Way to Go: Consultative Selling

IT IS well known that one of the keys to successful selling is building rapport with the client.

This approach applies - more than ever to ‘consultative selling’.

Consultative selling first emerged in the 1970s - expanded widely in the 1980s - and is still in regular use today.  

Basically, the concept of consultative selling involves a ‘warm and friendly’ relationship between the client and salesperson, with little or no ‘hard selling’.

The seller is simply there to listen, empathise, understand the problem and solve it for client.

Think for a moment how sales are conducted by lawyers, doctors, some real estate agents, car salespeople and computer consultants.

That pretty much describes consultative selling which can have many benefits for the applicable organisations, including: higher value sales, greater customer satisfaction, and better ‘long-term’ supplier and customer relationships.

However, there are also challenges such as the need for more advanced skills by the practitioners, which can also equate to higher salary bills.  

Consultative selling can also mean longer sales cycles and less successful closure rates, i.e. deals may be postponed, cancelled or ‘lost’, despite being a part of the sales forecast.

In a recent article on The Balance website, US leadership and management expert Wendy Connick describes the process of consultative selling:

1. Gather data

It pays to do some advance research before meeting with the client. This is because discovering as much information as possible about them early on not only saves time later, but also puts the client at ease when you do meet with them. Online resources such as Google, LinkedIn and Facebook are useful for this

2. Build rapport

As mentioned earlier, building rapport is hugely important. People need to trust you and have faith in what you can do for them. Therefore, it usually pays to introduce yourself as a ‘problem solver’ right from the start, i.e. someone who knows how to ease a customer’s pain and is also an expert in the problem area. Remember - always be honest, upfront, and direct

3. Provide a solution

If you have done your ‘homework’ and ‘qualified’ the prospect correctly there are two steps to providing a solution. The first is to ask the potential client if you have understood their problem correctly, and then go on to explain what you think the problem is. If you get a positive response to this, move on to the second step, which is demonstrating how your product or service can provide a good solution.

In most cases, by following the above three steps, ‘closing the sale’ is pretty much a formality.

Of course, there are times when the client hesitates, or asks further questions.

This is where, as a professional consultant, you need to ‘think on your feet’, and provide satisfactory answers to their objections to recover the sale.

There is definitely quite an ‘art’ to consultative selling.

For example, an accomplished salesperson who sells mainly to customers in the one industry will generally know the basics of that industry ‘inside out’.  

They will also appear all the more impressive by being able to convey their knowledge through intelligent questions and responses.

However, as mentioned, to be truly successful, there is no substitute for experience, trust and empathy with the client.

Being a consultative salesperson often involves long hours and ‘beyond average’ dedication.

The rewards, however, can be great - especially when you have provided your client with excellent service and a solution to a persistent problem.