Learn the method that the best B2B and professional services consultants use to build trust and grow sales.
Success in B2B selling is about building trust in every interaction with a buyer. Yet most people don’t really know how to go about doing this, so they revert to the hard sell. Buyers hate the hard sell, and most sellers do too. So what if there was a way to sell that not only worked better, but felt better too?
The Client Magnet is an online course where you’ll learn our proven tools and techniques for finding the right buyers, and then engaging with them in a way that makes them want to buy from you so you can avoid the hard sell. I will share with you the techniques that the most successful professional services and B2B sellers use – no matter what their role title is.
These are techniques that I learned by observing the best-of-the-best professional services sellers over many years working in a Big 4 consulting firm in Europe, Asia and Australia. Techniques I have since taught thousands of people around the world with outstanding results. The secret is that by switching your focus from the hard sell to building trust and adding value, you will end up with better meetings and more satisfied buyers, but more sales as well.
Become a member of The Client Magnet today and get instant access to more than 50 videos and 10+ hours of content that will help you to immediately learn what you can do to build trusted relationships and grow sales.
Who should join The Client Magnet?
The Client Magnet could be for you if:
- you work in professional services or a B2B environment where selling is part of your role, but is not particularly something you enjoy.
- you know you need a better, more effective way to sell, but are not sure where to start.
- you find yourself putting off writing sales emails or making sales calls because you simply hate doing it, and you rarely get a positive response.
- you feel like writing sales emails is like taking a shot in the dark.
- you find it hard to think of a reason why buyers would want to meet with you for a reason other than hearing all about your product/service.
- when you finish meetings with prospective buyers they often say things like ‘can you just send me a proposal/capability statement.’
- once you leave meetings with prospective buyers, you often don’t hear from them again, and you’re not sure how to go about setting up the second meeting.
- you’re finding it harder and harder to get in the door of senior decision makers, or maybe you don’t even know why a senior decision maker would want to meet with you.
- you find yourself meeting with ‘peers’ rather than the true decision makers, because it is less out of your comfort zone.
The Client Magnet will benefit anyone who:
- owns or runs a small/medium business.
- has their own consulting business.
- works in a professional services or B2B environment and has a requirement to build client relationships and sell.
- runs a B2B sales team.
In the past my work has helped accountants, lawyers, engineers, scientists, architects, locksmiths, town planners, economists, sports sales reps, IT sales reps, marketers, HR consultants, and many others who work in B2B sales roles become more confident and effective at sales.
Hi, I’m Keith Dugdale
For the last 15 years I’ve helped people learn how to sell by building trusted relationships – from senior executives in Fortune 500 companies to small business owners, from lawyers and engineers to IT sales teams and locksmiths. I do this using the tools and techniques my co-author David Lambert and I developed after watching the best of the best in sales and client relationships and decoding exactly what it is that they do that makes them so successful.
We first shared our techniques in our book Smarter Selling: How to grow sales by building trusted relationships, which is now in its second edition, and then in our ENGAGE training program which has been delivered to more than 10,000 people worldwide.
After working in-house with clients for many years, I teamed up with my former client Kathryn Koch, a B2B Marketing and client experience specialist, to create The Academy of Trust, giving even more people access to our life changing techniques. It’s an online learning platform that allows us to help even more people learn the techniques that will totally transform their approach to sales, and their sales results – techniques that have directly resulted in tens of millions of dollars in sales worldwide.
What are people saying about The Client Magnet and working with Keith Dugdale?
The approach allows one to become more human, more holistic, and more creative in any engagement, not just business. The six-module duration of the course allows one to practice and repeat until a greater degree of comfort is established with this new way.
Jacques van Schoor, Brand and Technology Consultant, Move Brand Consulting
I would highly recommend The Client Magnet. Deep, smart wisdom is translated into a high-impact, practical toolkit that changes the way you engage in every interaction. This approach has become part of our business DNA and has resulted not only in repeat business, but also more in-depth work.
Vanessa Bluen, Managing Director, The Consultant Powerhouse
The skills you learn during the course are highly practical and easy to adopt in day-to-day scenarios. Despite this being an online course, Keith presents the materials in a highly interactive way and the group calls are awesome. This course allows you to learn from others all around the world, which is priceless.
Elizabeth De Silva, Senior Brand & Clients Consultant, Urbis
Keith has co-developed the only relationship building and selling skills program that has helped me sell.
Jean Eagar, Principal, Personal Brand Management
I attribute the skills I learnt at Keith’s course to making my targets in my first year. I did the course in October and did 50% of my annual target in the 2 months leading up to the following June. I feel the skills I learned allowed me to build the relationships that saw me hit my numbers last year.
Joe Feredoes, Senior Account Manager, AUS IT
For those of you who want to impress your clients, Keith can coach you on how to do so with integrity, honesty, creative lateral thinking, pragmatic support and humility. One of the best coaches I have ever had the pleasure of working with.
Sean Neely, Manager, Bid Management, ASB Bank
A really powerful differentiator for any salesperson.
Anshuman Anand, General Manager & Business Head, Apparel Group
We have been working with Keith for close to three years now as part of our drive as a business to become closer and more valuable to our clients. In order to do this, it is critical that our team build the skills and confidence to have broad business conversations at all levels of the organisation. Our thinking has evolved from working with Keith – our approach to people, both internally and externally, as well as how we position our value proposition.
Cameron Douglas, Executive Director, VideoPro
In my first year with one consulting engineering firm I brought in $100,000. In my second year I brought in $150,000. I then attended Keith’s program and in my next nine months I brought in $500,000.
Rhys Davies, Executive Director, ACT, ontoit
The work that Keith did was a key element of the change (in) building the ability of our team to have more commercial conversations with our clients outside their normal technical areas of expertise. The ultimate measure of success for us, as well as the significant growth we experienced, was the feedback from the business community: “We are not quite sure what Aurecon are doing – but it is different and we like it”.
Nick Gordge, Director Built Environment, Aurecon
What will I learn during The Client Magnet?
The Client Magnet consists of six modules featuring more than 50 videos that range from 4-30 minutes each. Participants can complete the course in their own time, with optional group or 1:1 coaching available for extra support and practice.
Here’s a brief overview of what you’ll be learning in each module.
Module One
In Module 1 we look at:
- what you find most challenging when it comes to sales and building client relationships.
- the evolution of sales, how it’s changed over the past 30 years, and why the approach you take to selling now needs to be different than what it was even five years ago.
- How to create an environment where people want to buy, so you don’t have to sell.
- where we get our comfort and confidence from, and how this impacts the way we sell.
- why you should have a client strategy, and the critical elements you need to have in place to make sure it succeeds.
- the different types of buyers so we can make sure you are trying to get a meeting with the right person, and not just the person you are most comfortable with.
- what mindset is required if you want to quickly build trusted relationships with prospective clients right from the first time you contact them.
Module Two
In Module 2 you’ll learn:
- about different behavioural preferences and why it is so critical to understand your own preferences, and the preferences of the other person, before you write a single sales email or make a sales call.
- your own Octagon behavioural profile and how this impacts the way you sell and what you do in meetings with buyers.
- How to read other people’s behaviours, and how you can adapt your own preferred behaviours in order to quickly build rapport.
- How to decide who plays what role in meetings with buyers in order to give your meetings better structure.
Module Three
In Module 3, we’ll look at:
- why most sales emails don’t work. I review a range of real life sales emails to point out what the writer might have been doing wrong in the past that has meant they may not have had the success that they wanted. At this point in the course we also offer optional sales email reviews for participants.
- a proven formula we use to get meetings that builds immediate trust with the other person, making them want to meet with you. We’ll then take a deep dive into the formula over a series of emails to make sure you know exactly how to craft a really effective sales email.
- a range of sample sales emails using our formula.
- getting you started writing your first sales emails using this new approach, including writing and submitting your sales email to Keith for coaching before you send it off if you have selected the email review package.
Module Four
In Module 4 we’ll look at:
- a sample of the sales emails submitted by past participants using the formula Keith shared in Module 3, with feedback from Keith.
- what to do next based on the response you get to your sales email – if you get an acceptance, a rejection or simply no response.
- how to deal with objections you might face when making a sales call, such as ‘Sorry, I already have a provider.’
- how to get a second meeting with the prospect if it didn’t naturally flow on from the first.
- what you should and shouldn’t do during your meetings in order to build trust and engagement, using our SHAPE technique. This technique will enable you to confidently ask questions outside of your comfort zone to ensure you are uncovering the buyer’s real needs, and how you can truly offer value to them to help them achieve their desired future outcomes, even if it’s outside of your area of expertise.
- some samples meetings using the SHAPE technique.
- getting you started with some practice in the SHAPE technique.
- the ‘marshmallow’ and why you need to avoid taking it in meetings.
Module Five
In Module 5 we’ll look at:
- how you can make sure you are asking a variety of different questions in a sales meeting to truly uncover the client’s real needs and outcomes, using the Value Sheet tool.
- how to use ‘spicy questions’ to shift the buyers thinking and change the direction of a conversation.
- what to do when it comes time to ‘sell’, and a method for doing it that is engaging, believable, and differentiates you from your competitors – with no hard sell.
- putting it all into practice in some interactive exercises with Keith and Kathryn.
Module Six
In Module 6 we’ll look at:
- what you should do after a meeting in order to continue to build engagement and demonstrate to your buyer that you really care about what you just discussed.
- examples of post-meeting emails that demonstrate ongoing client engagement.
- tips for getting second meetings, and what to do differently in your first meeting in order to make sure a second meeting occurs.
- a series of two meetings between Keith and Kathryn where different sales approaches are taken. Keith will then review both meetings, highlighting what happened. What went well, and what could have been improved.
How does The Client Magnet work?
Complete the modules in your own time
When you sign up to The Client Magnet you will get access to our member only website and the six modules. Each module includes a series of videos and a workbook to help you put everything you’re learning into practice.
It's up to you to choose when you will watch the modules and complete the activities, so you can move at your own pace. However, you should expect to spend (roughly):
- 2-3 hours per module watching the videos, absorbing the materials and completing the nominated activities.
Optional coaching
To help support your learning, we offer optional coaching packages that participants can access to get either email, group (minimum of 2 people) or 1:1 coaching from Keith or another member of the Academy of Trust team. In your coaching sessions you can ask questions, get feedback, discuss your own unique BD & client challenges, and most importantly, practice what you are learning in the modules. Pricing for coaching starts from AUD$120 + GST and can be purchased directly from the 'coaching' tab in the online portal.
Sign up as a team
Want to do it with your team? No problem. If there are 5 or more of you, contact us for a special team rate and to discuss group coaching options including supporting your training with group zoom coaching calls.
Lifetime access
Unlike other courses that require you to pay an annual fee, once you are a member of The Academy of Trust you have lifetime access to The Client Magnet. You will also get access to special discounts on other online and in-person courses, and access to future releases of member only content.
The Client Magnet includes lots of great bonuses. Here's a selection of what you'll get access to:
1.
Make your prospecting even more powerful by ‘warming up’ your contacts first through social selling.
It’s much easier to get in the door with a prospective buyer if they already know about you before you contact them. Kathryn has created a series of bonus videos on the secrets to effective social selling to increase your personal profile in your chosen target markets, increase your referral rates from people who have never worked with you, and to make it easier to get meetings with buyers. We’ve also got some valuable contacts from the team at One Rabbit on using digital marketing to grow your market presence.
2.
A series of bonus videos from Keith, on topics including:
a. How to develop a client strategy.
b. How to deal with procurement.
c. Should you ever offer a discount?
d. Should you focus on growing relationships with existing or new clients?
e. How to improve cross-selling in your organisation.
3.
The relationship tracking tool.
You will get access to the tool Keith uses with his corporate clients to manage and track the progress of their relationships with their key clients, together with a video explaining how to use it.
4.
The 2-5-3 Pricing Method
You'll also get access to a presentation from pricing specialist Joel Barolsky on his 2-5-3 method for pricing professional services, which can apply to any service based, B2B selling.
Our no risk guarantee
Signing up to The Client Magnet comes with no risk – either you get loads of value that helps you to get the meetings with the clients you want and win work more quickly, or we will give you your money back for up to 30 days after your registration.
Here are just a few of the companies we’ve worked with over the years to help them transform the way they sell and build client relationships:
Become a member now!
A few case studies on working with Keith
Katrina O'Mara, Environment & Sustainability Team Lead
Joe Feredoes, Senior Account Manager, IT Industry
Julien Lepetit, Engineer & Business Development Coach
Neil Barr, Regional Director SE Queensland, Aurecon
Warwick Absolon, Manager Enterprise, VideoPro Group
Fabian Schwery, Head of Sales Coaching
Closing the sale
Background: After experiencing some success with I We U’s, SHAPE questions and CC Notes with other clients (all tools that are taught in the Client Magnet course), Joel B was pretty keen to see how they could help him build his relationship with the new CEO at a Government client. A few months’ prior, Joel had won a business case project for a major redevelopment. But just as the business case was ready to be delivered and Joel’s relationship was gaining momentum, the CEO was replaced by a new CEO who Joel had no existing relationship with. Starting from scratch again, Joel decided to put all of his Client Magnet skills to the test.
What Joel did differently: Despite all the work he had done on the business case with the previous CEO, he didn’t enter his first meeting with the new CEO in the mindset of defending it. He focused only on discovering her vision and her needs – a critical first step in building trust. Following each meeting, Joel sent detailed CC notes to the client which were very well received and demonstrated his understanding of her key issues and how he could help her achieve her vision. The CEO’s return comments included: ‘Many thanks for a great summary. It was cathartic both talking with you and reading your summary!’ and ‘Many thanks for your summary which, as before, is amazingly accurate (especially considering you don’t take notes!).’ Joel also focused on sending the CEO ideas and insights that were not his or the companies own IP, demonstrating low self-orientation, another great trust builder. In closing the sale, Joel showed extreme patience not to push the sale but to wait for the CEO to buy.
The outcome: This relationship then secured an important commission, sole-sourced, with all the financial issues already dealt with by the economic buyer – ‘I had the Economic Buyer taking care of a whole heap of stuff we usually have to work really hard for.’
What Joel had to say: ‘This stuff actually works.’
Going outside your comfort zone in a client presentation
Background: For the past couple of years, John B and his team have held an annual ‘show and tell’ session with a contractor firm to talk through respective business capabilities using powerpoint slides of current projects. Despite best efforts, their relationship hadn’t really developed nor resulted in any work. So when the contractor contacted him with a similar request again, he decided to develop a game plan for trying something different.
What John did differently: With coaching from Kathryn, John developed a ‘discussion planner’ for the meeting. After the initial introductions were made, he stood up and pinned it to the meeting room wall. Using the results of a recent company construction sentiment survey, the discussion planner enabled John and the team to start a conversation with the contractor team around specific challenges and opportunities that they’re facing in the construction market.
The outcome: What was supposed to be a one-hour late afternoon session went for 2.5-hours, with John’s Managing Director eventually calling it a night so the participants could get home to their families. Based on the feedback from John and the MD, the contractor team saw real value in the session and it helped to build a stronger foundation in the relationship by opening up more intimate dialogue. Immediately following the session, John was invited to meet with the contractor team to further progress the conversation.
What John had to say: John said the biggest thing he took away from the experience is to change his ‘thinking about client conversations – to focus on the clients’ business and their business issues rather than focusing on our own response.’ And his biggest tip? ‘Back yourself. Have the confidence to try something different.’
Turning a losing bid into $5M in fees
Background: Steve R was invited by a new client to submit a proposal to undertake the due diligence on a proposed gas-turbine power station, which he narrowly lost due to lack of resources.
What Steve did differently: “Instead of calling the client for my usual debrief, Keith reminded me that in every conversation I have with a client, I need to offer them something of value. So when I rang the client, I told him that even though we had lost the bid, I was still keen to help him with his challenges. This approach genuinely took him by surprise.’
The outcome: ‘Proposing to help after we lost, together with the value I’d provided in my earlier meetings, opened the door for further conversations with him about his projects. Six weeks later, the client contracted us directly to undertake the due diligence for a second power station site. Through outstanding delivery of the project by project leader and the team, the client then sole-sourced us to provide engineering services for the next development stages of both power stations.
What Steve had to say: “Our fees were more than
Frequently Asked Questions
Will I have access to The Client Magnet forever?
Yes, when you join The Client Magnet, you will have access to the course content indefinitely so you can revisit it in the future as and when you need.
Are my payment details secure?
Yes, your credit card is processed through our secure payment gateway system and this site also protects your details via SSL.
Will I actually get personal attention from Keith?
As part of your registration, you will be able to interact with Keith through the comments section within each module. But to really get personal attention from Keith, you will need to purchase optional extras such as sales email reviews and group or 1:1 coaching.
Can I run The Client Magnet for my team?
Yes. You can put your team through the course any time. We offer discounts for groups of 5 or more - contact [email protected] for the rates, and to discuss additional coaching options that we highly recommend to support the success of the program within your business.
Can’t I just read Smarter Selling?
Reading Smarter Selling will definitely give you great insight into some of the tools and techniques that we teach in The Client Magnet, and could be a great starting point if you’re not in a position to do The Client Magnet right now. But in The Client Magnet course we go into much greater detail to pull everything together, you’ll join our supportive community, and best of all you can get access to Keith for one-on-one coaching and feedback that you won’t get from reading the book.
Who can I contact if I have any questions?
Got some more questions? Please contact [email protected] and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.