Sunday, July 02, 2006

Why can't professionals sell?

One of my clients is a CBD law firm. Their professionals find marketing hard. The same thing holds with the professionals in my own Ndarala Group. They know that they have to get the work through the door, but find it hard to go and chase the necessary clients. Why is this so?

I think that part of the reason lies in the combination of personality and training. The professions attract people who can examine problems objectively. Our training reinforces this. But sales works on emotion, on the ability to explain to the prospective client why we can solve their problem. Our training in objectivity makes this hard.

But I also think that part of the problem lies in intellectual arrogance. We actually expect the client to understand why they should use our services simply because we are a professional. But why should they? It is our task to help them identify their needs, to give them the information to choose us.

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