The DriveSales™ | Consultative Selling: 10 Ways to win deals with consultative sales!

Sales is one of the vastest and dynamic domains. A lot of effort and a pool full of skills are required to excel in this field. A good salesperson is one who can understand the needs and wants of his client and then jointly work with him to fulfill all the requirements.

All the tips and tricks to be a good salesperson are out in the open. Yet, often, we don’t see a sales rep blowing our minds off with his skills. Now, why is it so? The very simple answer to this question is that the buyers are not just a means to an end.

Your prospects are the people who have the upper hand and thus, you need to understand them rather than just focussing on selling. You might want to highlight all the cool features of your innovative product or service, but, if it is of no use to your client, then your prospect is likely to lose interest and you have set yourself up for failure.

Thus, in order to win over your clients, you need to hold the hands of consultative selling.

Consultative selling:

All the ancient and traditional selling approaches had a common notion — to sell their product without the regard of their client. Sales reps used to highlight and glorify the features of their amazing products without even acknowledging what the client wants. And when you focus on just your targets, you lose.

Hence, eventually, this traditional practice has died down. Now is the era of consultative selling. Consultative selling is a sales methodology that entails the fact that the sales approach and strategy will be based on the client’s needs. Instead of focusing on personal notions, sales reps now focus on listening to the clients first.

It aims at creating a trustworthy and reliable relationship with the prospect and exploring their problems and requirements before jumping to solutions.

Consultative selling techniques:

1) Listen carefully — The first and foremost tip is to be attentive towards the client. You need to listen to the client very carefully and document all the problems your client has mentioned without fail. This will help you to build an efficient solution for your client.

2) Understand the needs — Just listening and nodding at the client won’t do the trick. You need to understand the client’s issues and think from their perspective. You need to comprehend the reason why your client is facing that problem and only then you’ll be able to eliminate it.

3) Ask questions — Another important step is to ask questions. You might not understand a particular area or problem during the course of the deal. Never shy away from verifying it. It will build an honest and trustworthy relationship with your prospect.

4) Gain knowledge — Understand that you cannot measure the depth of the water until you don’t step into the pool. You need to gain relevant knowledge and insights about your client’s business and strategy. Only then, you’ll be able to deliver an effective solution.

5) Research is the way to go — You cannot just rely on the information your client provides you with. A great salesperson is the one who takes matters into his own hands and knows the problem before the client even tells it. So, do your bit and research about your client and his business.

6) Keep the conversation going — The process of eliminating your client’s issues and problems and finding an appropriate solution is long, difficult, and tedious. So, you need to communicate regularly with your client about any thought or strategy you wish to experiment with. Otherwise, you and your prospect might lose the common ground and fall into the vicious cycle of expectations and reality.

7) Be genuine — It is absolutely imperative to understand that your client must feel the empathy and care from your side towards him, for him to rely on and invest in you. This will only be achieved if you keep aside your selfish targets and genuinely try to help your client.

8) Own the talk — Understand that confidence is the key to successful sales. You need to guide the conversation in the right direction if you feel it is going out of context. Sometimes, your clients will also not be aware of the hidden problems in their business. Try to guide the flow of the conversation in this direction as well.

9) Pitch your solution client-style — Be mindful that you will face a lot of clients in your sales journey and all of them will have a different level of market understanding. Thus, you need to pitch your solution to your client after analyzing your client’s level of technical knowledge. This will ensure that your client understands what you are proposing.

10) Be receptive to feedback — Note that even the most well-known and successful salespersons cannot do it all. Even they fail in successfully closing a few deals and it is absolutely fine. Each client is different and brings in various challenges. What you need to work on is the feedback. Analyze the area of improvement and work on it.

Now, as an effective SALESPERSON! We can do three things from here.

1. Not ignoring the opportunity and blaming the situation for revenue loss.

2. Taking important notes and going back to revisit your sales strategy with the growth mindset.

3. Reaching out to The DriveSales™ if you need any specialized help for sales.

To conclude, what you choose to think also provides some idea of your development as a consultative salesperson. It is something like Vince Lombardi quotes “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.”

#thedrivesales