David A. Fields Consulting Group Some professional salespeople recommend that you never say you’re available on the day a prospect suggests for a meeting, even if you are free that day.
Instead, they advise you counter with a date a week or two later than the prospect asked for.
That way, these sales pro explain, your consulting firm doesn’t appear to have excess capacity or seem too desperate for engagements.
Is that the right approach?
Maybe those sales dogs are right for the roofing business. They’re flat-out wrong when it comes to consulting.
Here’s the truth… well, a few Consulting Truths:
Responsiveness wins consulting engagements.
Relationships win consulting engagements.
Being disingenuous ruins relationships.
Ergo, being disingenuous to reduce your consulting firm’s appearance of responsiveness is misguided and a bit silly.
If a prospect says, “Can you meet us on Tuesday the 12th?” and your calendar is open that day, respond, “Amazingly, I can meet on that day. You picked the perfect day.”
Even if your calendar is packed for the next few weeks or few months, find a way to move things around to ensure you can meet with a hot prospect.
By the time the old-school salesperson has his delayed meeting, you’ll have already won the consulting engagement, sent the client a box of chocolate and received your first payment.
The same philosophy applies to your start date with clients. If you can start an engagement right away, then do so. Don’t pretend you’re capacity constrained when you’re not in order to give the impression of being in-demand.
Of course, if you’re capacity constrained and can’t start a new engagement for a few weeks or a few months, then be transparent about that with your prospects. (And do everything you can to open up capacity for an earlier start.)
Has playing hard to get worked well for you and your firm, or have you seen better results from meeting your prospects’ timing requests wherever possible?
Text and images are © 2024 David A. Fields, all rights reserved.
100% agree. Why would you ever be dishonest? Think about when you buy professional services, responsiveness goes a long way.
Right you are, Brad. Responsiveness rules! Unsurprisingly, dishonesty abounds in professional services; however, I’m in your camp–there’s really no reason and no lasting benefit to take the low road.
I appreciate your posting you reaction, Brad.
I would also worry that if I were to work with this person, they wouldn’t have much time for me. I want to know I’m going to be a priority for them when I hire coaches, and I’d imagine it’d be the same with consultants?
That’s a good point, Courtney. Clients want to know you will attend to them–it fits with the “You’re thinking of me” point of the Trust Triangle. If you demonstrate that you can’t put your prospect first when they ask, they’ll assume they won’t be first during an engagement.
Great addition to the conversation, Courtney–thanks for contributing!
Being authentic wins every time. Can you write about effective take aways when a prospect ghost you after submitting a proposal and/or reengaging them?
Great question, Jody. Ghosting is frustrating, isn’t it?! What you’re looking for is in this article: Prospects Ghosting Your Consulting Firm? Proven Follow-Up Sequence Make sure to read the comments because they mention the “magic email,” which I did not include in the original article, but have subsequently added as the final email in the sequence.
Thanks for the smart question, Jody!
“Not to be constantly telling people (or writing them) that I’m too busy, unless I really am. Similarly, not to be always ducking my responsibilities to the people around me because of ‘pressing business.'” – Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor.
Wow, Steen, quoting Marcus Aurelius is a power move! Ol’ Markie-Marc was a deep thinker and said a thing or two in his written meditations that are well worth listening to by present day consultants.
I’m impressed by your injection of a solid historical reference into the conversation, Steen. Well done.
David – thanks for surfacing what I have been noticing recently. I see these days an army of entrepreneurs (career coaches, linkedin influencers, etc.) using the “scarcity” principle of influence the wrong way. Sales compliance tactics like “join the waitlist” and “limited spot” can be effective only when the recipient truly recognizes the scarcity of that resource (high competition, high emotion arousal, etc.) in a way that connects to value. When it super easy to infer that you are a growth-seeking entrepreneur who is hungry for “clients” that too at low marginal cost (one extra attendee in a class, for example) these tactics are counterproductive.
Best to let authenticity do its thing instead of mis-using an influence tactic – as you rightly point out.
You’ve deftly highlighted the central distinction between real scarcity (firms that have honestly hit a capacity limit) versus “aspirational scarcity” (firms that pretend they’ve hit their capacity limits). Scarcity unquestionably influences prospects’ willingness to act; however, for the reasons you mentioned, it can be a much less powerful and effective tool than many marketers would like to believe.
I greatly appreciate your expanding on the topic, Shankar.
I have experienced potential clients ask who else I’m working with in a way that suggests they don’t want to be the only company working with me (more so than from a place of checking client references). Of course, that doesn’t mean I play hard to get or create fake demand, but there does seem to be some allure to being “busy” (but not too busy).
Social proof is another powerful motivator, Brandon, and as you point out, demonstrating that you’re in demand is essentially leveraging social proof. Fortunately, you can be in-demand and also responsive!
Thanks for joining the conversation, Brandon.