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Why Selling Sucks—The Profits from Your Practice

In both 2010 and 2011 my company, Innermetrix, conducted polls of over 6,000 independent consultants. This survey was designed to help us understand how satisfied the general consulting community was with the results of their sales efforts. The results of that survey highlighted a critical issue.

While 99 percent of the respondents felt that “getting more business” was their most critical issue, 98 percent felt an equally strong dislike for the act of selling. Now that's what I would call a bit of a dilemma.

The problem: Independent consultants need to sell—but they hate to sell.

With such a significant problem, it is tempting to jump immediately to the solution of how to fix it. Before you can fix a problem, though, you have to understand its cause. Otherwise you are treating the symptoms.

Below are the four leading causes of poor sales for the independent business consultant.

Cause #1: Selling Is a Full-Time Job

Simply put, the mistake most consultants make is that they fail to recognize that they are not salespeople. Professional salespeople are just that—professionals, whose only role is to sell. Your role is to consult or coach, and sales becomes some sideline task you must do in order to fulfill your primary role. Look at any large and successful company and they know how important it is to have a dedicated sales force.

Salesmanship isn't just some collateral skill you pick up in order to become better at some other core job. It takes years of practice to become a very good salesperson. It takes a specific personality type as well. And it takes constant attention to keep that skill honed and sharp.

Treating sales as just another thing you need to accomplish in order to do your real job (i.e., consulting/coaching) will only result in mediocre results at best. Furthermore, thinking you can pick up sales in a few courses or as an ancillary skill simply won't work. Reading a few books on how to sell isn't going to get the job done either.

I know that everyone out there has probably told you that in order to grow your practice you need to sell, and I know this makes rational sense. Unfortunately, until you realize that your core profession is being a consultant, not a salesperson, you will struggle.

Cause #2: Selling Isn't Right for What You Do

The key to understanding why you struggle with selling lies in understanding that you're borrowing best practices from the wrong role. You're using someone else's tools. It's like the carpenter borrowed your plumbing wrench to drive some nails. Just as assuming that the best sales techniques in retail will work for selling to the government is wrong, so too is it wrong to assume that the best sales practices of professional salespeople will work for you, the professional consultant.

Some consultants assume that they can just emulate other salespeople they've known. As executives in their former lives, they have had lots of exposure to salespeople trying to sell to them. Now that they themselves need to start selling, they try to copy what they saw other salespeople doing to them. It is like some perverse Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you have seen them do unto you.” The only problem with this, though, is that in most cases the person you are trying to copy was a professional salesperson. You are not!

Even if you have been a professionally trained salesperson, the other reason you should stop playing “salesperson” is because you must be seen as the authority, the thought leader, or the expert. The moment you start selling, you undermine your prospect's belief in you as the expert. I know it isn't fair but the general perception of a salesperson is not that of a respectable authority or trusted advisor. I've been a very successful professional salesperson much of my life, so I know how false this stereotype is, but that doesn't change the fact that it still exists. The problem comes when you move from being a salesperson selling some other value proposition to being that value proposition yourself. In other words, when you become that which is being sold, the act of selling undermines your expertise.

What words come to mind if I ask you to describe a physician who called your house offering a free office visit? When I ask this in my classes the results are remarkable. With no more knowledge about the physician than this, the opinions range from, “not very good” and “bottom of his graduating class” to “hack” and even “he probably killed someone.” Really? All this poor physician did was try to promote his business to you (by acting like the best salesperson he knew) and all of a sudden he is deemed incompetent, unethical, or worse.

Thought leaders and true experts are seen in a completely opposite light. Such figures enjoy the very opposite perception in the public eye. While neither perception may be justified, they exist nonetheless, and you must deal with this fact.

Cause #3: Selling Isn't Right for You

We've profiled over 600,000 people around the world and I can state with great confidence that there is definitely a set of natural talents or traits that lend themselves to success as either a sales professional or a consultant. The big problem is that the traits in each profession aren't the same. The traits that make a sales superstar are not the same traits that make a great consultant or coach.

So when I say that selling is “not right for who you are,” I mean that your personality profile is probably much better aligned with being a consultant or coach than it is for being a salesperson. While there are always exceptions to any rule, the great majority of consultants I've certified have been much more ideally suited to do what they love to do (i.e., coach and consult) than filling the role of professional salesperson.

When you allow your success to become dependent on your non-talents (i.e., allowing your practice to depend on your sales talents), you have created a significant problem for your business. You've manufactured those weaknesses I discussed earlier, by allowing your practice's success to depend on your becoming the best salesperson—not the best consultant.

Cause #4: The “Die-chotomy” of Being an Independent Consultant

I realize I can't be an idealist. I appreciate that, as an independent, if you don't bring in new business you don't survive. I appreciate that you are the only one in the business and it falls on your shoulders to grow the practice. The real problem is, unlike any other sales role, you are selling you. The one doing the selling is you, but the thing being sold is also you. That's what I call the “die-chotomy” of being an independent consultant—having to be both the seller and that which is sold.

Now, if you are a follower of old-school sales training you may have heard that “you have to sell yourself” in sales. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth! In your world, trust is far more important than just being liked. It's not about being “liked,” it's all about being “trusted.” By taking any actions that position you as a salesperson in your prospect's mind, you erode their trust in you as the expert.

This is the very essence of the problem. The dichotomy of being both expert and salesperson will kill you in the end if you let it. Most consultants will die trying to be both, never realizing the opposing view that each role creates in the mind of their prospect. Bear in mind that they appreciate the salesperson's role to sell because he or she is the conduit to something the buyer wants. The key, however, is that the salesperson is not what the buyer wants, just the conduit to it. In your case, as the consultant, you are what they want to buy. When you take up the sales role you become both the product and the conduit to it, thus creating confusion and reducing the chances of the sale. The key to your success lies in your ability to pick just one of these two professions.

To overcome all of the problems above, you need to replace the sales techniques built for professional salespeople with a sales approach designed exclusively for professional consultants and coaches.

Most consultants follow the linear logic that says, “I need to sell more consulting, therefore I must sell; I must become a salesperson.” The only flaw in this logic is that they fail to ever consider there could be another route to getting more business that doesn't require “selling” as it's classically defined.

In the next chapter I show you how to become comfortable being the consultant who gets more business instead of attempting to be the salesperson who tries to do the same.