selling professional services | consulting business | coaching business | client acquisition | how to price | sales
What You Will Learn:
- Say what you do in one sentence a buyer can repeat to their boss
- Build a service package with a price instead of quoting by the hour
- Qualify an enquiry with BANT before you spend a week writing a proposal
- Turn a diagnostic audit into the thing that sells the engagement
- Handle price objections with LAER and Feel, Felt, Found
- Decide which enquiries to refuse, and refuse them without damage
- Build inbound demand through authority rather than cold outreach
- Show a client progress they can see, so the second contract is easy
- Package expertise into a product that earns without your hours
- Learn alongside Mike’s 1.6 million students from 185 countries
Selling Professional Services: Consulting & Coaching [EN] – My Honest Take
Alright, let’s cut to the chase. As someone who’s spent a good chunk of their career navigating the often-murky waters of B2B tech sales, and more recently, advising on client acquisition for specialized services, I’ve seen my fair share of sales training. Most of it, frankly, feels like regurgitated fluff. So, when I stumbled upon Mike’s ‘Selling Professional Services: Consulting & Coaching’ course, I was skeptical but also, cautiously optimistic. After diving in, here’s my unvarnished opinion.
Overview
This isn’t your typical “rah-rah, close every deal” sales seminar. Mike’s approach is refreshingly pragmatic, focusing on building sustainable client relationships through genuine value and strategic positioning. It’s about understanding the buyer’s world so intimately that your service becomes not just an option, but a necessity. The emphasis on packaging your expertise into tangible solutions, rather than just selling billable hours, is a game-changer for consultants and coaches looking to scale. He drills down on turning initial diagnostic audits into compelling sales opportunities and equips you with frameworks for handling objections that actually work in the real world, not just on paper. The whole philosophy revolves around becoming an indispensable advisor, which, let’s be honest, is where the real money and reputation are made in high-value service industries. It’s about building inbound demand by showcasing your authority, not just chasing every lead that pops up.
Prerequisites
- A foundational understanding of the professional service you offer (consulting or coaching).
- Experience working with clients, even if it’s just informal advice.
- A willingness to challenge your current sales practices and embrace new methodologies.
- Basic familiarity with CRM principles would be a plus, though not strictly required.
Skills & Tools
The course dives deep into actionable sales frameworks. You’ll walk away with the ability to craft a crystal-clear, one-sentence value proposition that resonates with a buyer’s boss – crucial for getting internal buy-in. We’re talking about mastering the art of service packaging, moving beyond hourly rates to create value-based proposals. The BANT qualification framework is presented not as a hurdle, but as an essential tool for efficient prospecting. You’ll learn how to transform initial diagnostic audits into revenue-generating engagements, and critically, how to handle price objections using proven methods like LAER and the ‘Feel, Felt, Found’ technique. It also touches on building inbound demand through thought leadership, which is a far cry from the soul-crushing grind of cold outreach. While it doesn’t explicitly teach specific software, the principles are applicable to any CRM or sales enablement tool you might use, aiming to build job-ready skills for client acquisition.
Career Benefits & Job Roles
For anyone in the consulting or coaching space, this course is a direct investment in career growth. It’s particularly relevant for independent consultants, coaching business owners, and even those within larger organizations looking to improve their service sales. The skills learned are directly transferable to roles focused on business development, client relationship management, and strategic sales. Mastering these techniques can significantly enhance your ability to land high-value contracts, leading to increased income and a more predictable revenue stream. Think of it as acquiring industry-standard tools for selling your specialized knowledge.
Pros
- Actionable Frameworks: This is not theory for theory’s sake. Mike provides practical, repeatable frameworks for everything from qualification to closing.
- Value-Based Selling Focus: The shift from hourly rates to packaged services is a critical lesson for anyone looking to scale their consulting or coaching business effectively.
- Emphasis on Authority Building: The course champions building inbound demand through expertise, a sustainable and less stressful client acquisition strategy than constant cold outreach.
- Real-World Objection Handling: The modules on managing price objections and qualifying leads feel like they were designed by someone who has actually been in the trenches.
Cons
My main honest critique? While the course covers beginner to advanced concepts in sales strategy, it’s very much focused on the *selling* aspect. If you’re looking for in-depth guidance on delivering the actual consulting or coaching service itself, or deep dives into specific hands-on labs for technical consulting, this isn’t that. It’s a sales course, through and through. You need to bring your core expertise to the table; this course teaches you how to sell it effectively using real-world projects as examples.
Overall, for consultants and coaches looking to sharpen their sales acumen and build a more robust client acquisition engine, Mike’s course is a solid bet. It’s a practical, no-nonsense guide that can genuinely move the needle.