There's Gotta be a Better Way

This is one I hear all the time. "I'm a professional service firm (ie, lawyers or accountants, etc) and in our type of business a Sales Manager concept won't work. In fact, Sales People won't either. As such, we need to have our professionals do both the technical work and the sales. Since they are professionals and their income is a byproduct of the work they generate, they self-manage."

So, someone wants to be an accountant and invests their time and money to learn to do that. Seeking to be recognized as "professional" they go through the process of becoming industry accredited. Clearly, this is what they want to do. Now, under the premise that this type of business can only be sold by the "doer", we throw the accountant out in the street to "sell his services". Got the picture? I just want to be sure I've got this right. Is this person the correct profile for effective selling? Is this what they enjoy doing and approach it with passion? And since the answers to the prior two questions are probably "NO", wouldn't you think the role of the Sales Manager would be ever more critical?

Just because the circumstances are unique or challenging is not an acceptable reason to default to having the technical professional (accountant) do the selling AND the tech work. Besides, figure out which is the highest payoff activity (ROI) and make sure the focus is properly there.

A partial answer to this challenge is team selling, where the "technical professional" is brought in to help close the deals once the "sales professional" has the prospect further along. And no matter what direction one takes as to doing the sales, someone (Sales Manager) has to ensure the key selling activities are being regularly performed. Whatever your product or service is, would you really want an accountant or lawyer be the key resource to grow your sales? Hey, stop laughing out there. You might hurt the feelings of the "technical professionals" that split shift as sales people!

There's gotta be a better way, find it.

Ps. This brought to you by a former accountant with Arthur Andersen!