Consultative or Transactional? Which Are You?

Stop The Insanity! We Need To Think Differently.

And I'm not talking about tearing it down and starting over ... again ... with some new way of doing things.

I'm talking about taking the best aspects of both and leveraging them in a way that does one simple thing for the customer ... help them accelerate success of their business outcomes.

That's what it should be about. Outcomes.

No matter how you sell, knowing your customer should always be priority #1. And you do this by drive successful outcomes.

Utilize the Consultative Approach to Move Up

The decision to be consultative around commoditized sales isn’t a new idea. Salespeople and sales organizations have been effectively doing so for decades by moving up to higher levels within their prospect’s organizations and creating more significant and more meaningful opportunities to develop contracts in which they receive all of the transactions.

In a transactional sales process, the better you can "Level Up," the more effectively you can close the sale.

Now, the starting point is ALWAYS creating greater value, value worth eliminating the need to send out a request for quote for every single transaction.

I call this Level 1 Value

The ideas and insights you have that would reduce your transactional client’s overall costs are best employed with stakeholders higher up in the organization, the decision makers who control the money ... and who are often willing trade a higher price for lower costs, something only possible when there is value above the product itself.

That's where you must level up. And that's where leveraging the very best aspects of the consultative selling approach come into play. And depending on how effectively and efficiently you can employ these tactics in your sales process determines how quickly you can level up and how high you can level up.

Th quicker and higher you can level up, the shorter your sales cycle (-63%), the better your win rates (+38%), the greater the revenue per deal (+89%) and the higher the customer retention rates (+36%). The numbers don't lie.

So how do we get there? How do we "Level Up"?

I see three stages of Leveling essentially. And each is built on the previous. And, yes, the ultimate goal is to get where you are ... driving business outcomes! it all comes back to outcomes.

Level 2 Value is experience

Meaning you make it easy to do business with and have excellent service and support ... all of which may lower costs even when your price is higher.

Level 3 Value is execution

Meaning you produce a better, more consistent result, one that is better than your competition, also something that justifies the delta between your price and your competitor’s.

Level 4 Value is strategic outcomes

Meaning you advise on how to create better results that are tied to directly to your client’s strategic initiatives and goals, something that differentiates you from the most crowded of fields.

Now to achieve these Levels, it takes work. And in a transactional sales process, work = time. So efficiency is key. So is knowing your customer. The better you can equip your sales team with data, insights and process the more effective they will be. Build a culture of customer focus, insightfulness, continuous learning and urgency and you will guarantee your sales organization Levels Up in no time.