The Mindset Shift: Avoiding Sales Stereotypes in Professional Services

Coffee isn’t just for closers. 
Buyers can smell your commission breath.
Good salespeople don’t have all the answers. 

In this episode, John and Mark bring on voices from other sales and marketing experts in the professional services realm. Featuring clips from Blair Enns, David C. Baker, Jason Mlicki and Jeff McKay, this episode explores the importance of mindset in developing new business:

• The significance of habit-building and mastery of both marketing and sales
• Why it’s important to maintain a low self orientation and avoid selfishness
• The pitfalls of relying on RFPs and the benefits of a proactive strategy
• How to avoid slipping into a salesperson ‘alter ego’
• The impact of sleazy sales tactics on client relationships

Win Without Pitching: https://www.winwithoutpitching.com/
Punctuation: https://punctuation.com/
Rattleback: https://www.rattleback.com/
Prudent Pedal: https://www.prudentpedal.com/

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhwainwright/
Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johntyreman/

www.breakingbizdev.com

Transcript

John Tyreman: 0:19

Welcome business developers to another episode of Breaking Biz Dev, the podcast that beats up, breaks down, and redefines business development for the professional services firms of tomorrow. Mark, you and I are at it again. We are going to beat up this nebulous term we call business development. And we're bringing in a few other, uh, few other podcasters to help us out with this one.

Mark Wainwright: 0:42

We are, and John, these guest voices that we are introducing and kind of bringing into our podcast, are great data points to prove that we're not the only ones who think that business development is a little bit broken. So it's, it's, uh, it's nice to have others join the chorus, so to speak on this, on this whole thing. And, um, boy, we've got. We've got some good voices today, John,

John Tyreman: 1:08

Yep. Yeah. Yeah, we do. We've got, uh, friends in, uh, a couple of other podcasts. You might've heard of them too. Bob's and rattle and pedal and Jason and Jeff and Blair and David. Um, they are well respected and well known. In the consulting world and the professional services world. So it's an honor to have their voices. This episode and for folks that are listening, that's one thing that we want to do more of is we do want to bring in more voices into future episodes because, well, you know, like you said, Mark, we're not the only ones that think business development is broken. And it's great to have, you know, other perspective. It's valuable to our listeners, but it's also helpful, you know, for our own knowledge of the industry and understanding of the industry too.

Mark Wainwright: 1:56

right? Both of these podcasts, uh, have been so important, to my growth, my thinking, my development over the years. And I'm sure. John, they've, they've helped you as well as many, as well as many others. these people, you know, understood a long time ago that podcasts were an important part of, uh, you know, they're either personal or, or their firm marketing, their podcasts, are on my regular playlist. You know, when I'm out for my dog walks and, uh, I hear Jeff and Jason in my ear or Blair and David, it's like you said, it's a, it's a pleasure and an honor to kind of have them and weave, have them join us and weave their voices into, uh, breaking BizDev every time I listened to their podcasts, I'm given the opportunity to look at things from a slightly different perspective, you know, either bringing new language, new words, just new thinking to it. And it's really refreshing. Uh, it, it always, their stuff always keeps me on my toes, which is, which is fantastic.

John Tyreman: 3:11

And there were, you know, I, I love their co hosted commentary model and it was definitely an inspiration for this show. Um, and as, as we were, so these conversations with, Jason and Jeff and David and Blair. as I was listening back to their responses, we both kind of noticed this. There's this like theme of like mindset. And, how that can really make or break your business development strategy and both mindset, both individually, but then also kind of like at the level up the organizational mindset mindset and kind of like this cultural mindset, um, Jeff alludes to that a little bit. And I just think it's, it's so important. And Mark, you called this out in one of your six sales competent competencies is that, you know, mindset is so critical,

Mark Wainwright: 4:01

that theme did, uh, kind of bubble up to the top, I think for, uh, For, for both of us and the, you know, it's the mindset, it's the attitude, it's the posture you have coming into, the world of sales when you're engaged with a prospective client, as you're walking through this whole process together, It's so critical that we, have our heads in the, in the right place. And the fantastic thing is, is that, you know, our personal mindset, how we, how we set our sales, you know, to use a, a metaphor, are completely within our control, right? We, we have the ability to, set our mind, bring the right attitude, uh, and, and sort of guide this whole process with a good sense of, Positive energy, momentum, enthusiasm, you know, cause sales is hard. Uh, and the other thing I mentioned in that six sales competencies is, uh, you know, this mindset is important because buying professional services is difficult, right? So we need to be a really good guide, uh, and having the right mindset when we're coming into all of it, uh, is critical, not just for ourselves, but for our prospective clients who may be in an uncomfortable situation and just need a little bit of help.

John Tyreman: 5:19

I was, uh, on Twitter the other day and, um, this woman I follow, Allie Schwanke, uh, she was posting about, you know, what's the, what is the difference between marketing and sales? And I, I replied to her and I, and this is just my two cents on a gross oversimplification, but marketing is positioning and sales is guiding buyers to making a decision. And, you know, it, that was just kind of like in the heat of the moment, but then I, then I was kind of reflecting on that. It's like, yeah, you know what, that's kind of really what marketing is, is positioning and sales is kind of guiding those buyers. So you're right. I mean, there is, you do need to make a distinction and there is a different mindset that you need to bring to both of those scenarios, but then also, you know, the common theme is it's, it's all customer focused and when you deviate from that and you start to think about yourself more than the customer, that's when things start to break down.

Mark Wainwright: 6:13

Right. It's the, um, and I talk about this all the time. It's that trusted advisor, uh, trust equation thing where, um, self orientation destroys everything, right? Uh, you cannot present yourself as being trustworthy if you are self oriented. It just, it just kills the whole thing. So I stress that constantly is your expertise. Your experience, your credibility, you know, all of those things, are weighed down, by, any sense of, uh, self orientation and they are buoyed by a lack of self orientation, right? This obsessive focus on others is critical. so anyway, we digress on this. I'm sure everyone is. Just, excited and interested to hear from, uh, who I humbly call some of our, our, our professional services podcast colleagues, let's dive in. We've got four and I think we're going to start with our friend Jason Malicki. Uh, and, uh, he had some good things to share.

John Tyreman: 7:24

That's right. Well, without further ado. Here comes Jason. in your opinion, what do you think is broken about the way professional services firms do business development today?

Jason Mlicki: 7:34

The whole thing. So, um, I think that what I mean by that is, I think a lot of firms, they've built their entire business development engine. I mean, roles, jobs, processes around rules of engagement that are set down by the seller. So the whole BD org for a lot of firms is really constructed. To facilitate an RFP process that allows them to get themselves lined up like a bunch of apples at a grocery market for a client to

John Tyreman: 8:06

Hmm. Mm

Jason Mlicki: 8:08

And it's very reactive as Jeff said, it's, it's. It's we don't even want to have a conversation until someone shows up with a clearly stated problem statement and money in hand. And then we will dial up this proposal machine. And this pitch machine and go have interviews and presentations, and we're going to incur hundreds of thousands of dollars and, and, and, you know, um, proposal costs to stomach it. And what I'd like to see them do is be more proactive, go to the market with a more clear and distinct point of view, have a thought leadership agenda, have a business development unit that knows how to proactively take that thought leadership story in that point of view into the marketplace to have conversations. With clients that lead to, uh, contracts without this kind of like, you know, massive RFP engine having to be spun up. I've seen a lot of firms for the years that they think it's a win when they, when their marketing activities generate an RFP, I actually think that's a

John Tyreman: 9:10

Agreed.

Jason Mlicki: 9:12

And, uh, you know, the goal of marketing isn't to generate the RFP. It's to generate the conversation that hopefully supersedes the RFP and replaces it with a contract. So, um, you know, and a lot of firms, what I'm seeing, like what I see when I say all that is that the mindset of what I just said, they just can't even fathom that that's even a feasible thing.

John Tyreman: 9:32

Well, the, the nature of an RFP is a competitive scenario, and in those competitive scenarios, you ultimately end up competing based on price. And that's, that's just a waters that you don't want to wait into because that erodes your margins. But then because it's a competitive scenario, naturally your win rates going to drop. And so then your cost of sale just skyrockets by the more RFPs that you respond to. And then you, I call it the RFP hamster wheel. Like once you're on, it's hard to get off.

Jason Mlicki: 10:01

You can't get off it. And, and, and, and a lot of firms just can't see any other possible way to do it like that. Like they've done it this way for so long. And like you said, they've ridden this hamster wheel for so long. The wind rates have been declining. The cost of sales has been going up. Well, we just got to put more in the top. We just, we just shove more in the top. That's how we're going to solve this problem. Like, well, no, that's not going to solve it at all. It's just going to make the problem worse.

John Tyreman: 10:21

going to So that was Jason Malicki on, and I thought he brought up a couple of really good points, Mark, about, um, the way that you construct your business development organization. Um, are you organizing your business development activities around responding to RFPs or are you organizing them around what you like to say, creating new business?

Mark Wainwright: 10:41

you can hear in the, in the, the, the conversation there and, and, and Jason's comments that, if you start building your organization around doing that one particular thing, responding for responding to RFPs, being reactive, not being proactive, that just sort of snowballs and it's, you look around, you know, like, We can't do it any other way. It's just, we're just structurally built that way. Uh, and as you've said, kind of many times, this old sort of RFP hamster wheel, uh, thing kind of just sets in and it becomes sort of this immovable object where you're unable to reframe and rethink, uh, and bring a different mindset that says we need to create new business because we want to be the expert firm that we want to be. Not that someone else wants us to be.

John Tyreman: 11:30

Yeah, totally. And I like to think about it. It's like, are you're, you're waiting for the market to come to you when you could be proactive and you could be going to the market. And it reminded me a lot of what we talked about on a recent episode around this, this iceberg analogy. That you brought up, or you only see about three to 5 percent of the market. That's actively in a buying scenario, buying decision. They're on a customer decision journey. Um, but then most of it's underwater.

Mark Wainwright: 12:03

Yeah, that's um, uh, hopefully people are picturing that, that visual and, and I share that with the, the clients that I work with. And it is my hope that that conversation is an aha moment for a lot of people when they realize that sort of the, the active buyers are a small percentage of the whole sort of addressable market. And that's, you know, upwards of 90 percent or more of their potential future clients, sit below the waterline. They're they're unseen, uh, but they're there. and our goal is to, to engage with them in a proactive way so that we can move them into a place where they're actively buying and where we are well positioned to be their number one choice.

John Tyreman: 12:52

All right. Well, let's hear what Jason's co host Jeff McKay had to say about what he believes is broken in business development. Here comes Jeff.

Jeff McKay: 13:05

The thing that's broken about business development is the thing that has been broken, um, I think from time immemorial. And that is a selfish, I need to close business today. I need to close it fast. Give me a lead. Let me work it. And if you're not ready to buy, I'm moving on. It is the wrong mindset. It's a horrible mindset and it just perpetuates. It just perpetuates. And experience and research has borne out that people just absolutely hate that. Um, but people continue to do it. Professional services, and I would say sales in general, but professional services specifically is a relationship driven business and it's becoming more so, you know, with content marketing and AI and we've had episodes on marketing and sales ruins everything. But human connection is so important. And you cannot build human connection when you have a selfish mindset of I want to get mine and I want to get it as fast as I can. And most people would say, Oh, I don't have that mindset, but their actions would say differently. So when I look at what's, what's broken, it's the mindset, um, because technology and, and, and particular types of skills and things evolve, but if you have the wrong core, and this goes with growth in, in sales and marketing, we've talked about it. Culture is at the, at the heart. Culture is, you know, kind of a firm perspective of mindset.

John Tyreman: 15:20

I think Jeff brought up a really good point at the end, and I, I, I wanted to dig in a little bit more to what he had to say there about how this mindset, this short sightedness Kind of starts at the top of the organization. Sure. There is some intrinsic kind of motivation to maybe chasing after a commission, but you know, where does that stem from? That stems from leadership.

Mark Wainwright: 15:45

Yeah. Good point. Good point. It, uh, um, and he brings up the often mentioned, discussion around, you know, professional service, new business development and professional services is driven by relationships. And we've all heard that in the past. but I think that we often can lose sight. Of that, particularly when, uh, we look at more contemporary ways of, outreach, multi channel marketing, you know, there's a million things that can kind of get in the way and sort of, sort of, uh, you know, fog our, our, our vision on all of this. So he comes back and he, he, he touches on the, the, the relationships end of things. And that, like you said, um, there needs to be a pervasive. Organizational culture, that are focused on building relationships, coming into this whole thing with the right approach, the right attitude, the right posture, you know, the one of service, one of help, uh, the one of guidance, rather than, um, trying to chase after the dollars.

John Tyreman: 16:48

Yeah. Having that again, having that low self orientation. Um, I follow a guy named Josh Braun on LinkedIn. He's a sales trainer. Um, he likes to refer to this as commission breath. Prospects can smell that commission breath coming from a mile away. And, you know, that's why you have to have that low self orientation and, and really focus on, you know, creating value or creating a meaningful value exchange with your prospect. And it's not just a zero sum game.

Mark Wainwright: 17:20

right. And, and many people in professional services aren't sort of, you know, they're, they're not built in a way where they're, uh, slave to the commission approach to compensation, but people know exactly what we mean when we say that, you know, it's just that whole, um, you know. Pushy, slimy, sleazy, salesy, whatever words you want to attach to it that people completely just want to steer clear of.

John Tyreman: 17:46

Excellent. that is perspective from our good friends over at rattle and pedal. And if you're listening to this show, you will probably find that show, um, valuable as well. So go check out, um, Jason and Jeff over there.

Mark Wainwright: 18:00

You're listening to breaking biz dev

John Tyreman: 18:02

the podcast that beats up, breaks down, and redefines business development for the professional services firms of tomorrow. Your hosts are John Tyerman, founder of Red Cedar Marketing, the podcast marketing company for experts and professional services firms,

Mark Wainwright: 18:17

And Mark Wainwright, principal consultant and founder of Wainwright Insight, the fractional sales manager and sales consultant to professional services firms.

John Tyreman: 18:26

If you find this podcast helpful, please help us by following the show and leaving a review on Apple podcasts

Mark Wainwright: 18:32

and now back to the show.

John Tyreman: 18:36

another show that has inspired us and is a kind of a, a mainstay in all of business podcasts is two bobs with David C Baker and Blair ends. And, um, I've been following David for about a decade at this point. And I love his perspective, love his content. I floated in and out of listening to two bobs. Um, so it was an honor to be able to, to interview them and kind of get their perspective on podcasting in general. Um, but I thought they both brought up some really good perspective on what's broken in business development. And it's very similar to what Jason and Jeff had to say. Um, so yeah, let's, let's hear what David has to say and then Mark, you and I can unpack it. So here comes David C Baker. Um, so my question is, and David, we can start with you. What's one thing you think is completely broken About the way firms go about developing new business today.

David C. Baker: 19:36

well, there are a lot of things broken about how people go about new businesses. Like, where do you want to start? But actually, actually, I don't think that's where I would focus because. It's legitimately true that there are very different paths to the gold at the end of this. And that path needs to be fairly singular. It needs to be tied to your personality. It needs to be based on what assets you have, what kind of help you have, what kind of firm you have, and so on. So, I see lots more viable ways To challenge this than I ever have. I think the biggest problem is people don't develop a habit of implementing whatever that is. Like, if that's just outlink on linkedin out, um, outreach on linkedin, or maybe it's going to trade shows or taking people to dinner or doing an email list, whatever that is. It's like, I've learned to focus less on recommending a specific thing and just. coming up with something that becomes a habit for them. It's, it's the difference between eating differently and being more active after your heart attack scare versus just having a lifestyle that's active all along. And when people aren't doing new business, it's not because they haven't figured out what the right method is. It's because they just haven't been consistent with something. So that's what I would want to fix. If I could wave a magic wand.

John Tyreman: 21:02

Well, no surprised, uh, if you've, if you listen to two Bob's, you will, probably won't be surprised with what David has to say. Um, he's very adamant about building the right habits. Um, that's something that he's, uh, kind of a drum that he's beat over the years. So I thought that that was a, a good perspective and it speaks to the mindset that you have to have. As a business developer.

Mark Wainwright: 21:25

Right. The, uh, focus is critical. And, uh, you know, one of the things that, that comes into my conversations often with my clients, with those doer sellers, you know, those engineers and consultants and architects that I've worked with that don't sell all the time, uh, is kind of uncovering the specific tools and approaches and techniques that you use. When you go and create new business, when you prospect, when you do outreach, you know, in your sales process, finding out the things that work for you best and just continuing to practice and improve on those things as you move towards mastery, because there's a whole bunch of tools, a whole bunch of approaches, a whole bunch of ideas out there. And, you know, there's the whole Jack of all trades, master of none thing. David's comments are focused on, you know, the, the mastery, you know, they are focused on finding the things that you can build habits and good muscle memory around and constantly revise, review, uh, change and improve, uh, those specific things that you've built habits around, uh, to, you know, develop excellence. And mastery when it comes to finding and winning new work.

John Tyreman: 22:46

Do you know the second half of that adage,

Mark Wainwright: 22:51

Uh, yeah, right. We've mentioned this. I know we've mentioned this in the past, or at least I've written

John Tyreman: 22:57

a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one. So it's actually kind of counterintuitive anyway, that quick aside. But, um, yeah, I, uh, you know, I tend to agree with you that, um, you know, building habits over time and building muscle around, um, Marketing and sales habits, I think is really critical. And so what I mean by that is, you know, we, we mentioned earlier, let's say marketing is about positioning and sales is about guiding buyers. Then, you know, building a, a, a healthy marketing habit, like this podcast that we're doing, or if you run, if you, you know, send a weekly newsletter, or if you, you know, write a weekly blog post, or if you post regularly on LinkedIn, I think any one of those is a viable way to establish yourself as an authority and to position yourself in the marketplace. Um, but then kind of on the other side of the coin, that's not enough, right? Just, just positioning yourself and just marketing yourself isn't enough. You need to still build good, healthy sales habits. And that's having those conversations, you know, networking and practicing, um, you know, empathy and tactical empathy and your sales process and, you know, guiding buyers through that. So, and there's different ways to do that. So I think that's, uh, one thing that I liked about what David had to say is that, you know, you can tailor those to your personality. So it's natural for you. All right, so let's, um, let's get to our last clip. And this is from Blair ends, who is the other Bob in the two Bobs. And, um, I really liked what he had to say. And it kind of, um, It prompted us to, to even, you know, go to our content calendar and say, Oh man, we need to create an episode around what, what Blair had to say. So I think y'all will really enjoy this.

Mark Wainwright: 24:51

Yeah.

John Tyreman: 24:53

Blair, what's one thing you think is completely broken about the way firms go about developing new business?

Blair Enns: 24:59

I think it's the stereotypes around the greater sales function. We don't even call it sales, right? We call it new business or business development. And there's a lot wrapped up in there. I've kind of built a business around. on that, uh, friction, you've got this expert advisor or practitioner of some kind of professional who, um, who's expected to show up in the engagement a certain way. And then when they go into sales mode or business development mode, they adopt a different personality. We're all kind of constrained by these fallacies of how we think salespeople should behave, like the salesperson should have the answer, not the question. That the salesperson has to be brilliant, has to always have the exactly the right, know exactly what to say. Um, there's just too many statements, not enough questions, too much pressure to be somebody you're not. So I, I see it as a David and I did a podcast episode on it. I've written a blog post on it. I call it the dichotomy of the expert salesperson. You're an expert first in a salesperson second, and then. You adopt these sales techniques that might be applicable in other domains and are not applicable. I'm not saying not everything, like there are some aspects of selling that are universal, but, uh, what's broken is the assumption that expertise of any kind can and should be sold the way, same way that products are sold or transactional services are sold, drop the salesperson persona, be yourself, do what David said. Which is like pick one or two things and just be consistent.

David C. Baker: 26:46

Just like hosting a podcast, you know, when you're in a conversation with the host and it's a normal human, and then the audio kicks on and they start recording and they turn into some weird

Blair Enns: 26:57

Hello everybody. Welcome to podcasting and professional services. I'm John Tierman. Yeah, that David and I have talked about that a lot. No, you don't do that at all. You are legitimately, you are yourself. You're the same person before we started recording as you were when we hit record. Um, but David and I have both been interviewed by people who we have this great conversation with a great human being, the record button, the record The red light goes on and they turn into a 1980s radio DJ. And then that slowly ebbs away after about five minutes, they're back to themselves, but they feel like they need to open that way. Okay. Is this, can we continue with the airing of the grievances?

John Tyreman: 27:40

So Mark, what do you, what did you think about what Blair had to say?

Mark Wainwright: 27:43

It was so good. I've, I've heard him speak to this in the past. I believe he's, he's got some written content about this as well. Oh, I, I love it. And, and there's some, there's some common threads between what Blair had to say and also what Jeff McKay mentioned is, uh, and, and, and I, I love it. And I've witnessed it. I've observed it with, uh, individuals that I, that I work with. People, uh, assign all these sort of negative behaviors and characteristics, uh, to sales and to sales people. Yet when people are put into, you know, and I'm talking about the, you know, the professionals that I work with when they are put into a sales position, they, they awkwardly and strangely adopt all these really bad sales behaviors that immediately turn everyone off. It's I don't I don't get like where do they I think I think it comes from the You know, the old bad movies, right? Glenn, Gary, Glenn, Gary, Glenn Ross. You know, it comes from, you know, 10 men. It comes from, from all these legacy old movies. It comes from cliches. It, it's just this, this persona that, well, if I'm going to sell, I need to be behaving like a salesperson and this is how they behave. And they draw from these decades old. personas and little bits and pieces of memories they have in their head. And all of a sudden it, It pops up and you're thinking, where did, where did that come from? Uh, so yeah, I see it, I see it often, and it's, um, it's strange. And that's one of the things I think that I appreciate, about, David and Blair specifically, is they're able to bring, These topics to light in a way that all of us have maybe seen or are familiar with, but they're, they're able to, you know, bring language and descriptors to it that, um, that make those things really kind of, you know, relevant, uh, and, and apparent to all of us. So I think it's enjoyable. It's a good one. Right, right.

John Tyreman: 29:58

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think he calls his, his written piece to the dichotomy of the expert salesperson.

Mark Wainwright: 30:04

It's a, it's a good one.

John Tyreman: 30:05

you're right is, is, you know, there is this lack of understanding of, you know, what it means to be an effective salesperson. And I think also on top of that, you know, selling professional services is a lot different than selling other different kinds of products or services. My first job out of college, I went door to door to businesses trying to sell office supplies. So we would lead, I would lead with like a ream of paper and I would need to like, you know, build rapport and close a sale all within a matter of like five to ten minutes. And that's completely different than nurturing relationships and building trust over months and perhaps even years. Um, so it's just a kind of like a different mindset and it's a different industry and we all need to adapt to this kind of like longer. Trust fueled sales process.

Mark Wainwright: 30:56

Totally, totally agree. Yeah. So these, these four voices were, so wonderful to have them as part of our podcasts. we are appreciative and thankful for their, Desire and, you know, to, to, to sit down with you, John and, and talk. So that was great. And we really hope that they continue, you know, the great work that they're doing, both Jason and Jeff and David and Blair have been, Publishing their podcast for years, right? It's, you know, they're, I don't know, three, five plus years, something like that. So they're, they're, they're going for a long time and, uh, it's continuing. It continues to be fantastic content. Uh, it's at the top of my playlist all the time. And, uh, you know, if they, by chance, I know David's even said that he'd never listened to the podcast. Uh, and, uh, but if they do. This is a big thanks to all of them for contributing their voices and their thoughts to Breaking Biz Dev.

John Tyreman: 31:56

Excellent. Well, I think that brings us to the end of this episode, Mark. Um, I enjoyed, uh, Jason and Jeff's and David and Blair's perspective on what they believe is broken, and I'm kind of glad that they all kind of coalesced around a similar theme it made making this episode a breeze

Mark Wainwright: 32:14

Right. Right. It's that, it's that mindset that we, that we show up with that attitude that we bring to, you know, confusing, complex sales sometimes. Uh, and, uh, it's super critical. So yeah. Great episode. Thanks, John. Until next time.

John Tyreman: 32:31

until next time.