Product-market definition was dealt with in Chapter 3; but three other elements shown in Figure 3.1 (account management, sales management and selling) relate to selling to specific clients. Each of these depends on an understanding of the tasks involved in selling consultancy - the consultancy sales process.
The overall consultancy sales process is illustrated in Figure 4.1. Although a continuum of activity, it can be broken down into four main steps:
Relationship development. At the outset, a consultancy firm and prospective client may have no contact history or knowledge of each other. A relationship between consultancy and client has to be established before any sale can be developed.
Prospection. In the same way that gold prospectors pan for valuable nuggets, the next stage of the sales process is to find opportunities for consultancy and client to work together.
Developing the proposition. Having found an area in which you might work together, the next step is to refine exactly what is going to be done. The consultancy may have a standard approach, but even in these cases, it must be tailored to meet the clients' specific needs.
Pitching for the sale. Having developed the proposition, it must be put over to the client in a compelling way.
Figure 4.1: The consultancy sales process
Each of these is described in the following sections together with the critical factors influencing the performance of each.