Work Winning Ways
Gary Williams
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Work opportunities with the right kind of clients, Winning those opportunities into the right kind of fees, Ways to retain those clients for the long-term.
This podcast is aimed at anyone who sells business to business services, whether you are an owner or Director of an SME professional/engineering consultancy or someone in a larger firm who has to win work as part of your job, this is for you.
We speak to business leaders and those ‘at the front line’ in the world of construction, engineering consultancy and law and ask them to share their experiences and ideas about what works, and what really doesn’t when growing a professional services business. We discuss strategies and tactics including how to motivate ‘reluctant’ sellers to engage in work-winning thereby unleashing a large, previously hidden salesforce.
There are some great tips and advice in areas such key client management, getting in front of target clients, structuring initial sales meetings, writing winning proposals and so much more.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Top 10 Work Winning Ways Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Work Winning Ways episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Work Winning Ways for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Work Winning Ways episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
The RIGHT Way to Win and Maintain Clients With Frank Lippert
Work Winning Ways
02/22/22 • 45 min
I am very pleased to speak to Frank Lippert - one half of the PSM (Professional Services Marketing) Podcast. Frank is based in Sacramento California and in our discussion we were looking for the differences in marketing and business development between the UK and US. So far, it seems that there really aren't too many differences but Frank speaks very eloquently about the RIGHT way to do business and how to win and maintain clients. There are some interesting differences depending on which state you're in but by and large, we agreed that being genuine, caring and curious are your best friends in work winning!
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- There is a problem with the lack of talent coming through the pipeline in the professional services space. There is especially a gap of people with between 5 and 20 years experience.
- All the magic in marketing actually happens in delivering the project in the mannar the client wants. How did you make the client feel while working together? The word of mouth you receive from doing that is better than any marketing you can do yourself.
- What differentiates you from your competitors is the experience that your customers can have with you on a consistent basis. If you have that then you'll have the edge in the market.
- You will find different ways of doing business all over the world, but you also find different ways of doing business within the same country. For example In the Southern United States, there's going to be some chat and conversation before the business talk, whereas in other places, if the meeting starts at 11am, then you start talking business at 11am.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Often the biggest client, isn't the most profitable one'
‘If you deliver the project well, your clients will talk about it, that's the marketing'
‘Meetings with clients are a bit like a first date'
EPISODE RESOURCES
ABOUT THE HOST
Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.
http://linkedin.com/in/garyquestas
https://www.questas.co.uk
Instagram: @bdcoachinghub
This show was brought to you by Progressive Media
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Why Training in BD and Client Management Doesn’t Work Unless you Have Well Trained Leaders
Work Winning Ways
03/08/22 • 14 min
Business development and client relation management is part of a trinity with leadership and management. That's the glue that holds organisations together that Gary will be discussing this week on Work Winning Ways. Find out why training in business development and client management doesn't work unless you have well trained leaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- People aren't prepared to say within an organisation where either they're fearful about what is required of them or that they're not heard. Businesses need to have psychological safety to retain good team members. You should have an environment that encourages people's ideas to be listened to and given due consideration.
- The introverts among us are happy to not contribute, despite possibly having some good ideas in their heads. A good leader would be able to get those ideas out of those people and encourage thinking diversity.
- The SCARF Model was developed in 2008 by David Rock, in his paper "SCARF: A Brain-Based Model for Collaborating With and Influencing Others." SCARF stands for the five key "domains" that influence our behaviour in social situations. These are:
- Status – our relative importance to others.
- Certainty – our ability to predict the future.
- Autonomy – our sense of control over events.
- Relatedness – how safe we feel with others.
- Fairness – how fair we perceive the exchanges between people to be.
BEST MOMENTS
‘The client is at the heart of everything we do'
‘There are a lot of people at a junior level who can contribute to how things develop but aren't given a platform'
EPISODE RESOURCES
David Rock - The SCARF Model
Amy Edmonson - The Fearless Organisation
ABOUT THE HOST
Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.
http://linkedin.com/in/garyquestas
https://www.questas.co.uk
Instagram: @bdcoachinghub
This show was brought to you by Progressive Media
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Working Winning Ways with Edd Stone (Technology Partnership)
Work Winning Ways
11/10/21 • 36 min
Working Winning Ways is the new name for the podcast and for this shake-up Gary has a fantastic interview with Edd Stone of The Technology Partnership. Hear all about how Edd works with, understands, and builds strong relationships with people that can last over an entire career spanning different companies.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Relationships in business development are very important and should be nurtured over long periods of time. Many of their clients didn't predict that they would need work with The Technology Partnership again, but because those connections were there then the choice of who to go with was easy.
- It's the people who are trying to solve the problems within organisations who are the ones who will come to us to help them solve it no matter which business they're working for.
- You shouldn't assume you know what is best for a client at a particular time. You need to really listen to their needs and understand the nature of the problem in front of you. To do that you need to recruit great communicators who can make sure you're on the same page.
- Hard technical things are very rarely a solo endeavour, they require lots of people from different backgrounds to work together.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Cambridge is a low-risk place to do risky things'
‘At the end of the day it's got to hinge on commercial viability'
‘That curiosity is an aspect of being a great business developer'
ABOUT THE GUEST
Edd Stone:
“Cell and gene therapies have shown the ability to cure some of the most terrible diseases. I am passionate about finding ways to get these treatments to more patients by revolutionizing how we manufacture them.
For over 15 years, I have been fortunate to work with some of the world's most innovative companies to help bring new life science products to market. The last 7 years I have dedicated to cell and gene therapy manufacturing, spanning from commercial strategy through technology development and onto production.
I have worked with clients to develop new technologies, enjoyed the challenges of finding technical solutions, undertaking risk analysis, performing due diligence, creating new IP and meeting with regulators.
The Technology Partnership is an independent technology company where scientists and engineers collaborate to invent, design and develop new products and technologies.”
ABOUT THE HOST
Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.
This show was brought to you by Progressive Media
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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How to Become a Trusted Advisor
Work Winning Ways
11/16/21 • 18 min
On this episode of Work Winning Ways, host Gary Williams of Questas discusses the evolution of the work winning employee and what your client wants from them. Also hear all about what it takes to become a trusted advisor, and just as importantly, how to keep being one.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Clients are becoming more and more demanding. You have to add good commercial acumen, understanding what the client wants to achieve. They also want you to show that you understand the world in which they work.
- The differentiator in winning work can often be a grasp of the things that affect the clients environment and the ability to talk in their language with the terms they use.
- Under promise and over deliver. If you're saying what the client wants to hear and over promising, then if you don't deliver, trust is broken. Expectation management is crucial.
- Clients will also expect you to manage them. Do you make their life and their job easier?
- Be proactive about meeting client's needs. To be proactive you need to know your client and what they will need and when. You will also need to know what they need but haven't asked for yet.
BEST MOMENTS
‘You need the ability to talk in the client's language'
‘Projects happen through people'
‘10 pm is not close of business, it's Monday morning'
EPISODE RESOURCES
ABOUT THE HOST
Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.
http://linkedin.com/in/garyquestas
Instagram: @bdcoachinghub
This show was brought to you by Progressive Media
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Winning More Than Your Share of the Pie
Work Winning Ways
02/08/22 • 41 min
On this episode Gary speaks to Mark Anders, who is an Operations and Framework Director at Mace. Mark tells a great story about how he came to be doing what he does today (you would never guess!). He shares his many years experience in managing Client Frameworks and offers some sage advice on how to get the most out of the client and, importantly, how to win more than your fair share of the pie!
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Mark thinks the most economic way of bringing in services is not to go out to the open market every time, it's to build a framework of businesses who meet a certain set of criteria. This way you will only have to do your research on them once, you get a high level contractor, and it will save you time and money.
- The key part of your engagement on the framework is that it lets you know more about the client and what the client needs. The old question ‘what keeps you awake at night' is more relevant than ever.
- Frameworks allow you to learn and understand what direction the client wants to head in and what the future looks like for them. Be part of framework management and have those community meetings where they discuss what their buying power is.
- You can also use a framework to understand buying habits. You can gain tangible added value by observing and understanding the scope and feeding that information back to the client.
- If you can not just meet and deliver on client expectations, but exceed them, then that client is going to try and bring you back.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Save yourself the time and energy and go to that supplier'
‘As a client it's about how risk averse you are'
‘You don't just say what you're going to say, you do what you're going to do'
‘You have two ears and one mouth and should use them in that proportion'
EPISODE RESOURCES
Questas Academy
ABOUT THE HOST
Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.
http://linkedin.com/in/garyquestas
https://www.questas.co.uk
Instagram: @bdcoachinghub
This show was brought to you by Progressive Media
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Difficult Client Conversations
Work Winning Ways
03/22/22 • 38 min
This episode looks at the inevitability of difficult conversations happening with clients and how we manage them so as not to damage (and even improve) relationships. In this episode, Gary has an EASY chat with his Questas colleague Paul Brady about what to do when the temperature rises in conversations and how we dissipate the heat. As ever there's plenty of practical tools and ideas for you to use in your next difficult conversation!
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Difficult conversations with clients can come about for two reasons. It could be the rational, such as scope creep, delivering bad news, a negotiation around finance, team issues. Those sorts of things are fairly typical and make sense for it being a difficult conversation with a client. Then it could be a more personal or irrational reason less based around work.
- There are three triggers that can be the cause of the irrational difficult conversations. These three triggers are, truth, relationship, and identity.
- When you notice that someone has been triggered, your aim is to dissipate the heat. Allow people to vent and don't interrupt, let them get it off their chest. Then you have to reflect back to them what their concerns are, without putting your own inflection on it. It's not agreeing, just acknowledging that you have understood and heard them.
- If you can deal with the three E's, explanation, expectation, and engagement, then you will be able to manage a difficult client conversation much better.
- Having the right conversations pre project can help reduce the number of difficult conversations in the future. That in itself can be a difficult conversation but one to reduce any future ones.
- Depersonalise things, it's not about the people, it's the situation.
BEST MOMENTS
‘It's inevitable that there will be difficult client conversations, but you need to manage them and mitigate the impact'
‘Things always go wrong and we always remain surprised'
‘Great meetings are build upon rapport rather than negotiation'
‘Once we've got the heat out, we're back in rational conversation land'
‘You can be a sponge but you can't be a punchbag'
EPISODE RESOURCES
questas.co.uk/difficult-client-conversations
ABOUT THE HOST
Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.
http://linkedin.com/in/garyquestas
https://www.questas.co.uk
Instagram: @bdcoachinghub
This show was brought to you by Progressive Media
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Engineering and Leadership with Pat Sweet
Work Winning Ways
10/04/21 • 47 min
This week we have a fascinating interview with Pat Sweet of the Engineering and Leadership podcast. Pat has some great insights on what it takes to successfully lead professional services firms and his thoughts are likely to remind, reassure and reveal in equal measures! If you are in a leadership position or aspire to be, this is a great listen.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Engineers can do pretty much anything if you give them enough time and money. But you're not going to do that so there has to be a defined mission, and that clarity has to come from a leadership role.
- People in engineering often get moved into a management role as a ‘next step in career progression' instead of actually possessing people leading and management skills.
- A diversity in a team isn't' just about who we are, it's about creating diversity of thought.
- Addressing recently bias is something you need to be aware of, especially when it comes to remote working and those people who are remote missing out on opportunity.
- One of the best things a leader can do is demonstrate that's it's okay to be vulnerable. That allows teams to open up and pitch those ideas that could be kept quiet by a bad leader.
- A leader ought to be excited about leading, not just for leadings sake, but because they recognise the value they can provide the team and that they can enable the team to do what it does best.
BEST MOMENTS
‘As leaders we're so risk averse that clouds us from perusing interesting opportunities'
‘Good leaders leave their ego at the door'
‘If you're the hero and everyone relies on you, then what's the organisation for?'
‘Decision making improves when you have diversity of thought, and diversity of thought comes when you have a diversity of backgrounds.'
ABOUT THE GUEST
Pat Sweet, P.Eng., MBA, CSEP, PMP is an experienced engineering leader, project manager, product manager, writer, speaker, and coach. His mission is to help technical organizations thrive. You can find a link to his podcast ‘Engineering and Leadership' below.
tandemconsultingco.lpages.co/el-leadership-101-for-engineers
ABOUT THE HOST
Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.
http://linkedin.com/in/garyquestas
Instagram: @bdcoachinghub
This show was brought to you by Progressive Media
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Winning Bids and Tenders with Richard Williams
Work Winning Ways
12/14/21 • 49 min
How do you make your business proposals stand out and stick in your clients minds? This week on Work Winning Ways Gary brings you a module from the Questas Academy hosted by Richard Williams all about winning your bid. Listen in to this recording of the live seminar and don't forget to sign up for the Questas Academy in the link below.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The first thing you need to do on day one of your bid is to read the question. Are you actually able to bid on this project? Does the timescale work for you? Are you sure you're the right fit? Because if you're not the right fit then you're just wasting time.
- The second most important thing is to set a winning bid strategy. Think, how do we deliver the best bid in the time we have, and how do I best position myself to win the bid.
- Structure that proposal document appropriately for that bid. Make it look great and bea easy to read.
- Use everything you can through writing that brief to make it clear to the client that you are the obvious choice.
- Be very clear about the objectives, who is handling it, and when it needs to be done by.
- Get people involved early on, don't leave it until half way through the bid to get input from the people who will be involved.
- The RFP tells you what the client wants, you have to answer those questions. There are always other things that matter to the client. Understanding what really matters to them can help win a bid.
- Have an executive summary on page one of your proposal.
- Start with you talking about the problem they have, this shows that you understand it. Then tell them the things that you will do to solve their problem and exactly how you will go about it.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Just like on an exam, read and re-read the question'
‘Treat your bid like you would a project'
‘More words is not necessarily better'
EPISODE RESOURCES
Questas Academy
ABOUT THE HOST
Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.
http://linkedin.com/in/garyquestas
https://www.questas.co.uk
Instagram: @bdcoachinghub
This show was brought to you by Progressive Media
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Nudge Theory With Ziba Goddard
Work Winning Ways
01/11/22 • 33 min
Ziba Goddard is a behavioural scientist and Chief Consulting Officer at Cowry Consulting and joins Gary Williams on this episode of Work Winning Ways. Ziba specialises in human behaviour and how we make decisions. If you've ever heard of Nudge Theory and wonder why we make the decisions we make particularly in the context of buying, this is for you!
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- People are wired to make snap judgements and rarely are making decisions based on having all of the information available. Thinking is often less rational than people would assume.
- Nudge Theory is the idea of using encouragement or suggestions to change people's behaviour while still giving them freedom to make their own decisions. For example governments have used this recently to encourage people to socially distance during the pandemic.
- We have two systems of thinking, the cerebellum based thinking, which is subconscious and primal. Then there's the prefrontal cortex that allows us as humans to deduct and reason and use language. Think of them as the Homer Simpson brain and the Dr Spock brain.
- 90% of our decisions come from our Homer Simpson brain.
- There is a toolkit of around 200 shortcuts that scientists use to connect directly to our primal thinking.
- Ziba has done some work with construction companies to increase health and safety. After 4 days on site observing, Ziba's team painted the canteen area a shade of pink that essentially has a calming effect and reduced the amount of people taking risks. She also changed the card system used for keeping track of safety to one of reward rather than punishment. This reduced unsafe behaviours by 85% at this site.
- reframing sales to a personal relationship makes it easier for sellers. It's not about using clients to achieve goals, it's about forming a bond and doing a favour for one another.
- We have an inherent bias towards those people we think are specialists, for example we trust doctors with stethoscopes around their necks more than doctors without one.
BEST MOMENTS
‘People aren't rational and don't have perfect knowledge'
‘We don't want people on building sites thinking quickly'
‘The key to sales is relationships'
‘When people are credible enough and show a weakness, we like them more'
EPISODE RESOURCES
Questas Academy
More about Ziba Goddard
ABOUT THE GUEST
Following an undergraduate degree in Experimental Psychology and a Masters in Clinical Psychology, Ziba was drawn to business and spent time working in organisational effectiveness at Bank of New York Mellon.
Ziba is Chief Consulting Officer at Cowry and leads the client 'Pilots and Programmes' within the business. Ziba spends the majority of her time identifying the cognitive friction in the current customer journeys to help inform the creative process within Cowry at the key Design stage.
ABOUT THE HOST
Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.
http://linkedin.com/in/garyquestas
https://www.questas.co.uk
Instagram: @bdcoachinghub
This show was brought to you by Progressive Media
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Cross Selling in the World of Professional Services
Work Winning Ways
11/30/21 • 21 min
In the world of professional services and engineering consultancy services, cross selling is the Holy Grail. Organisations think it's easy, but in this episode of Work Winning Ways, you'll find out why it's very difficult. Join Gary Williams as he discusses why cross selling is important, how it's done, and what are the obstacles to overcome.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- In so many jobs you need to be able to encourage, motivate, and persuade clients to work with you and influence others to do so. Word of mouth is one of the best tools at your disposal.
- 80% of your clients buy 20% of the products you sell.
- It's 6 times cheaper to sell to existing clients then try to find new ones.
- Don't push a hard sell for products and services your client or prospective client doesn't need. It will essentially just annoy them at the end of the day.
- Start with ‘why'. Why does your client want your service in the first place. It has to help them with an objective or goal, if there is no strong ‘why' then the client is unlikely to buy multiple products from you.
- You have to show added value to convince the client to put more eggs in your basket. Why should they choose you over other service providers?
- Being a trusted advisor means that you have the competence, but this is just one aspect. The other aspects are knowing how your client likes to work, you also need knowledge of their world, and finally having a genuine interest in them, their objectives and challenges.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Bad cross selling is the kind that makes our clients cross'
‘How is about being proactive and curious'
‘You need to build a bank of good deeds for it to be reciprocated'
EPISODE RESOURCES
ABOUT THE HOST
Gary Williams has been in sales and marketing his entire career. The past 10 years have been dedicated to helping technically minded non-salespeople become skilled and confident in selling themselves and their services.
http://linkedin.com/in/garyquestas
Instagram: @bdcoachinghub
This show was brought to you by Progressive Media
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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FAQ
How many episodes does Work Winning Ways have?
Work Winning Ways currently has 24 episodes available.
What topics does Work Winning Ways cover?
The podcast is about Management, Podcasts, Technology and Business.
What is the most popular episode on Work Winning Ways?
The episode title 'An interview with Gurminder Sagoo, Client Director WSP Middle East' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Work Winning Ways?
The average episode length on Work Winning Ways is 37 minutes.
How often are episodes of Work Winning Ways released?
Episodes of Work Winning Ways are typically released every 14 days.
When was the first episode of Work Winning Ways?
The first episode of Work Winning Ways was released on Jul 26, 2021.
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