How to sell and price like the expert you are – with Blair Enns
“Your first job is to be the expert advisor or practitioner. Your second job is selling that expertise.”
If you’ve ever felt that these two roles conflict, don't miss Win Without Pitching founder Blair Enns’ inspirational keynote session at Futurespace 2024 this October in Christchurch where he’ll guide you to drop the salesperson persona and sell the way you practice.
Blair’s soon-to-be released third book The Four Conversations: A New Model for Selling Expertise will form the basis of his session at which he aims to change the way attendees think about selling.
“My goal is for the audience to not be intimidated by the second job of selling. I want to set them on this journey of falling in love with it, something most of them would say is impossible. It’s a rethinking of what it means to sell and a framework for how to do this – principles to embody as you use the framework to navigate the sale.”
We asked the Amazon best-selling author of The Win Without Pitching Manifesto how he plans to inspire the audience to make this change and ease the pressure many are experiencing in this challenging market.
Do people sell their expertise differently when the economic climate is hard?
“My domain of sales and pricing and how to sell for expert advisors and practitioners or professionals is a timeless topic regardless of the times we’re living in.
“Canada, my home country, is also going through tough times. I’ll talk about the reality of today’s tough economic times and the big mistake that all salespeople make, even seasoned veterans, of pushing too hard. I’ll talk about the consequences of doing this and reduce the pressure on the audience to do this.
“Pipeline gridlock is occurring in many places right now, including New Zealand. There are still deals in the pipeline, but businesses are waiting for one thing to happen, and their clients are also waiting for one thing to happen. I’ll make the audience a little more at ease with this. The reality is that the name of the game right now is survival.”
Your latest book provides a new model for those who must sell their expertise before delivering it. Is selling expertise different to selling goods?
“The Four Conversations: A New Model for Selling Expertise covers everything taught in our sales training and coaching organisation, Win Without Pitching. It’s a set of frameworks for those who see themselves as experts first and salespeople second.
“Engineers clearly fall into the category of being primarily an expert in their roles as advisors or practitioners, and consulting engineers are a little of both. The book’s premise is that expertise cannot and should not be sold in the same way that goods or transactional services are sold.
“There's the person we must be for our clients in our engagement, the expert trusted advisor, and then there’s the person we’re expected to be in the sale. And often those two roles conflict. In our second job of selling our expertise, I set up this premise, which I call the dichotomy of the expert salesperson.”
You want people to feel comfortable and ultimately fall in love with selling their practice even though many are not natural salespeople. How will you achieve this?
“This new model for selling expertise is a way to set people, such as engineers, at ease in their second role of selling. Very few of them love this role but most see the sales part as something they must do to be able to do their first job that they love.
“In a nutshell, I’ll give them a model, a set of frameworks and principles, that allows them to show up like their expert self and stop trying to be this salesperson that they’re not. I will guide them to drop the salesperson persona and sell the way they practice.
“The sale is the sample of the engagement to follow. It is where the roles are assigned. If we play the needy vendor in the sale, we will be relegated to that status in the engagement. If we want to lead in the engagement, we must lead in the sale.”
At the start of the session, Blair will ask the audience if they love their second job of selling. He’ll check in again at the end by asking how many think they might be able to learn to love it. He says we’ll be surprised.
Blair will also have some copies of his new book to give away.