The New World of Professional Services. The "New Normal" is Anything But "Normal."

The ‘rules” of the professional services industry are quickly becoming relics of a bygone era. Client buying patterns are shifting radically and new models for delivering services are upending the status quo." Michael McLaughlin

Michael McLaughlin

Welcome to 2010. You need to sell to survive. You need to know how to sell yourself, and your professional capabilities, to advance and succeed in today's ultra-competitive employment market. What differentiates you?

This is Peter Clayton reporting. Welcome to part 2 of our in-depth Success Strategies Channel podcast on TotalPicture Radio with the author of Winning the Professional Services Sale, Michael McLaughlin, founder of MindShare Consulting LLC, "For many businesses, traditional competitive advantages, such as brand and scale, have largely evaporated." As a result, "four trends now define the market," according to McLaughlin:

Clients have zero tolerance for seller-centric behavior. They won’t put up with generic sales pitches; instead, today’s clients will tell you how they want to buy.
The “Black Box” approach to delivering services is DOA. More than ever, clients want to co-design the services they buy. You can’t just tell them you’ll deliver the value. Clients want to be part of the process every step of the way.
“Show me” is the new norm. It’s no longer enough to tell clients what you can do. You have to prove it before they buy.
Clients have raised the bar on the value they demand. Your buyer’s expectations of value extend well beyond the proposed benefits of your service.

20 Min:

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Michael McLaughlin is the founder of MindShare Consulting LLC, a firm that helps professional services organizations design innovative strategies to reach more clients, land profitable work, and build resilient businesses.

He’s the author of Winning the Professional Services Sale, which offers professional service providers, business development managers, and firm leaders new strategies to identify, qualify, and close any services sale. McLaughlin is also the coauthor of Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants, the first book to apply the principles of Guerrilla Marketing to the business of consulting and professional services.

For the past eight years, McLaughlin has publishedManagement Consulting News, a monthly newsletter which delivers leading-edge ideas to thousands of professionals around the world. He also publishes a second monthly newsletter, The Guerrilla Consultant, which extends the concepts and strategies in his first book.

McLaughlin published two books: Winning the Professional Services Sale, which offers new strategies to identify, qualify, and close any services sale, and Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants (in collaboration with Jay Conrad Levinson), which was the first book to apply the principles of Guerrilla Marketing to the business of consulting and professional services.

For the past eight years, his company has published Management Consulting News, a monthly newsletter that delivers practical ideas to thousands of professionals around the world. And he writes another monthly newsletter, The Guerrilla Consultant, which extends the concepts and strategies in my first book.

Before founding MindShare Consulting, I was a partner with Deloitte Consulting, where I worked for more than two decades managing consulting projects, developing long-term client relationships, and building profitable consulting practices.

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