Client Work Matters: Proven Sales Scripts for Service Firms

Pinpointing the right way to sell is such a universal challenge that it’s been the subject of endless books and methodologies. There are so many to choose from that you might experience decision fatigue trying to find the one that’s most applicable to your business. And even when you do find spot-on expert guidance, the toughest part is applying it. Once you pick up the phone or go to write your next email to a prospect, you could revert to bad habits and forget everything you learned.

This week, we’ll look at three popular, effective sales methods you should consider implementing to ramp up your service sales.

1. SPIN Selling

Neil Rackham’s SPIN selling approach has been around since he published the SPIN Selling book in 1988. In it, he lays out a strategic framework designed to enhance the effectiveness of sales conversations. 

SPIN stands for the four types of questions sales reps should ask:

• Situation: Gather essential information about the prospect’s circumstances, firmographics and processes.
• Problem: Identify the customer’s challenges or areas of dissatisfaction with somewhat probing questions.
• Implication: Examine the consequences or impact of the problems and discuss the avenues they’ve already explored.
• Need-Payoff: Delve into the benefits of your solution by connecting it to the needs you’ve uncovered in the first three stages.

With these four question types, you can uncover your prospect’s pain points and shift the focus from what you offer to what they need. SPIN selling is known for facilitating a more human approach.

2. Gap Selling

Keenan, author of “Gap Selling,” proposes that successful sales is all about understanding the “gap” between a prospect’s current state and desired future state. To get there, he explains that a sales rep must perform a thorough discovery, actively listen and identify opportunities to position their product or service as the solution that will bridge that gap.

This approach goes a bit deeper than some traditional sales methods because it can require bringing the prospect’s awareness to negative outcomes they don’t yet realize they’re experiencing — or don’t yet feel the pain of. It’s all about framing your business as a way to get someone to where they want to be in a faster and smarter way.

3. Challenger Sales

“The Challenger Sale” is a book and methodology by Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon. It’s become popular for presenting the unconventional advice that a salesperson should challenge a prospect’s beliefs and assumptions. This can feel risky because it means pushing people beyond their comfort zones, which can seem counterintuitive at first.

As a proactive challenger, your job is to teach your prospect about their problems and offer solutions from a new angle. You’re essentially a thought leader providing value through your expertise and provoking new ways of thinking. 

One of the core components of B2B challenger sales is teaching for differentiation, which means teaching the prospect something new about their own business. In a professional services context, this looks like quantifying what they’re losing every day, week or month that they’re not actively solving their problem.

Want more inspiration for improving your revenue strategies and increasing sales velocity? Check out our recent webinar, The Profit Equation: A Revenue Resilience Plan for Next Quarter and Beyond.