Very good advice for consultants and freelancers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U
TL;DR: Make good consulting contracts with a proper lawyer
I'm an engineer that needs to sell my services. Any good books on sales?
41–50 of 83 posts
Re: I'm an engineer that needs to sell my services. Any good books on sales?
#42Optimising for sales at the beginning is just not worth the time. You have to start with word of mouth to test out whether your offering is really going to work, with kindly/friendly people who already know you as a person and aren't going to panic and get demanding in a way that a customer can do with someone they don't know from Eve. And you'll need to be earning enough to at least partly offset the raid on your sa…
"And you'll need to be earning enough to at least partly offset the raid on your savings to give you time to think through sales strategies."
This has been my strategy so far. I got laid off 9 months ago and I've barely touched my severance, but I'm also making way less than before and not really saving any money. Could be worse I suppose.
Re: I'm an engineer that needs to sell my services. Any good books on sales?
#43I know you're looking for a book recommendation (my recommendation would perhaps be a bit too socializing-weighted with Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi) — but I also wanted to reiterate what others have said here already. It's a two-step process — you need to get in front of a potential client, and then you need to convert them into a sale (project). I personally think that most books focus on the latter, whereas the former is arguably the hardest part: finding leads.
It's the same problem most indie devs and startups have (without VC-infused Adwords budgets) — getting their product in front of other people.
I have been consulting in a self-employed capacity for 13 years now, next to doing other things, and 100% of my leads have come through friends, exclusively. This is not to show how great my friends are (debatable), but how I have been completely unable to attract business outside of my network, even in 13 years!
Marketing yourself to even be considered a point of contact for whatever it is you're offering is - in my opinion — by far, the hardest nut to crack.
I'd love to hear suggestions by others who've been successful on this front, especially how you attract out-of-network leads. It seems next to impossible at times, except for those rare (serendipitous) moments when someone reaches out after a newspaper article or being featured online somewhere.
Re: I'm an engineer that needs to sell my services. Any good books on sales?
#44The major lesson will be to ask for the sale. And work that into the conversation, so less "that'll be $99", but more like "So, would you like the blue or pink one?" If you don't ask for the sale, you won't get it. If you're solving a problem, making the sale is helping people. They came to you for help for a reason, so treat them well.
Yes, you should ask for the sale. But "So, would you like the blue or pink one?" might come across as a bit pushy. "would you like to discuss pricing?" is more of a soft close.
> "would you like to discuss pricing?"
Nobody likes to discuss pricing!
Early on in the call, tell them your price to see if they object. If they do, then get off the call. If there's objections, raise them early and either overcome them or figure out that they can't be overcome.
Re: I'm an engineer that needs to sell my services. Any good books on sales?
#45I recommend Jonathan Stark's writing on this:
https://jonathanstark.com/
His daily email list gives me regular reminders of how to improve in sales and pricing.
His books are brilliant too. Start with Hourly Billing is Nuts: https://jonathanstark.com/hbin
Re: I'm an engineer that needs to sell my services. Any good books on sales?
#46New Sales. Simplified.: The Essential Handbook for Prospecting and New Business Development
by Mike Weinberg
Chapter 14: planning and executing the attack, is brilliant!
Feel free to DM, if you want to compare notes
Re: I'm an engineer that needs to sell my services. Any good books on sales?
#47Sounds a lot like where I was about twenty years ago, and today I sell stuff for a living... a few thoughts I wish someone had given me... 1) Productize yourself. That is, have several very clear services you offer at established rates. Brand yourself around a very clear idea that has people saying "hey, call the guy" when they need . 2) A lot of us in tech are shy and introverted by nature, which on the surface appe…
#1 is something I have a hard time with. I'm a developer who became a generalist and my specialty is not one particular thing. The corporate world wants to pigeon hole me into being a product manager, I'm only average at that. Being able to blend engineering, product, some marketing and general leadership skills is my thing. I can kind of do everything, but I don't know how to make a clear list of services to explain…
Rather than specializing in a skill you could specialize in a market or domain e.g. digital services for furniture manufacturers (probably not a domain you personally are familiar with, but just an example).
Re: I'm an engineer that needs to sell my services. Any good books on sales?
#48Value-based fees by Alan Weiss
I like and recommend this one, but I also think he pulls a lot of sleight-of-hand... a lot of it is based on the premise that the client is willing to share (or can even get, in big enough companies...) numbers that inform the value created. For a tech consultant bopping between companies and industries, it's really challenging to come up with these numbers. Likewise, I found that even if you can prove a number, gett…
You probably weren't talking to an economic buyer.
Re: I'm an engineer that needs to sell my services. Any good books on sales?
#49Value-based fees by Alan Weiss
Million-Dollar Consulting is as good or better
Re: I'm an engineer that needs to sell my services. Any good books on sales?
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like and recommend this one, but I also think he pulls a lot of sleight-of-hand... a lot of it is based on the premise that the client is willing to share (or can even get, in big enough companies...) numbers that inform the value created. For a tech consultant bopping between companies and industries, it's really challenging to come up with these numbers. Likewise, I found that even if you can prove a number, gett…
You probably weren't talking to an economic buyer.
I was and I wasn't - and in fact we knew we didn't really have a shot at getting to the economic buyer who made the choice to spend stupid money. But that's kinda my point - most of us are talking to mid-level management and down when we are interacting as solo operators / small consultancies into larger clients. That Director you are interacting with likely doesn't have the authority to authorize anything beyond a consulting contract at $xxx /hour as they are going to have someone in finance scrutinizing their spend.