Understanding How to Win Deals With Consultative Sales
Customers have caught onto harsh sales tactics, cheap tricks, and pushy pitches. You know, the kind where a salesperson tells them what they need and should buy right off the bat. These solution-oriented selling methods don't impress customers or help you win deals.
A sales consultation approach will help you succeed. Why? Because a consultative selling methodology focuses on the customer first and closing a sale second. Your customers feel like they matter, making them more likely to choose you over the competition.
Keep reading to learn more about how your sales team and sales reps can implement a consultative sales strategy to close deals in a flash. With this detailed overview of a sales consultation approach, you will be well-prepared for success in every step of the journey!
What Is Consultative Selling?
A sales consultation method means your sales team focuses more on the customer and not the product (or how many products they can sell). When the team listens and communicates with the customer, they learn about their pain points to better address them.
Consultative selling thrives when you identify and meet a customer’s needs before they are aware of them. The customer isn’t just a quick sales opportunity for you. They feel seen, heard, and understood, which earns you their trust, turning them into a repeat customer.
Because you build a strong relationship with your customer, your sales and profit improve. This is the main benefit of implementing consultative selling.
Consultative Selling vs. Solution Selling
In the 1980s, the go-to sales technique was all about solution selling. When you focus on solution selling, you convince your customer that you can solve their problem (as you see it) and help their business scale. In short, you push them to buy so you can win that deal.
These days, we see more companies focusing on consultative selling instead to foster a relationship with the customer. Once your sales team understands the customer, they can identify their pain points.
This approach truly considers your customer. While you help them solve their problem, you also help solve underlying issues because you consult with them.
Consultative Sales Approach
Your sales team can change from a product-focused approach to a consultative sales approach by following these five steps:
1. Conduct thorough research and preparation
Without research, you shoot in the dark, limiting your effectiveness. Find out as much as possible about your potential customer to leverage your product or service for their needs.
2. Ask insightful questions to uncover customer needs
Building a relationship reveals the customer’s unique needs. Learn about their pain points by asking insightful, open-ended questions.
3. Listen actively and communicate empathetically
Foster your relationship so the customer turns to you for advice, care, and feedback. Create an authentic connection with active listening and empathetic communication. This helps funnel your customer’s attention toward a long-term sale.
4. Offer value-added insights and expertise
Your customer listens to your industry insights and expertise. Since you are the subject matter expert, your guidance helps the customer make decisions.
5. Collaborate with customers to co-create solutions
Making your customer part of the sales process empowers them. As a result, you become co-creators of the solution. That’s the hook your consultative marketing hinges on.
Consultative Selling Principles
The sales consultation approach uses specific techniques to help customers feel confident with their buying decision. You don’t want your customer to feel like you are a greedy sales rep forcing them to buy.
Create a consultative selling approach with these principles:
Customer-Centric Approach
The consultative sales method is customer-centric. It prioritizes the customer so your sales team can identify with them and meet their needs.
Remember, no two customers are the same. A product or solution may have worked for a previous customer, but it may not work for your current customer.
Ensure your customer is successful in achieving their goals. Find a custom solution that applies specifically to them. This also empowers your customer because they are part of the sales process and not just a mark.
Active Listening
What does your customer have to say? Allow your customer to talk, but listen actively to make your customer feel heard and seen.
Be aware of your body language and non-verbal cues. Don’t interrupt them and listen without judgment.
Make sure you can repeat back the exact pain points, goals and perspective that your customer gives you without coloring it with your words or adding points that sound like selling a solution. This builds trust and makes it more likely your solution will be adopted by the customer.
Asking Insightful Questions
With research, you start developing insight into the who, what, when, where, why, and how of your customer’s needs.
Take charge of the conversation by focusing on important, thoughtful, and open-ended questions. These questions help you:
Avoid making assumptions so you can truly help your customer instead of simply assuming you know what they want or need
Better understand your customer’s unique requirements and pain points
Build trust and professionalism to offer relevant recommendations
Establish your industry credibility and expertise
Give your customer the authority and leadership they need to own the budget and decision-making processes
Providing Value-Added Insights
Did you know that nearly half of B2B buyers (44%) state that not understanding a product or service is a significant deal killer?
In a customer-centric sales strategy, a sales professional adds value to what’s revealed in customer consultations. You become a knowledgeable seller when you know the product (and your customer) inside out.
Ensure your team becomes advisors and not just sellers. Encourage self-education in your industry, business, and solution offerings.
Collaboration and Co-Creation
Enforcing a solution on someone never leads to success. Rather share the solution creation process with your customer and highlight how it can benefit them. This ensures they feel involved, respected, and responsible for using the product.
Listen to your customer’s unique perspective so your sales reps can better integrate the right solution.
Building Credibility and Trust
Help your customer see your solution’s worth and credibility by identifying the nuances of their unique pain points. With credibility comes respect, and you can then successfully meet your customer's (and sale’s) specific outcomes.
To gain credibility, first, earn your customer’s trust. Become an industry leader by showcasing your talents and products through public events and testimonials. Also, make sure you deliver on your promises to your customers.
Long-Term Relationship Building
Foster a long-term relationship by frequently communicating with past and current customers. The benefits of building a relationship with these customers include:
Gaining more value because you can address new pain points that arise
Tailoring your product to further meet their evolving needs
Discovering how to better relate to and approach new customers
All of this presents opportunities for future business, and that’s a win-win for you.
Problem-Solving Mindset
Your sales team isn’t there to sell a “second-hand” solution that worked for others. The current solution should work for your current customer. Adopt a consultative approach to problem-solving and a reflective mindset to find unique solutions to customer problems.
Foster the notion of being the customer’s partner and co-creator in the solution process.
Adaptability and Flexibility
Adapt and showcase flexibility to gain and maintain your customer’s attention.
Since no two customers are the same, your sales professionals must continuously adapt their “sales” approach. With flexibility and adaptability, you effectively meet your customers’ diverse needs.
Continuous Learning and Improvement
Top marketing companies encourage continued learning for their sales professionals. The reason is to develop the new and evolving skills needed to stay ahead of industry trends.
With consultative sales, being one step ahead of the competition but in stride with your customer is vital for success.
Understanding the Consultative Sales Process
While the sales consultation process is dynamic, a few simple truths help guide sales professionals.
It is vital to review previous sales results and strategies, refine the best approaches, and roll out or repeat with new customers. The basic steps to success are:
Focus on the customer.
Develop customer relationships with a focus on trust and communication.
Use strategic questioning and active listening techniques to discover pain points.
Co-create solutions for unique customer needs.
Present solutions with insight and from the perspective of growth.
Take customer concerns in stride, close deals naturally, and form long-term beneficial relationships.
Consultative Selling Examples
Here are a few consultative selling examples to put the sales principles into perspective:
1. How consultative selling can transform a company’s sales process
An IT company changed its sales process from product-driven to customer-focused. They provided their sales staff with training in psychology so they can better identify with customers. As a result, the customers felt more understood and valued, which created a better sales environment.
Sales increased since the customers owned their purchase decisions.
2. Overcoming challenges with consultative sales and achieving growth
AI creation recently caused a slump in content writing markets. A writing agency boosted sales by focusing on the human experience of their writers. Using consultative selling, the agency began selling custom content packages, empowering customers to choose better content.
3. Implementing key strategies for significant deal wins
Your website design business reviews an old client. While asking insightful questions, the client admits they have had some issues.
They struggle with the online bookings function on the website. Instead of the customer needing to launch an additional site or contract a booking service, you assist them with a booking app. The app manages their bookings and empowers them to run a more efficient business.
Why Consultative Sales Work (How to Use to Close)
A study by Gartner found that customers no longer trust the information sales reps share. A lack of trust equates to low buying confidence.
By adopting a sales consultation process, you can instill trust, brand loyalty, and buying confidence in your customers. Your customers will appreciate that what you advise is all about them rather than simply taking their money.
To gain the benefits of investing in your customers, your sales conversations and sales consulting must be customer-focused. After all, the power of building a relationship with potential and current customers is that you focus on their needs. By answering their needs, you help them grow while growing with them.
How Mindracer Can Help
If your customer needs are evolving, you should do the same, which is where consultative sales can help. In the sales world, neglecting the advantages of a customer-centric approach can have significant career consequences.
That’s where Mindracer Consulting lays the path.
Our fractional sales management team helps you identify the right growth strategy, build the right team, test and optimize sales initiatives, pin down analytics, deepen customer relationships, develop trust, and improve communication. In turn, you can establish your business as an industry leader. And this is the best way to guarantee referral sales and repeat sales.
We help you start on the right foot by building an effective sales team or training your existing sales reps to win deals.
Our customer relationship management software assessment team helps you get more out of your software investment with automation, personalization, sales tracking and relationship building. Your team will know each returning customer, no matter how long it’s been since they sealed a deal. And they can easily start a conversation with a new client too.
Consultative Selling Training
Mindracer Consulting focuses on sales efficiency. We help B2B businesses break out of sales stagnancy and become more productive in winning deals.
Book a free consultation to see how a sales consultation approach will work in your favor.