If you're tired of losing sales to the competition learning Consultative Selling Skills will give you the edge you need to win more sales.

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Top 3 Reasons to Use Consultative Selling
Skills
December 2, 2013 by Iain Swanston – www.iainswanstononline.com
Consultative Selling Skills are used by organizations in
many different industries to drive high end Business 2
Business sales, and whilst Consultative Selling is
undoubtedly difficult to get right, the rewards are high given
the typical values of the products & services involved. The
great advantage of Consultative Selling Skills is that the
fundamental principles can be used on any product or service
regardless of the value involved. Even a traditional
telephone sales call can be approached in a consultative
manner. This flexibility combined with the maturing of
sales organizations has resulted in a definite shift over the years by companies who had
previously been using a Transactional Sales Methodology, and who have moved, or at least
try to move, into a more Consultative Selling approach. Whilst there is no doubt
Consultative Selling can be extremely effective in driving sales for many Business 2 Business
sales organizations, other than the obvious financial gains, what are the main reasons we
should abandon our existing sales methodology for one which is difficult to implement and
challenging to perfect?
1)
Consultative Selling Skills put your Customer First
When I talk about Consultative Selling with clients I am always told they do this anyway, but
is this truly possible when sales people are at least part paid with some form of financial
compensation? Is this possible when sales people are chasing sales targets and under
pressure from sales management to hit their numbers? Given that marketing is not an exact
science, we inevitably end up with opportunities that may not be a “good fit” for our
business. Unless we can learn to recognize these early on in the sales process, we run the risk
of wasting our time on opportunities that will never close or possibly even worse, actually
selling to these people and ending up having to manage an unhappy customer. Draw up your
perfect customer profile and focus ruthlessly on finding those that fit rather than forcing a
fit. Consultative selling is client centered and includes a review of all the options open to the
client to solve a particular business issue in the best way possible for the client. This may
include reviewing your competition with the client, discussing the continuation of the status
quo or other options that do not involve you and your company. How often do we do this and
how objective are we? It’s really difficult to truly switch off the sales person inside us.

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2)
Consultative Selling Skills stop you making basic
selling mistakes
Basic sales mistakes continue to be the main cause of sales people failing to hit sales
targets. Unfortunately, because these skills are the most basic and unglamorous they are
taken for granted. After all my years in sales consulting, sales training and sales coaching I
have come to the conclusion that the most simplest of skills are more often the most difficult
to change. Simple things like listening, asking questions and empathizing are things we all
believe we do, but when we are on the hamster wheel of sales at 100mph we miss things out
and rush everything. How can we “seek first to understand” as Stephen Covey suggests if we
do not ask questions and listen to the answers or equally as bad, we ask questions but we
have prejudged the answers? One thing I remember from my first sales coach was if you
want to speed the sale up slow the sale down. A relentless focus on basic selling skills will
more often have a greater return on sales revenue than the “Sales Master Class” or the
“Advanced Selling Techniques” courses available. Not that these are not good or relevant,
but you are trying to teach people algebra when they cannot count to 100 correctly,
consistently.
3)
Consultative Selling Skills give you the edge
Consultative Selling Skills will give you the edge over your competition and an edge is all
you need to win the sale. Most sales people believe they miss orders by miles – in reality it
takes very little to lose the sales. When the kitchen re-modelling sales person visits the buyer
at home and parks on the buyers driveway it’s over. It’s over because when you come home
from a hard days work do you really want to find someone else’s car forcing you to park
down the street. When the software sales person talks so much techno babble and uses
buzzwords the buyer switches off, it’s over. When the investment sales person turns up 45
minutes late for the $150,000 a year job interview – it’s over. All these are real stories
shared personally to me from Business Leaders. It only takes the smallest of mistakes to lose
a deal, but the good news then is it can only take the smallest of things to help you win the
sale.
Consultative Selling Skills will help you sell more, to the right people and that can never be
a bad thing. You may however have experienced a “Consultant” who, whilst trying to sell to
you never listened or was just plain rude and you’re thinking, “Why would I want to be like
that?” Well, not all consultants use Consultative Selling Skills and not all consultants can
sell. Interestingly one of the most challenging groups to teach Consultative Selling Skills to,
are believe it or not “consultants.” I remember one Consultant telling me of his business
partner “Do you know what Freddie’s wife says to him last thing at night? – Shut
Up”. Freddie got in front of a buyer and talked them to death. He had no concept of basic
selling skills and his ego stopped him from investing the time necessary to learn, understand
and implement the adjustments necessary to be good at selling. There is no place in sales for
your ego and we need to focus on getting it right not being right.
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