BW Online | July 20, 2000 | Think Like a Customer

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JULY 20, 2000

SMART ANSWERS

Think Like a Customer
The first job for a training consultant is to sell herself

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Q: My business provides training for employees in team-building, communications skills, decision-making, and more. I'm convinced that every group -- regardless of industry or skill -- would benefit from my program. However, I'm unable to convince business owners to hire me because I can't point to a direct, measurable benefit for their bottom line. How can I reach people who need this training and convince them that my program is worth paying for?

-- B.J., San Diego

A: Finding clients for a service business, particularly in a "soft" area like human-resources development, is always a struggle, especially if you don't yet have a strong client base to generate referrals. You're absolutely right about needing to tie your service to your clients' bottom lines. This is even more crucial if you're targeting small and medium-sized businesses, which typically don't have big budgets for employee development.

Experts say the best way to begin finding clients is to build a profile of your ideal customer, taking into consideration revenue, number of employees, geography, and other pertinent factors. Also figure out who the proper contact person is at a company: the CEO, chief financial officer, head of human relations. Then you'll probably want to purchase a marketing database that will help you identify potal customers who fit your target profile. Dun & Bradstreet (www.dnb.com) is one of many companies that sell such software online.

Try to think like the customers you're targeting. What professional or trade journals do they read? What associations do they belong to? Many of these places sell their subscription lists. You can also buy a mailing list from a direct mail house that will narrow down the addresses (and e-mail addresses) that they send you according to your parameters.

When you identify potential clients, try to relate your service to their business objectives, says Sharon Berman, president of Berbay Corp., a marketing firm based in Tarzana, Calif. If a client were to tell you that he or she wanted to retain 95% of existing clients and attract five major new ones, for example, you could emphasize the correlation between skilled employees and customer satisfaction. "You want to paint an enticing picture in the prospective client's mind," Berman says. "Use anecdotes, which can be very memorable. And, of course, give them references."

Try to find a hook for your service, recommends Maxine Fechter, president of People Equities, a New York City-based human-resources agency. In this tight labor market, you might tie your program directly to increased employee retention, compiling some statistics about the cost of recruiting, hiring, and training new employees, and showing how much a company will save if it can hang on to veteran employees. Market your training to companies that are having trouble retaining long-time employees and to those who want to reward their employees with extra education and skills training.

In any kind of marketing, you must identify something unique about your service and sell to that difference. "I do a lot of work with high-technology companies, and I find that the attention span nowadays is about five minutes," Fechter notes. "Any kind of program that looks like you're going to sit people down in a room for a long time -- anything that looks like a traditional class -- isn't that desirable. Maybe you could find a different and attractive way to offer your training -- a la computer, perhaps?"

For a service business, there's nothing like a personal endorsement. If you've had success in the past with clients who are happy with your training, and particularly if they feel it has helped boost business, you might get testimonials from them and ask them to refer you.

"It takes a while to get a business like this going," Fechter says. "The first 6 to 12 months can be scary." It also takes time and repeated contacts to build the kind of trusting relationship that you need to gain clients. "Various studies show that it takes anywhere from 6 to 12 contacts to move a new contact to the first purchase, depending on the product," Berman says. "Each contact does not need to be in person. For example, every third one can be in person and the others by a personal e-mail note or direct mail."

In the end, of course, you simply won't be able to sell your service to everyone. "I believe that business owners who need to be convinced are not worth the struggle," Fechter says. "Clearly, they don't understand that by investing in their people, they are investing in their own success."

Have a question about running your business? Ask our small-business experts. Send us an E-mail at smartanswers@businessweek.com, or write to Smart Answers, BW Online, 46th Floor, 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. Please include your real name and phone number in case we need more information; only your initials and city will be printed. Because of the volume of mail, we won't be able to respond to all questions personally.