In professional services firms, most experts are only focused on improving skills in their craft. If they want to win new work and grow their firms, it’s important to understand these six sales competencies for professionals.
If you are an engineer, architect, advisor, or consultant in a professional services firm and you’re reading this, things are getting pretty serious. You may be realizing that your sales skills are the missing puzzle piece in your journey to firm leadership. You need to build your sales chops fast, and these six sales competencies for professionals might be just what you need.
A Sales Competency Matrix
A competency matrix is a tool used to identify and then build competence in specific areas of expertise. They are typically designed like a grid with important competencies on one axis and increasing levels of achievement, or mastery, on the other axis. These tools provide two functions: to define a pathway for learning and to assess current competency on a scale.
Most firms have competency matrixes that assess the skills their team members need to serve their clients. Some of these matrixes set very general goals and expectations around marketing and business development. Unfortunately, I have yet to come across any with the level of detail and specificity needed with sales. And if you want to improve your sales performance, you should consider the six sales competencies for professionals listed below.
First, I’d like to offer a framework for defining and achieving mastery that was pioneered decades ago in Japan.
Levels of Mastery, the Toyota way
The Toyota Way is a set of principles and behaviors that has influenced modern business for decades. Lean manufacturing, continuous improvement, and “the five whys” are all part of or related to it. To learn the Toyota Production System, individuals work through five levels of learning and mastery. Art Smalley, an author and authority on leadership, leaning thinking, and the Toyota Production System, refers to these five levels as:
- 知る / To know of or to have heard the concepts
- 分かる / To know and really understand the concepts
- 出来る / To be able to do on your own very well
- やりつける / To do continuously very well over time (and show improvement)
- 教える / To be able to do and to teach it well to others
The levels are a logical sequence of awareness, learning, and doing that lead to mastery. I particularly like the “teaching others” level of true mastery. The final level of teaching creates a circular system that reinforces itself rather than a linear progression of individual expertise. In my matrix, I refer to these five levels as Knowing, Understanding, Practicing, Improving, and Teaching Others.
The Six Sales Competencies for Professionals
Now that we’ve determined the levels of achieving mastery, let’s explore the six sales competencies for professionals that define a path of skill development and growth. The six are:
- Behaviors and Mindset
- The Sales Process
- Sales Planning
- Practice, Industry, and Client Knowledge
- Prospecting
- Pricing and Value
There are other skills that apply to full-time salespeople in large sales organizations. However, since we’re talking about people who have limited time for these activities, this is a good list—and is likely more comprehensive that most firms have ever considered.
Behaviors and Mindset
Sales is hard. Much of the time, sales efforts don’t end with a signed contract. That can be frustrating to professionals who are used to completing the work successfully. For introverted, technical professionals, sales can be exhausting and require an almost heroic level of energy and enthusiasm. As such, it’s important for experts like this to take the time they need to prepare for, participate in, and recover from significant sales efforts.
As a result, the right mindset, a good amount energy, and a willingness to participate sales efforts are critical attitudes. Other skills to consider in this category are: comfort and confidence in sales conversations; maintaining a sense of curiosity with prospects; responsibility and accountability for seeing sales opportunities through; the ability to ask for and obtain commitments from prospective clients throughout the sales process; and an eagerness to learn and practice and grow.
The Sales Process
The true power of any process is improvement. Unfortunately, most professionals see sales as confusing and ambiguous, so they don’t believe a process with sales is even possible. Winning new work is attributed to good fortune and not to following a solid process that improves with practice over time. As with all other parts of their business, however, sales benefits from a clear and consistent process.
If you and your team understand the power of a good process, then it’s smart to build skills around your sales process. As such, the first sales competency in this category is understanding the series of sales conversations within a sales process. These conversations have a purpose and a sequence, moving from Qualification to Close. Other skills dig into the details of the steps in the sales process. They include: the ability to lead Qualification conversations to determine fit; the skill to define client needs, decision-makers, buying processes, and important evaluation criteria in Discovery; the ability to write a thorough understanding of the client’s needs and desired outcomes followed by a Proposal that matches those needs and outcomes to your expertise; the ability to uncover and address concerns and objections in Negotiation; and the ability to obtain commitments and finalize contracts when you Close.
Sales Planning
Contrary to what many believe, sales isn’t about shooting from the hip. I’ve written about the perils of winging it when you’re having an important conversation with a prospect. Although success in sales often requires some flexibility, agility, and thinking-on-your-feet, good planning can mitigate much of this.
As such, the first skill in this category is always the individual’s understanding and use of the four types of sales planning. Call plans, Opportunity/Pursuit plans, Account Development plans, and Segment/Market Development plans all contribute to better organization, increased confidence, and greater success in sales. Skills within those planning activities include: the ability to create and implement a Call plan when appropriate; the curiosity to develop appropriate questions in those Calls; the skills to lead the project pursuit process; an understanding of the Account Development planning process and when to use it with targeted client accounts; and the ability to use Segment/Market Development plans to create new client relationships and grow revenue in specific markets or client segments.
Practice, Industry, and Client Knowledge
An expert’s ability to explain the work they do is important. Unfortunately, many experts rely only on that knowledge. Awareness of larger industry dynamics and trends is critical. Gathering information through independent research and through conversations with clients and partners provides valuable insights and helps you become a trusted advisor.
Therefore, firms should assess knowledge-related skills like: an understanding of the of your services and the problems they address; the discipline to tell brief, relevant Client Success Stories related to those services; an awareness of larger industry changes and trends; knowledge of competitors, partners, and your positioning in the marketplace; the ability to understand your clients’ businesses through research and exploratory conversations; and an understanding of ideal client profiles and what motivates and influences their buying processes.
Prospecting
Prospecting is proactive outreach to maintain client relationships, build new connections, and uncover new business opportunities. In professional services firms, this outreach is led by the practitioner and supported by business development and/or marketing resources. And of all the six sales competencies for professionals, prospecting might be the most important one of all.
There are many ways to prospect. Most people think of cold calling as the only way to find new leads, but there are other methods that are often more productive. Prospecting skills include: understanding the principles and framework around prospecting; the ability to ask for and receive referrals; developing and maintaining a list of existing client and prospect contacts; an organized and regular approach to outreach; the ability to use multiple channels for outreach, i.e. social media, email, calls, etc.; and, yes, the skills to pick up the phone and call someone that doesn’t know you.
Pricing and Value
Skills in this category can be considered part of mastering the Sales Process, but they are important enough—and represent such a big opportunity for improvement—that it’s smart to deal with them independently. Price is, as you would imagine, is the amount you charge your clients in exchange for your services. Simple, but not easy, as it turns out.
Value is the buyer’s sense of the worth of something that can be expressed in a benefit received divided by price paid equation. Something with high value is considered “a good deal” or “worth every penny”, while a low value is thought to be a “rip off” or a “waste of time and money”. Again, simple to understand but much harder to master.
There is massive change with pricing across all types of professional services firms. This is a fundamental shift away from “Cost plus” pricing to “Value-based” strategies. It’s about discovering client perceptions of value and developing specific options with price and scope based on that value. Lastly, it shifts the focus away from inputs, i.e. what clients get, to focus on outcomes, i.e. what clients get out of it.
As such, the skills we seek to improve here are: the understanding of value and value-based pricing; the ability to uncover and prioritize elements of client value; the ability to develop pricing options and to present those options in a buyer-friendly format; and the shift to outcome-based approaches.
… and a bonus competency
I hesitate to put these skills in the list of sales competencies, as they are important for everything we do, but it’s always worth mentioning that…
… there is a high correlation with success in sales and strong organizational skills.
With most practitioners, sales isn’t at the top of their daily to-do list. Many will find any opportunity they can to slide sales activities to the bottom of the pile of tasks they need to complete. Consequently, with so little time dedicated to sales activities, the importance of Getting Things Done is amplified.
Some organizational skills you should consider in sales are: the ability to provide and prioritize specific time periods for outreach, follow-up, and opportunity management; the ability to use various technology tools to maintain organization and productivity; and the ability to create a complete regular sales activities independently.
Mastering the Six Sales Competencies for Professionals
At this point, your matrix should start to look something like this:
Your matrix should be built around the right competencies for your particular business. In some firms, certain approaches to prospecting or some elements of sales planning may be a higher priority. Your matrix should reflect that.
Firms can’t create sales pros from nothing, so you’ll need to develop pathways for skill development. Starting with the right content is critical. Sales training introduces these concepts. Discussion and practice with good coaching build understanding and help individuals improve. Your future sales leaders need the time and guidance required to build muscle memory for sales and the related activities.
To measure individual improvement, assign a score to each level of mastery. Knowing scores a 1, while Teaching Others is a 5. This clarifies the process of development and highlights areas of individual and group mastery – or lack thereof. You can then focus your time on the most important skills that are required for your practice to grow.
Building your Future Sales Leaders
In short, everyone in sales—even part-time salespeople like engineers and advisors—can improve their sales skills. And that has nothing to do with being salesy. Identifying the right skills for your team in a competency matrix, developing good learning systems, and creating time for practice and improvement are critical. With these systems in place, and the right energy and focus across your organization, your future sales leaders will have the skills and confidence they need to lead your firm for years to come.
Wainwright Insight provides fractional sales management and consulting to organizations who want to take control of their sales pipeline and build future sales leaders—but could use a little, part-time expertise. I work with professional services firms, and the experts in those firms, who need to get better at chasing and winning big deals when the stakes are high.