Your technical consultants and engineers need to learn what opportunities to add real commercial value look like. Then, what questions to ask to expose this intel. Zero selling is required. Simply conversation, with well designed questions. That’s the start point, and it can be optimised and learned.
Why this is harder than it looks
- Technical people assume cross-selling means being pushy about services the client hasn’t asked for. In reality, clients often have related problems they haven’t mentioned because nobody has asked the right commercial questions.
- Technical consultants are wired to solve the problem they’ve been asked to solve, not explore whether there might be bigger problems worth solving. This laser focus, which makes them excellent at delivery, actually blinds them to commercial opportunities.
- Technical consultants instinctively avoid commercial conversations because they don’t want to appear self-serving. This well-intentioned professionalism actually prevents them from helping clients see the full value they could deliver.
What good looks like in practice
- In businesses where cross-selling works naturally, technical consultants have learned to explore the commercial context first. The client’s broader business challenges become visible, and additional services emerge as logical solutions to those challenges.
- Your consultants treat every client engagement as an opportunity to understand the full scope of what the client is trying to achieve. Technical delivery becomes one part of a broader commercial relationship.
- In businesses that get this right, technical consultants regularly surface insights about client challenges that go beyond the original scope. Clients see them as strategic advisors, not just technical service providers.
Where most engineering firms go wrong
- Most firms try to teach technical people to ‘sell more services’ instead of teaching them to understand broader business challenges. This immediately feels manipulative to consultants who pride themselves on genuine expertise. The result is either reluctance to engage commercially or clumsy attempts at pitching that damage client relationships.
- Businesses often ask technical consultants to cross-sell services they don’t fully understand or haven’t been trained to deliver. This creates anxiety about making promises they can’t keep, so they avoid commercial conversations altogether.
Where to start
You need to decide to make the time to address this. It won’t just happen. And you want to tackle it in a specific order. You need to get your tech teams and consultants bought in first – to understand that having a broader understanding of what adds value to and pleases clients actually makes engaging clients easier and more enjoyable. Because you can do so much more for them when you spot it. You can’t just ask your consultants to do this – they need to be willing to learn how. It is learnable but takes a bit of invested time. But we can accelerate that process for you – just get in touch to discuss.
The thing worth checking in your business
Most firms have no systematic way of understanding why existing clients don’t buy more services, so they assume it’s because the clients don’t need anything else. In reality, clients often have related challenges but don’t know that your firm could help with them, or they don’t see the connection between what you do for them and what they need elsewhere. The gap might not be in your cross-selling approach, but in how you position your broader capabilities. Have you ever actually asked your best clients what stops them from using more of your services?
Want to know where your team actually stands?
Use the free commercial diagnostic tools to find out exactly where the gaps are in your team’s sales effectiveness, and what to do about them. Takes 10 minutes. The report is specific and actionable.