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Consultative selling

Is your organisation using a  Consultative Selling or consultative sales approach?  It is not necessarily radical in its style, it is something many good, professional sellers have done for years.  It applies in B2B and B2C sales operations, whether selling products or services.

Consultative selling will change the type of relationship you have with your customers or clients.  It can result in more sustainable, long-term relationships too where you can harness the potential "customer lifetime value" or CLV.  Another benefit of consultative selling is that it can help to differentiate your sellers from many of the competitors who may not be adopting this approach!

Be warned, the consultative selling approach might create some challenges for sales managers as it will frequently mean different types of sales meetings amongst other things.

For a sample of a Consultative Selling training workshop see the download.

To help your sales people you may like to adapt the "Consultative Selling" checklist - available as a download.
If you want to find out more about how we can help you with your Consultative Sales training  contact us or e-mail.


How do your customers view your sales people?

  • someone who is just there for an order
  • someone who sometimes brings something interesting or new
  • a nuisance, who does not listen or pay attention to my needs?
Whatever the answer, if it is similar to any of these, maybe moving to Consultative Selling is theconsultative selling way ahead for your sales operation.

Where is Consultative Selling or consultative sales different?  It is about being positioned in the clients' mind as someone who is knowledgeable and whose advice they will listen to.  It starts with the seller's self-image - to have the right knowledge, skills and attitudes to project to the client.

Some key steps in developing your sales people in consultative selling are:
  • identify the appropriate sales process for a Consultative Selling approach
  • ensure product and market knowledge is developed constantly
  • develop their commercial awareness
  • work on communication skills to refine them, especially listening and questioning
  • make sure the fundamental selling skills are embedded
  • monitor and manage the steps in the Consultative Selling process
  • remember that they need to offer a solution to the client/customer and so you might need flexibility in your product or service packaging
  • it is OK for the to walk away if they do not have an appropriate solution, rather than force one with "smart" closing in consultative sales
  • internal functions and support need to be aligned with the approach
  • sales management needs to lead and manage the process!  This can be a challenge as Consultative Sales can mean a longer lead-in time or more qualification meetings - which need to be monitored and encouraged!
By developing knowledge about the client and their industry or market and the key issues facing them the Consultative seller can have higher quality conversations with the client, focused on their business.  From this they can create opportunities through good questioning.  It is balancing working with the client and their issues and then giving ideas and being able to explain why you are doing so.

There are various approaches to "Consultative Selling", depending on your market and the complexity of the sale and the strategic implications for the clients.  We can develop consultative sales training to suit your requirement and to enable you to be even more effective. Please note that we are not talking about something which is hugely different from a normal sales process.  Consultative selling builds on and out from this and is more of a refinement of the basics - not something unrelated nor a magic formula!

If you want to find out more about how we can help you with your Consultative Selling training  contact us or e-mail.