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Overcoming the Experience Objection

By Michael Stelzner

How do you sell yourself when the client asks for very specific industry experience?

This the essence of a question that Deborah from Daphne AL asked during a recent teleclass.

She said:

Often, when I’m prospecting, I end up having to answer questions like the one I got from a marketing director recently: “Do you have any experience with healthcare EDI [or whatever micro-specialty he/she is in]?”

This seems to be getting more and more common. They’re seemingly not satisfied with someone who specializes in B2B software (and has software analyst experience from the IT side, as I do); rather, they’re looking for, say, someone who’s worked on white papers on data mining applications for midsize manufacturing companies.

What do you suggest as a response? Is this the same kind of barrier as the budget question — just an excuse not to move forward?

Great question!

When you are dealing with a highly specialized form of writing, such as white paper creation, there are some great ways to address this.

First I explain there is a shortage of white paper writers. Demand exceeds supply. Thus, there are very few folks who really understand how to write excellent white papers. Stress that you are among that small population.

Second, I mention that the prospect will most likely never find someone with both white paper and healthcare EDI experience. Demanding vertical market expertise and white paper writing expertise is just not realistic.

This demand for vertical market expertise is often a smokescreen. Convince them they need a good writer who is a quick study more than market expertise. If they only focus on market expertise, they will end up with “just another ugly white paper.”

I tell my clients that what they are asking me to do is not rocket science. If it were, they would not be calling me.

I usually explain that writing white papers is an art form. First seek a good white paper writer then ask if experience in the healthcare field is really that critical.

Do you have any added suggests for Deborah? How do you handle these types of situations?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Freelance Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • Thanks Will - Nice article
  • Mike,

    If you'd lke to see a little more of my thinking on this, I've recently formalized some of my thoughts, related to this discussion, in an article on my web site, aimed at my clients (rather than at other contract writers like myself), entitled "Why Are You Paying for the Same Knowledge 2 or 3 Times?" Freelancers may be able to use that article to prepare their own arguments when faced with overemphasis on specialized knowledge and experience.

    Might be of interest, you can find it at:

    http://www.besttrainingpractic...

    I've also written an article targeted at writers on selling skill, rather than knowledge -- and that helps to prevent the whole hiring discussion from just becoming a bidding war on expert knowledge. You can find that at:

    http://ezinearticles.com/?Free...

    Hope these are helpful!

    Will
  • Hi, Mike,

    Well, like anything in our business, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

    BUT, I find that making the appeal to money helps. That is, I've had better luck asking them why they are trying to buy the same expertise externally that they are already paying for internally, than I have convincing them that someone with skill, but limited knowledge of their domain, can be effective.

    I actually promote my ignorance! I tell them they need someone who won't just go along with their assumptions and ways of doing things, someone who will be more like their prospects (or employees, for training). I'll ask those "why" questions they've been ignoring, because they only talk to people who share the same body of knowledge.

    (I've actually written an article or two on this "you need an ignoramus" notion, in my e-zine, at ezinearticles.com, etc.)

    Will
  • Hi Will;

    Great points.

    Do you find that they work?

    Mike
  • This doesn't happen just with white papers. I've also encountered similar thinking when developing training content, writing web pages, etc.

    One of the points I make to the client is that they have already paid for in-house expertise of the highest quality. Paying for another expert on the content details, rather than for the skills this outside specialist brings, is wasteful. It is not only a duplication of knowledge, at perhaps a significant cost, it is, as mentioned, hard to find good writers who are also content experts, so it lengthens the search, which also costs time and money.

    I try to help clients see that the greatest impact derives from a marriage of knowledge and skills. They already have the knowledge, we bring the skills. Clients are susceptible to going for two helpings of knowledge, and about half a helping of skill.

    That's partly because they are more comfortable talking about product/topic/service details with someone who knows the same details, than they are talking about writing, which they're not good at. But often clients can be educated to see that they are talking to you in the first place because they recognized a gap in their abilities, and that retreating to the more comfortable "specifications" discussion will lead them to fall short of their original goals.
  • Thanks Green for checking in
  • Skills and layout is important too. It gives you credit for feature tasks.
  • Patsi;

    I think you are dead on. If they can't write well, they should not write at all.

    Also, do they have the extra time to write if they work in house?

    Mike
  • I really like what Tom and Jonathan said, especially about the communications part. Subject matter experts usually know too much! They aren't able to write about it with enough detachment to be clear to the readers who aren't necessarily entrenched in the area of expertise.

    I will add this additional point to the arguments: writing good white papers involves not only writing well about a product, concept or service. It is a mixture of writing skills involving journalism and marketing and copywriting done artfully by specialists.

    While a person who has worked in health care EDI may be skilled in that industry, I doubt they have much experience or skills writing or selling. It's why you don't have automotive engineers selling the cars at the dealership.

    Just my opinion, of course, and I could be wrong...
  • Jonathan;

    I like your point about having a good process.

    This is a great way to add credibility.

    Mike
  • One way to overcome this objection is to ask the prospect a question: "Do you want a white paper that is a pure technical dissertation or a white paper that will get read and generate results for your business".

    Subject matter experts aren't always great communicators. In most cases they create text-only, paragraph intensive white papers with technical jargon that assumes the reader knows what they know. If the reader is a business executive (and most are), these complex papers continually prove to be ineffective in getting key messages across to an executive business audience.

    Creating a good white paper is just as much about process, organization and formatting than it is about being a technically written document. A little education in this area can add another perspective that the prospect hasn't considered.

    Jonathan
  • Hey Tom;

    Good points.

    Some people just don't understand that what they want often does not exist.

    Sometimes some gentle educating is in order.

    Mike
  • This has been a pet peeve of mine for literally decades. Despite the logic, it's difficult to convince clients that you can learn what you need to about their field -- they're hiring you because of what you know about yours.

    Sometimes they're not serious, but if they are, a last-ditch appeal to greed sometimes works -- something along the lines of:

    “Not only can I write your white paper, but I can show you four ways you can improve your sales conversion rate compared to your old whitepaper.”

    In this instance, greed is good.
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