subject: How To Use Consultative Selling To Get Ahead [print this page] With both the public and private sectors of Western economies going through an ongoing lack of confidence, cutbacks in spending, and strong competition, most B2B sales people are now operating in an environment more demanding than ever before.
These challenging conditions are making the sales process much more problematic and time-consuming for salespeople. Buying decisions are either being commoditised and bought on price, or they are being dealt with as strategic decisions and being made at a much more senior level, regardless of the industry or size of business.
If B2B salespeople want to win more strategic and rewarding business, they must sell more proactively and at a higher level. This means that traditional selling skills, such as Feature Advantage Benefit (FAB) selling, are dead and no longer deliver results. Traditional salespeople need to adapt their sales techniques and combine more current selling skills into their sales process. They need to adopt consultative selling skills that deliver real business value, return on investment and quick payback in terms of cash flow.
But senior decision makers are even less accessible in today's economic conditions. This is because they are attempting to succeed in a more challenging world with many salespeople trying to take up their valuable time to ask questions that are regarded as meaningless and telling them about their latest and greatest product.
People in a B2B sales role in this complex world need to be much smarter if they want to be a success. They must cultivate practical and repeatable selling tools and approaches - whether they are selling products, services or a complicated mix of the two.
So how can salespeople sell effectively at the senior decision-making level?
Well, they need to comprehend how the mind of a C-level executive works. As a salesperson, you need understand and take the buyer through the following 5 phases during a C-level exec meeting:
1. The external pressures that they cannot change, avoid or overcome without investing in your solution. E. g. economic uncertainty, competitive pressures, and consumer trends.
2. The internal pain-points that these external pressures will cause if nothing is done about them. E. g. uncertain profits, revenue erosion, and customer loyalty.
3. The strategic desires that will be experienced by the buying organisation to counter these pain points if they buy your solution. E. g. increased revenue per customer, improved customer retention, and increased customer loyalty.
4. How the decision-maker will achieve these strategic desires (or targets) when they buyer your solution.
5. The strategic inputs necessary to make the strategic desires a reality. E. g. partnerships, products, services, tasks, and milestones.
From my own experience and feedback following sales training events, influencing buying decisions at the senior decision-making level really can be this straightforward. After all, this is just a sequence of 5 phases which includes some analysis, planning and execution by the sales person. However, it can be complex since there are many variables and possibilities at each stage. This risks over-complicating sales meetings and even frustrating those buyers with seldom time on their hands.
My advice for B2B sales people is to analyse, plan and execute each stage - but not in too much detail. The best sales conversations follow these stages, staying at stages 1 to 3 for 50% of the time and stages 4 to 5 for the remaining 50% of the meeting or sales call. Such an approach is what is expected of senior decision makers from their partners.
This strategy can transform your sales conversations and, in turn, your closure rates and sales performance with C-level executives. This is because it clearly opens and positions the dialogue around the C-level exec's world, rather than the seller's world. Only when you have probed the first three stages properly and exhibited a clear understanding of the client's world should you attempt to discuss the final two stages. This is what consultative selling is all about.
Funnily enough, this is a very similar technique to a host of other professions, including performance coaching, medicine, and psychotherapy. Coaches, doctors, psychologists and sales people alike must truly understand their subject's world. They must realize the pressures and pains they face; the problems these pressures and pains cause; and the improvements their subjects desire to achieve.
To summarise, an effective solution sales person must probe and understand the client's world before suggesting solutions. Remember, even if you have pre-analysed the first three stages outlined above, you can still ask leading questions relating to stage 1. But you must let the executive tell you stages 2 and 3 themselves before probing further. If you suggest the internal pain-points or strategic desires yourself, you risk implying that you are telling the exec how to do his or her own job! Be calm and be prepared to listen and you will reap the returns of selling in today's complex" environment!
