When I first became a professional IT consultant many years ago, I had no idea that I was on a collision course with sales. I obviously didn’t think it through as, back in those days, I would rather have had my fingernails removed with pliers than get involved in sales!

Yet I was ambitious and wanted to progress my consulting career – I even wanted to run my IT consultancy one day…..

Like any business, IT consultancies need to get sales from somewhere and, as I discovered for myself, IT consultants – even shy, introverted ones, can be very effective at finding and winning consulting projects.

Some people seem to be born to be in sales and then there are IT consultants! Let’s just say that selling does not come naturally to your normal IT consultant which turns out to be a potential competitive advantage when they start to take sales more seriously.

So how do you succeed in sales without needing a personality transplant? Based on my own personal experience and in coaching and mentoring hundreds of consultants to succeed in sales, here are 7 tips for succeeding in sales that really make a difference: Continue reading →

Are you making the most of your contacts? Do people you know help you win more business and make selling easier for you?

We all have more than enough contacts to generate enough business. The trick is to work out how best to leverage your contacts to help you win more business. Easier said than done!

I wrote my book ‘The Accidental Salesman Networking Survival Guide’ after several years of helping hundreds of people quickly generate more quality sales leads from networking. I wanted to make available the exercises I do with clients to as many people as possible. I have previously written lots of articles and blogs but I wanted to take people through the complete process so that it feels like we are going through the process together.

Getting results from networking is not about selling. It’s about understanding how you add value to the marketplace and being able to communicate this in words that appeal to people you speak to on a daily basis.

My approach involves clients answering 6 questions which, in the book, I use the pneumonic APPEAL:
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You have just returned from your summer holiday. You are in the queue for passport control and you have been having a nice conversation about holidays with a silver haired man who is ahead of you in the queue. Suddenly it’s his turn to get his passport checked. He turns to you to say goodbye and then says “Oh by the way, what do you do?”

What do you say? You only know him as a nice guy who has just come back from a family holiday. For all you know he could be the chairman of your ideal client.

You have 10 to 20 seconds before he is gone for ever. Say the right words and he will make a point of catching up with you on the other side.
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Finding new clients can be hard work, especially in the current economic environment. The best sales people know that the easiest sale to make is with existing clients. But how do you get them to spend more money with you?

In my experience you can sell more to your clients and actually enhance the relationship at the same time….. if you do it properly.
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