The world of sales has evolved, and so has the driving force behind it: the customers. We live in an age where today's customers are smart, aware, and cognizant of their needs. They are well-read, thorough, and have understood the art of comparing, thanks to the plethora of options they have at their disposal.
Today's salespeople are in a tight spot, as they have a hard task to devise an approach that resonates with today's customer's changing constants. There are just too many touch points than it did in the past. However, there is one thing that still conquers all the odds and holds the sales arena alive and kicking: The sheer joy of a good purchase that comes from buying a great product or service.
Though it's crucial to hold the emotion of a good purchase, the true catch is to make it happen without looking pushy or using cheap marketing or sales tricks. So, how do you do it? What should be the right knack here?
Well, Consultative Selling is your term. Let's explore the concept further, review its fundamental principles, discuss the benefits and associated sales process, and see some examples in action.
What is Consultative Selling?
First floated as a sales technique during the 1970s in Mack Hanan's book "Consultative Selling: The Hanan Formula for High-Margin Sales at High Levels", Consultative selling has become a norm in the sales industry.
Going by the standard definition, it is basically a sales strategy that focuses on relationship building with customers so their specific needs, expectations, and challenges can be understood in a more empathetic and relative manner.
This approach prioritizes an open discussion with the customer with a conversation that focuses on the difficulties and ambitions, not the product's features. Understanding clients' issues and pain points enables salespeople to come up with tailored solutions. Taking a consultative approach can result in higher satisfaction and stronger buyer-seller connections.
When a salesperson sounds more like an advisor and less like a salesperson and is able to make a connection with the customer by understanding their needs and preferences, just understand that he is doing consultative selling right.
Consultative Selling vs Transactional Selling
Constrictive selling is different from transactional selling. Whereas the latter believes in shorter sales cycles and quick deal closure, the former is all about striking the right partnership with the customer, giving the right solutions to your customers, so that they stay for a longer period of time with your company.
Transactional sellers act as vendors, rather than partners or allies, and strive to complete the transaction as quickly as feasible. They go for closed-ended questions, product benefits, and price concessions to persuade customers to buy before moving on to the next prospect. As established, it is just not the case with Consultative selling.
Consultative Selling Framework: Your Guide
Now, as a salesperson, you just can’t go to a person and start talking; there has to be a background, a strategic approach, that should back your move. There is a systematic framework in consultative selling that helps salespeople comprehend and meet the needs of their customers. Let’s understand this:
Thorough Research is Primary
In whatever domain you work in, it is crucial to have a thorough understanding of the organization, industry, and particular pain concerns of your target. This understanding is acquired through in-depth research. Knowing more can help you better customize your strategy toward your customers.
Building Rapport is the Key
People return to organizations or continue business with industries they can trust. As a good salesperson, you must establish rapport so your leads or potential customers feel comfortable with you and are more likely to speak openly, share their preferences, and give you valuable feedback. Listening and communicating to show interest in their business and challenges is the key. Trust me, building genuine connections with people will make the whole idea of selling more appealing.
Know Your Prospects’ Needs
Gauging customers' needs is imperative to fully execute the consultative consulting process in its right spirit. Conducting customers' needs analysis in consultative selling is non-negotiable. Making crucial discovery calls and identifying your customers' needs, preferences, and problems is the right way forward. Ensure you are asking the right questions that will give you insight into their real issues. Sales teams who do this will be able to understand their clients better and present them with solutions that are tailored to their needs.
Generate “Value” of your Product/Service
Building a value proposition entails understanding your client's goals and objectives in order to adapt your strategy rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach. The sales reps will go on to highlight the product's worth by demonstrating how it can help their firm reduce risks, increase income, solve problems, and so on. They should generate the value of the product or service in their mind without being pushy.
Offer the Right Solution
Provide solutions to your customers that are tailored to their specific needs based on your comprehension of their issues. It is advisable to suggest solutions that your clients can quantify. Rather than claiming that "you'll see immense benefits," emphasize the advantages and worth of what you have to offer. Make sure your claims are robust, believable, and verifiable. Only then will they be able to benefit from what you have to offer.
Learn to Handle Resistance/Criticism
Not every time will you hit the bull’s eye in your first attempt. Hence, expect and accept resistance from your customers and learn to improvise your approach as per their stance. Objection handling in consultative selling is a key skill to learn. This move will show you as an accommodative company that listens and understands. Prepare to answer any objections or concerns they may have regarding your service or product. Use your experience to overcome concerns and convince them that your solution is the best option.
Time to Close the Deal
Throughout the process, you were attempting to convince the client and to meet the requirements with your offerings. Once you've addressed their worries and shown how your solution can solve their problems, it's time to present a formal proposal and request the sale. Now, there are various closing techniques in consultative selling that you can incorporate to measure the success of your effort and finally get a sales breakthrough.
Don’t Forget the Follow-ups
After the successful sale, continue to help and value your client by maintaining constant engagement at the proper intervals. You can follow up on feedback, respond with a fix to any problems, and so on. Make sure to respond to their inquiries as soon as possible and don't cause any delays. This fosters trust and may lead to long-term partnerships and repeat business.
Skills Required to Do Consultative Selling Right
The role of the sales consultant is crucial. They are the main pillar in generating a value proposition in consultative selling. They are the people who become the answer to the question, of why a customer should purchase your company's goods or services. It is built on the salesperson's function as an advisor, with the purpose of identifying the best solution for the customer's requirements.
Here are some skills that a salesperson must master before entering the field to get a competitive edge.
Mater the Art of Listening
As a proactive salesperson, you need to hone active listening skills for consultative selling. How will you consult anyone if you do not understand what you are consulting about? Hence, when you meet a prospect, pay close attention to what they say. Not only will you obtain a deeper insight into buyer's requirements and needs, but you will also demonstrate that you care, which will help you win their trust.
Ask the Right Questions at the Right time
The primary purpose of consultative selling is to assist your prospects in finding a solution to their difficulties. Hence, a salesperson must know the right questioning techniques for consultative selling.
Asking questions is critical to guiding your customers through this process. Asking the right questions is the only way to gain an in-depth understanding of what your customers are feeling about the deal, what they are expecting or demanding from this deal, and, if they are facing issues, how you, as a salesperson, can offer a solution. Hence, establishing effective communication is the key. Learn to lead the conversation with some expert suggestions, if required.
Before meeting your client, create a list of generic questions to serve as a starting point and, if necessary, as a backup. At the same time, you must be prepared to think on your feet and ask questions based on the prospect's response.
Learn to be Patient and Authentic
Today’s customer is smart; no matter how prepared you sound, if your intent doesn’t align with your approach, trust us, you will be caught in the next minute. Your prospect can detect your insincerity or any cheap sale gimmick in no time, and once they do, they will be turned off by you, your company, and your product, no matter how good everything is.
Hence, be adaptable to diverse people and personalities and avoid using psychological sales tactics to deceive your customers. Just know that they can see through you!
Know to Handle Objections, Working on Feedbacks
Resistance and reactions are part of a daily salesperson’s life, but the real key is to handle it well and turn it in a positive direction. Don’t take any objection to heart. Understanding how to handle rejection in sales will help you enhance your sales effectiveness. Learn to take feedback and incorporate it to improve your sales strategy for positive output.
Learn to Think Like a Customer First
You need to go client-centric to win over them. This approach entails delving into clients' minds, viewing things through their eyes, and prioritizing their requirements as they do. This makes it easy to comprehend their objectives, vision, and concerns. Each client is entitled to have unique requirements and preferences. As a result, you should provide personalized engagement with customers through phone calls, email, social media discussions, and even in-person interactions.
Benefits of Consultative Selling You Should Know
Helps in Filling the Buyer-seller Gap
The buyer-seller gap is real. It's high time sellers align their sales strategy with the buyer's purchasing cycle. In consultative selling, through effective communication, you build rapport with the customer, empathetically understand their needs, and then offer a solution. This sales tactic shows buyers the value of understanding and addressing their needs with a perspective.
Perspective occurs when sellers supply their consumers with new information that allows them to see their challenge from a different angle and achieve their business goals. Buyers desire encounters in which they are confident that the vendors understand their needs and can give value. The buyer-seller comes on the same platform to make the sale.
Fosters Long Term Partnership with Clients
A consultative sales technique allows sellers to be present with buyers from the early stage of their buying journey and later more frequently throughout the sales cycle.
Before customers are willing to move forward with a transaction, sellers must demonstrate their trustworthiness. As a result, exchanging perspectives fosters credibility and trust, both of which are critical components of a long-term sales partnership and establishing value.
Ensures Rise in Sales+Repetitive Sales
No effort goes unnoticed. When you, as a sales rep, gain the trust of a customer, and in the long term, they see the benefit of your suggestions, how you stay in touch for feedback, and how you are ready to provide solutions to all their problems. They remember, and they come back. They even bring more customers, seeing your friendly and pleasant attitude adds to your sales and the number of repetitive sales.
How Consultative Selling Can Be a Boon for Different Domains
Healthcare Sector
Let's face it, the healthcare sector is in need of realistic sales solutions to help it achieve its practice and patient objectives. However, it's no secret that many sales agents are lacking the necessary expertise.
They arrive just to impose a sale, just talking about the product's features and benefits without knowing what or whether their product addresses a vital business or patient need. Hence, most of the time, they fail to strike a deal. It is just like a doctor prescribing a medicine without diagnosing the disease. Thus, many organizations are turning to Consultative selling in healthcare, as it encourages a collaborative discussion between the seller and the healthcare customer, resulting in viable solutions that can actually help the healthcare market.
Financial Sector
Let’s start with an example: You want to acquire a policy for the future and stop by to talk to some financial gurus about it. One financial sales representative touts that a specific scheme is the best option and worth paying extra money for without listening to your side of the story.
Another representative, after a lengthy discussion with you, responds that all of the plans are good but recommends a policy that fits your budget and provides more value for money in the future. In whom would you lay your trust? Of course, the latter. This is the clear statement of consultative selling in financial services, where your needs are the priority and the focus is on providing the best solution.
Education Sector
In the thriving education sector, just selling a course is such an outdated approach. As a sales rep, you need to enter their space to understand their vision.
For example, if a student needs to come to you for the proper guidance and course information. The salesperson can work accordingly in a consultative selling framework. He should listen about his interests, future dreams, where he wants to see himself in 5 years, doing what, and earning how much. Accordingly, he should suggest courses to them. The idea should be to provide a portable solution that resonates with their dreams of having a promising career after completing that course and earning more money. The sale will come through once you will be able to strike a repo for the customer. Consultative selling in education indeed bears fruit.
Consultative selling surely is a hit, irrespective of the domain. Whether you are inclined towards consultative selling in technology or consultative selling in manufacturing, the key is to get in touch with the right people who know how to do it.
Final Thoughts,
Now, you know what it can do for your business. It’s time to harness the power of strategic sales approach to see those revenue numbers soaring. The primary tactic you should learn is to emphasize the value of the product rather than the product itself. Rest, good communication, solution-based chatting, and building trust go with the flow. So, don’t wait up! Go ahead and see for yourself what this amazing school of thought can bring to the table.
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