How to Sell A Service – Services vs. Products

Is it harder to sell a service than a product?

A number of years ago, I tried to help a struggling company to sell its injection molding services.  By that time, injection molding was more like contract manufacturing.  Several friends were really curious and asked a question that had not even crossed my mind: Isn’t it really hard to sell a service?  I didn’t think much of it when asked by one or two people, but I kept hearing it over and over again.  I had to admit that I had no idea.  I had never sold a service at that point in my career, so I had no experience to support or refute everyone’s concerns.   I wanted to find the unique skills that were needed, so I could learn how to sell a service.

My product sales experience involved things that were tangible: raw material plastic resin.  You could see it, smell it and watch it get turned into something different on the other side of an injection molding or extrusion machine .  The properties of my raw material product determined the color, texture, and strength of the item being manufactured.  I would have an advantage if my product produced a better item than the competitive product, but that wasn’t always guaranteed.  In fact, sometimes there was little, if anything, remarkably different about my product compared to the competition.

So how did a service differ?  It was most certainly less tangible.  However, like my little plastic pellets, the outcome or aftermath of the service was far more important than what it looked like while it was going on.  Many services are more peripheral to the customer’s core competency, but not necessarily much less important.  The one thing that did stand out, was that many services can more easily be brought in-house as opposed to contracting outside.  Many processes are easier to integrate than adding an entire manufacturing operation.  So the service that I offered had to deliver more value than, not only the competition, but also if they did it themselves.

So after a year or so, I concluded that a service is harder to sell, only if your fundamental selling skills are not sharp.  You might hear someone say “If they didn’t have such a great product, I would never do business with them”, but you are less likely to hear that about a service provider.  You really need to listen and deliver solutions to sell a service successfully.  Sometimes I think that selling a service is more fun, not because its easier, but because it just might be a bit harder.

By David Phillips
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