Recent Survey Results PSF Marketing/Business Development Integration – Does it Benefit Clients? See the results of our research. Are Marketing and Business Development Functions Stuck in a Rut? See the results of our research. How well do Marketing and Business Development work with other operations, like Finance, IT, HR, Legal and more? See the results of our research. Do PSF practitioners WANT to market and sell? See the results of our research. Speeches The Boston Club, A discussion of lead generation and sales, Boston, MA. Oct. 23, 2008 Kennedy Information’s Fall Executive Search Summit, Post-Summit Forum II, Princeton Club, New York, NY. Oct 22, 2008 News The View from the Other Side: B2B Marketing Practices from Other Industries, ITSMA, June 2008. Adapting to a Downturn, Suzanne Lowe and Ford Harding, The Council of Public Relations Firms. May 2008. Read a summary of Suzanne Lowe's upcoming book The Integration Imperative™. New from the Expertise Marketplace™ Blog STILL the only verified link between marketing measurement and effectiveness Taking baby steps toward better serving clients In praise of building marketing and selling skills See all the posts at the Expertise Marketplace blog Subscribe to the blog's RSS feed for regular updates. (Need RSS help?) Subscribe Did a colleague forward this newsletter? Sign up to receive your own copy. "I LOVE your newsletter. I think it’s the best one I get. Full of real content and yet not too long. Kudos!" Diane Schmalensee, Facilitator and President of Schmalensee Partners Recent Issues The State of Cross-Selling in Professional Service Firms, July 2008 Mastering Professional Service Firm Account Management, June 2008 Five Goals for CMOs, May 2008 You can order Marketplace Masters from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, your favorite online bookseller, or CEO-READ.

The Marketplace Master™ is a monthly email publication on professional service marketing from Expertise Marketing, LLC.

About this month's issue

This month we have asked Ford Harding for a guest article that continues our theme on cross-selling.

Ford is the president of Harding & Company, which trains professionals to win new clients. Rain Making – Attract New Clients No Matter What Your Field, a revised and updated edition of his bestselling book, was published in February 2008. His books are required reading for certification by the Society for Marketing Professional Services. His articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. Ford also writes a popular blog on selling.

Suzanne Lowe
President, Expertise Marketing
Author, Marketplace Masters: How Professional Service Firms Compete to Win

Cross Markets Aren't So Different

by Ford Harding

Ford Harding, Harding & Company

For 20 years I have heard the complaint that cross selling, the selling of multiple services to the same client, doesn’t work.

There are a number of reasons why cross selling doesn’t live up to expectations. A principal cause was pointed out by David Maister in his book, True Professionalism: people try to do it when there is no apparent extra value to the client from using the same firm for two services. Clients are usually good at figuring this out.

Here I focus on another reason: people treat cross markets as if they are an easier channel to sell through than others. They aren’t.

This false expectation manifests itself in several ways. First, people who don’t know how to sell externally think that, for some reason, they should be able to cross sell. They are the ones who look for an easy way to get business. They may be able to close a deal if a client comes to them, but they don’t know how to go out in the market place and find one. Account teams made up of such people meet monthly to talk about how they will cross sell to a specific client. They then do little to further the cause, meeting again a month later to talk some more.

The misconception that cross selling is easy is also manifested in how people talk about it. Poor cross sellers are quick to tell others what they should be doing, as in “You should be able to get me in there.” They overestimate what colleagues are able to do, as in “You control the client; you should be able to get me an introduction.”

Good cross sellers are good sellers. A good cross seller treats the cross market like any other market. She works hard to service the colleagues she hopes will introduce her to a client. She talks with them often, building trust over time, helping them learn what words to use when introducing her and her service. She finds ways to help them sell their own services, too. She patiently earns their trust and respect. Of all the people she can sell through, she picks out those who know how to sell and are willing to introduce her, not wasting time on those who can’t or won’t. She leaves out "should" statements, relying on firm and practice management to create an environment that she can cross sell in. In short, she treats the cross market pretty much like she treats any other.

One of the best cross sellers I know won over the sales force of his firm. First, he demonstrated the power of cross selling by bringing in a huge engagement that required many of the firm’s services. He then encouraged his consulting team to earn the respect and interest of the sales force. He got agreement from his team to respond to all calls from members of sales force within 24 hours. Over three years, revenues of his practice from work originating with the sales force shot up from almost nothing to 70 percent. In other words, he put as much effort into the cross market as he would any other he hoped to get business from. And it paid off.

In that respect, cross markets are not so different from any other market.

Your feedback is important to us. Please contact us with your comments and questions.

Take the confidential, web-based Marketplace Masters professional service firm differentiation assessment test for instant feedback on whether your firm is doing differentiation right.

© 2008 Expertise Marketing, LLC All Rights Reserved