Let’s be honest. Selling a physical product is one thing. You can point to it, demonstrate it, let a prospect hold it. But selling an intangible service? Especially something as complex and high-stakes as digital transformation consulting? That’s a whole different ballgame.
Your “product” is expertise, a future outcome, a promise of change. You can’t put it in a box. This fundamental intangibility is why traditional sales tactics often fall flat. The old playbook just doesn’t work here. You need a new one, built on a foundation of strategic sales enablement.
Why Intangibility Makes Selling So Darn Hard
Think about it. When you’re selling consulting for, say, a cloud migration or a data strategy overhaul, you’re asking a client to buy into a vision they can’t yet see. The risks feel enormous. The costs are significant. And the value? Well, it’s abstract until it’s realized, which might be months or years down the line.
Common pain points pop up everywhere:
- Invisible Value: It’s tough to quantify ROI before the work even begins.
- High Stakeholder Skepticism: You’re often dealing with multiple decision-makers, each with their own fears about disruption and cost.
- The Commodity Trap: If you can’t articulate your unique approach, you get lumped in with every other “consultant” and compete only on price.
- The Credibility Gap: Why should they trust you with their company’s future?
That’s where sales enablement comes in. Not just as a content library, but as a strategic engine to make the intangible… tangible.
Reframing Sales Enablement for the Intangible Sale
Forget just equipping reps with brochures. Here, sales enablement is about equipping the buyer to buy. It’s about building a bridge of understanding from their current pain to a future state you can help them achieve. Your enablement assets aren’t sales tools; they’re buying tools.
You’re not just providing information. You’re providing proof, clarity, and confidence.
The Core Pillars of Your Enablement Strategy
| Pillar | Goal | Tangible Tactic |
| Articulating Value | Make abstract outcomes concrete. | Develop client success stories with specific, quantified metrics (e.g., “30% reduction in operational costs post-automation”). |
| Building Credibility | Become a trusted advisor, not a vendor. | Enable reps with tailored, insightful point-of-view content on industry shifts, not just service menus. |
| Simplifying Complexity | Demystify the consulting process itself. | Use visual journey maps or interactive timelines to show the phased approach, milestones, and collaboration points. |
| Facilitating Consensus | Align diverse stakeholder groups. | Create role-specific briefs for the CFO (ROI focus), CTO (technical soundness), and COO (process impact). |
Key Enablement Assets That Actually Work
Okay, so what does this look like in practice? Ditch the generic capability deck. Honestly, those get deleted in seconds. Here’s what moves the needle.
1. The Narrative-Driven Case Study
A list of client logos is weak. A deep-dive story is powerful. Structure it like this: The Challenge (make it relatable), The Specific Approach (not “we provided consulting,” but “we ran a 6-week process design sprint”), and The Business Impact in their language. Video testimonials from the client’s team are gold here—they’re social proof you can’t fake.
2. Interactive Value Models
Instead of saying “we save you money,” use a simple, collaborative tool. A spreadsheet or a web-based calculator where you and the prospect can input their numbers—current downtime costs, manual labor hours, lost opportunity revenue. Let the model project the potential value. You’re not claiming it; you’re discovering it together. That’s a game-changer.
3. “Friction-First” Content
Address the elephant in the room immediately. Create short, honest pieces or talking points about: “Overcoming Internal Resistance to Change,” “Calculating the Real Cost of Not Transforming,” or “What the First 90 Days of a Consulting Engagement Actually Look Like.” This builds immense trust. You know, it shows you understand their world isn’t just sunshine and easy decisions.
Coaching Reps to Sell the Invisible
The best asset is a prepared rep. And coaching for intangible services is less about pitch and more about mindset and dialogue.
- Focus on Diagnosis, Not Prescription: Train reps to spend 70% of discovery asking profound, business-outcome questions. They should be experts in diagnosing the pain, not just pitching a pre-packaged solution.
- Teach Them to Tell Mini-Stories: Analogies and metaphors are your rep’s best friend. “Think of your current data systems like a library with no card catalog…” This makes complex ideas stick.
- Role-Play Objections to Intangibility: Drill on responses to “This is too abstract” or “How do we know we’ll get ROI?” The answer isn’t a feature list; it’s a reference, a phased guarantee, a shared risk model.
The Digital Transformation Consulting Specifics
Selling digital transformation consulting adds another layer. You’re not just selling a service; you’re selling change management, and that’s deeply personal for an organization. Your enablement must reflect that.
Here, your content needs to speak to both the visionary (the CEO wanting market disruption) and the pragmatist (the IT director worried about integration nightmares). One powerful tool is a “Transformation Readiness Assessment”—a collaborative workshop or document that helps the client see their own gaps and opportunities. It’s enablement that’s also a consultative engagement tool.
Also, lean into the partners you work with—AWS, Microsoft, Salesforce. Their co-branded materials and implementation frameworks can add a layer of tangibility to your proposed approach.
Avoiding the Common Pitfalls
Even with the best intentions, things go sideways. A few warnings:
- Overloading with Content: Ten mediocre case studies are worse than two incredible ones. Curate, don’t accumulate.
- Letting Assets Go Stale: That killer platform implementation story from 2018? It’s irrelevant today if it doesn’t address current cloud-native or AI trends. Update ruthlessly.
- Enabling in a Vacuum: Sales enablement for services must be built with direct input from your delivery leads. They know what clients actually value post-sale. That feedback loop is critical.
In fact, the biggest pitfall is treating enablement as a one-time project. It’s not. It’s a continuous cycle of listening, creating, coaching, and refining.
Making It Real
So where do you start? Well, pick one thing. Audit your existing case studies—do they tell a quantifiable story? Or, run a workshop with your sales team and ask: “What’s the single hardest question you get about the value of our services?” Build your next enablement asset to answer that, and that alone.
The end goal is subtle but profound: to shift the sales conversation from “What do you do?” and “How much does it cost?” to “What would it mean for our business if we could solve X?” and “How would we achieve that together?”
When you enable your team to facilitate that latter conversation, you’re not just selling services. You’re selling a visible, confident path forward—and that’s the most tangible thing of all.
