-set seem to be doing much better, your reward will be that you come off as someone that read the script and, quite probably, saved the day!
Selling the Invisible
According to the authors, most companies in expert services (service professionals) think that their clients are buying expertise. But in fact, most of your prospects cannot evaluate your expertise. They can't identify a good tax return or a great diagnosis. Your prospects though, can tell if the relationship is good. Clients know if they feel valued. Your professional expertise is assumed – you are selling a relationship. Anld so, before you try to satisfy "the client," understand and satisfy the person first.
The book covers a lot of ground – surveying your customers to discover what your clients are really buying, the eighteen fallacies of planning, how prospects think, the anchoring principle (people do not simply form impressions – they become anchored to them), why it’s critical to sweat the small stuff and accentuate the trivial, positioning and focus (no matter how skilled you are, you must focus your skills), leveraging the halo effect (say one thing and you will become associated with many), how to create your positioning statement, pricing strategy (a little resistance to your pricing is a good thing), the low-cost trap, branding (a service is a promise, and building a brand builds your promise), relationships (it is much easier to fail in a service than to succeed, because relationships are often not very deep, and trust takes time), how good communication helps to make your service visible and builds trust.
“We trust products more than services. We can kick the tires. Make the service visible, and make the prospect comfortable.”
The most desirable service is the one that keeps its promise. Word of mouth for a branded service spreads easier because prospects feel more comfortable with a brand. You get a higher closure rate on prospects because you’re making it easier for them to buy.
Building your brand for a services business doesn't take millions – it takes imagination.
Don't start by positioning your service. Instead, leverage the position you have. In positioning don't try to hide your small size. Instead, make it work by stressing its advantages, such as responsiveness and individual attention.
This leads us into the next book we highly recommend for service professionals (people like consultants, accountants, dentists, surgeons, investment counsellors and financial planners, life coaches) – Never Be Closing: The 7 Essentials For Inspired Sales Success…
This is a revolutionary book on selling and marketing, written by a former insurance salesman, of all people. They say that if you can sell insurance you can sell anything and this is what the author promises to deliver to the reader – but he turns the whole idea of selling on its head, in a way that will delight service professionals.
He shows you how to satisfy your customer or client’s desires and dreams like you’re painting a masterpiece…
“Once you learn these skills and practice them over and over again, you won’t just be a sales person; you will be a Master in Sales and Influence. You will understand what true artists appreciate when they create a masterpiece. Your masterpiece, your Mona Lisa, will be helping your customers’ desires and dreams become a reality.”
Although his intended target audience was people in sales, this book has tons of value for any service professional, especially the content on building a deep, lasting relationship with your client/customer. He says…
“… what I learned was simple: I could never be passionate about something that didn’t give me the opportunity to develop passionate and authentic relationships. That’s why I left the insurance industry. I wasn’t passionate about my life and my relationship with my clients anymore.”
The book will show you how to build passionate and authentic relationships, in a way that is simple and dignified, exactly what our first book, Selling the Invisible says is critical for success in services marketing.
“People do business with people they like, trust and respect. I’m going to share with you some powerful communication tools to get people to instantly like you, trust you and respect you.”
This is especially true for services. And this trust and respect should start the first time you talk to your client/customer. The book gives you a step-by-step process for that opening conversation…
“In this conversation you are not necessarily asking the client to buy your product [or service]. Personally, I am not comfortable asking someone to buy when I have not taken the time to understand his situation. During this conversation you are simply finding out what he wants, getting a BETTER handle on his needs, and sharing important information about your service that will inspire him to the next meeting.”There is a lot too on inspiring your clients/customers…
“…when you inspire clients, they will take action faster, they will tell more people about you, and you will make more money. [That’s] the truth.”
And a lot about getting to really know your customer/client; and asking good questions…
“A new question allows your clients to see and imagine what their life could be. A sales pitch only allows them to see life from their current framework. It’s time to make the shift from selling to questioning: a shift from you selling for your reasons to the client buying for his/her reasons.”
The author shows you how to structure, how to conduct, the conversation when onboarding new clients/customers…
“The Power of Conversation breeds confidence in the client relationship. When you engage in a deep and meaningful conversation with a client, a certain bond and trust is developed, even if you have only known each other for minutes.”
Here’s how he defines influence…
“If you want to inspire someone to take action, you must know what already inspires them. Think about how profound that is. If you already know what inspires someone, they are more likely to take action on the very product or service that you are offering.
And two, “Influence is putting other people’s desires before your own and in the end both your desires are met. When you are focused on the desires of your relationship or your customers, rather than your desires, they are more likely to take action.”
And oh, he hates prospecting – just like most service professionals do!
“There is no such thing as prospecting. Every day and every situation you are in, you are there to set the appointment and create lasting relationships. Are you in it to win it? If you’re not, then go prospect. It sounds like a day job that someone hates.”
And like Selling The Invisible, Never Be Closing also emphasizes the critical value of relationships in selling a service…
“...you don’t ever get people interested in your service, you get them interested in you. And you never get them interested in you until you get interested in them. Here’s how you do it.”
He goes on to show you how to do it, step-by-step. This is a fairly short book, about 170 pages, but it’s a breath of fresh air to people who hate marketing and self-promotion – because it gives you tips and strategies to work less (with the right clients/customers) and enjoy your business more; make more money without resorting to hard-sell methods and tactics because you’ll enjoy extra-ordinary customer retention, repeat business, and very low price resistance.
This leads us into the last book of this book gifts pack for service professionals (people such as interior decorators/designers, home remodelers and remodeling contractors, website designers, physical therapists, chiropractors, graphic artists) – The Secrets Of Word-Of-Mouth Marketing: How to Trigger Exponential Sales Through Runaway Word of Mouth...
Word-of-mouth marketing is the most powerful and persuasive weapon you can use to market and promote a service, and it typically costs next to nothing.
According to the book’s author;
“Marketing success is determined more by the time it takes for your customer to decide on your product [or service] than by any other single factor. Decision speed is more powerful than positioning, image, value, customer satisfaction, guarantees, or even product [or service] superiority.”
Word of mouth or referral marketing “… accelerates the process of customer decision-making, from deciding to decide, asking for information, weighing options, evaluating a free trial, and then finally becoming a customer and advocate.”
This, for service professionals, also means you work less because your customers start doing the marketing for you. Studies have shown that “a satisfied customer will tell an average of three people about a product or service she likes, and eleven people about a product or service with which she had a negative experience.”
In these days of online reviews this is good for ensuring that your online reputation is safe from malicious negative reviews. Bad online reviews sometimes happen to good businesses, but if you can motivate your good customers to leave their own good reviews, this insulates the business’ reputation.
“Word-of-mouth offers an authenticity to it because the source is normally independent of the company, he or she is offering his or her own candid opinion and therefore, the marketing appears credible.”
In this age of the internet, word-of-mouth is even more important to businesses today than ever before.
“A good way to spread the word on your company is to circulate true, positive stories about it. People love a good story, and that is the essence of word of mouth.”
The book gives you a step-by-step process for creating a word of mouth campaign. One of these steps is to tell people exactly what to say in their word of mouth communication to friends and colleagues. Educating your referral sources this way ensures you only get the most qualified prospects coming into your business – the best of the best clients or customers to work with. This eliminates 80% of the hassles of selling, customer service, customer satisfaction, etc.
There, that’s our very considered selection of book gifts for service professionals (including architects, landscapers, mortgage brokers, plastic surgeons, orthodontists, beauticians, wedding planners) for this holiday season 2022. Three iconic titles by Ted McGrath, George Silverman, Harry Beckwith et al.
Happy gifting!
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