PROFESSIONAL SERVICES: HOW TO SELL TRUST.(Company Business and Marketing)

Faced with sluggish product sales, a good many developers are beginning to take a fresh look at consulting, custom development, implementation, and other professional services. And they often make a depressing discovery: Customers who are deeply committed to a vendor's products are nevertheless hard to sell on professional services from the same source.

One reason for this kind of customer pushback, according to a group of McKinsey & Co. consultants, is simply lack of trust. Unlike products, which have tangible features that can be tested and reviewed, consulting jobs are "sold before any result is delivered." Worse, the McKinsey consultants found, "the risks involved in software projects are enormous--in fact, failing projects are more the rule than the...

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