Selling Yourself—Convincingly!

If you're like a lot of consultants out there, you hate selling yourself. You love what you do, and you're good at it. Your clients love you. But you dread business development, which is absolutely critical to keeping the pipeline full and growing your practice.

How do you position yourself as someone who can deliver when you aren't comfortable talking about yourself? The following ideas will help get you thinking along positive, creative lines.

Presenting Yourself Powerfully and Successfully

• Demonstrate your expertise by focusing on results and facts, rather than process and personality. Quantify what you can do. Use numbers whenever you can. For example, “At my last client, I...”

  • “... designed a website that resulted in an X percent decrease in abandoned orders.”

  • “... created an award-winning advertising campaign.”

  • “... reduced the order-to-fulfillment cycle time by 75 percent.”

• Remember that you are the expert. Drop modifiers like “kind of” and “sort of”—unless you are deliberately trying to soften your image. Either you can do it or you can't. If you can't, why are you there?

• Image is important: dress appropriately for the situation. Know where you can wear well-pressed designer jeans or a thousand-dollar suit. Looking well-groomed will go a long way toward buying credibility, and your confidence will bump up a notch if you look the part. Invest in a couple of good outfits, a signature piece of jewelry, a smashing scarf or classic tote or briefcase.

• Don't over-prepare. Many of us aren't comfortable unless we feel we know 110% of everything there is to know. The problem with that? You can confuse a client by presenting too much data. As the expert, your job is to cut through the clutter and present real, usable information.

• Never be afraid to say, “I don't know.” Immediately offer to research the issue and tell the client when to expect an answer. For example: “I'll have to look into that, Dave. I'll have an answer for you by close of business Tuesday.” Then deliver as promised!

• Ask questions; don't assume anything. There are several reasons for this. First, asking questions gets the client talking about her problem. Second, you can take time to frame a smart reply. Third and most important, asking intelligent, focused questions demonstrates that you care enough to want to learn more about your client's challenges.

• Silence is golden: know when to keep quiet. Don't blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. A well-timed pause makes you look thoughtful. Pauses are wonderful things. Use them to capture attention, reset a mood, organize your ideas, or close the deal. That old axiom in sales is true: she who speaks last gets the business.

• Keep client “love letters.” Save complimentary e-mail messages so you can review them when you need a boost. Write down positive feedback and file it in a “Client Kudos” folder. Don't be afraid to use those words: “One client said I....” She wouldn't have said it if she hadn't meant it!

Remind Yourself of the Good Stuff

Finally, here's a trick I learned from a very successful consultant. I keep a weekly list I call “Good Stuff.” I put anything and everything positive on it that I did that week, no matter how trivial: bid on work for a new client, billed $XXXX, got a great compliment from another client, cleaned out my desk... you get the picture. When I hit a bump in the road—as we all do—or have a bad day, I remind myself of everything I've accomplished. It's a great way to reset my perspective and re-energize myself.

Author Bio

Mary Beth Deans, principal of Douglas Partners, advises professionals whose careers are in transition, accelerating transition results and matching the right person to the right job. She also works with corporate clients to identify and retain top talent. She has been a consultant, writer and public speaker for more than 15 years and, among other organizations, is a member of the Northern California Human Resources Association and NAWBO. Visit her website at http://www.womeninconsulting.org/search/consultant.php?memberID=822.

"Your most important sale is to sell yourself to yourself." - Napoleon Hill