Sales professionals can assume whatever type of selling style that that their skills and the sales ability will allow.  The consultative selling style counts on the strength of your relationships and your ability to position yourself as a business consultant with the needs of your customer squarely in your sights. We first looked at this in June of 2011 Study this style and you will never be considered a ‘peddler’.

_______________________________________

In the 5/12/11 edition of Black Sales Journal, we examined selling styles and how you need some exposure and experience with all of them to be an accomplished sales professional.  I recognized the importance of this subject and our need to examine some of them more deeply.

If you have used the consultative selling style, you recognize that the strength of this method is the collaboration with the client to determine his/her organization’s needs is time well spent.  It is a time of personal interaction and development.  The fruit of this is a listing of the most important needs of the organization, and a pretty good idea of the priority of these items.

This style allows for relationship development (important and essential for Black sales professionals) as well as a demonstration of your product and industry expertise.

Are You A Problem Solver?

Consultative selling is an art.  It is attempted often, yet should be mastered.

My definition of the consultative selling style is as follows:

“A selling style where the sales professional acts in the role of a consultant, first aiding the buyer in identifying his, or his organizations needs, then recommending the products and services that satisfy those needs.”

The most important aspect of the consultative selling style is problem solving.  Being a problem solver is not necessarily natural, but it is logical.  Recognizing the client’s needs and being able to get agreement on them from the client is ‘job one’.

This means that the sales professional who is adept at this form of selling must exercise the personal skills and industry knowledge to get to the root of the problem, then use the knowledge that has been gained to suggest solutions, which include your organizations products that could solve the problem.

Recognize that if you do not do a thorough review of the problems, needs, and desires of the customer, you will not be able to come up with solid courses of action and products to satisfy the problem.

The consultative seller never suggests a product until knowing that this product will satisfy the need of the customer.  In depth questioning is common in this style of selling. Your objective is to be the expert on your customer, your customers needs, and solutions.

What Are You Adding to the Equation?

Buyers look for problem solvers because that level of consultant to their business adds value.  Think about the fact that there may be very few buyers who have the expertise to think through problems when the products and services have the potential to be very complex.

That is where the sales professional who utilizes consultative selling can come in handy.  Helping the customer understand the most important aspects of his own problem, then solve the problems using an array of solutions and products including some of those of the sales professional’s cadre of products.

If you do this, and do it well, you have enormous value to the customer who wants to do something other than that to make money for his/her organization.

A sales professional can sell “what he/she has” to the customer or be a true business consultant and follow the process of recognizing the wants and needs of the customer, then determining the solutions that make sense.

Remember to always add value to the equation by sorting though the issues to find the problems, and then vetting the solutions well before that presentation of issues and what will make them better.  Your value to the customer will be based on your ability to keep the process focused, and produce a sound “best option” outcome.

When is this a Superior Selling Style?

Consultative selling is extremely effective in the following circumstances?

• The product or service that is involved in the sale is complex potentially including several options.
• The frequency of transaction or purchase is very limited. If your product is purchased on an annual basis, it is a candidate for this style.
• The customer cannot afford to make a mistake on the purchase

So using this as a template, it is simple to realize that the most favorable situation to use this selling is for complex, infrequent, large sales.  When the product or service requires the knowledge and counsel of a professional who is up-to-date on the environment, and product nuances, you need to be there to make it happen.

An Example

I once worked with sales professional who worked with a small to medium business niche.  Working with small manufacturers and contractors he developed a keen sense of their needs, and could begin the relationship learning needs and preferences and quickly move into showing how his product would serve the needs that were developed.

He was the business consultant for those who really could not afford one and he did it efficiently.  He had the largest segment of customers available (small to medium) by segment, and was adept at forming deep relationships only with those who had the highest corresponding revenues.

His process worked so well that he was very successful and wealthy.  Perhaps his only significant problem was that it did not give him the opportunity to develop his other styles as well as he could. His success in the segment did not require them, so when he encountered a buyer that needed a “deep” relationship seller he had limited experience in that realm.  This limited his success as he moved to go upstream to larger clients.

Summary

Master all of the sales styles, and use them as necessary.  Remember always, that the consultative sales style can be used with the other styles.

The true sales professional will work to integrate all styles in their sales lexicon.  When they are all used at the right time, they increase the effectiveness and…income.

We welcome any comments.

People get their impression of your attitude from your appearance.  I believe that can be good or bad.  A manager who thinks you appear aggressive might automatically perceive that you are that way to clients also.  Likewise, a manager who thinks that you have a conflict problem might think that will show on a sales call as well.

Most often we are talking about good or bad attitudes. It might be said, “Jim has the best attitude of anyone I’ve ever seen.” It might also be said, “Chris has a God awful attitude and does not show well!” Let’s define attitude and go from there.

Attitude – 1. Manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc with regard to a person; tendency or orientation, especially of the mind; a negative attitude; group attitudes.

Attitude – 2. Position or posture of the body appropriate to or expressive of an action, emotion, etc.: a threatening attitude; a relaxed attitude…

From dictionary.com.  Click attitude to take you there.

This is interesting, as we are talking about the second meanings of attitude in.  For the purpose of this journal we are using to attitude as a trait normally associated in the negative sense, and speaking of what an employer or customer is able to see regarding the position or posture of your body, your facial expressions, and gestures.  Gestures like rolling the eyes or leaning over in an aggressive manner, as well as appearing relaxed and confident are all displays of posture and deportment that can enhance or can doom a managerial or a customer relationship.

Lose the Display

Customers, and even managers, judge your reactions from the faces and gestures you make.  You probably are expert in reading the expressions and gestures your customers make; someone is reading your negative display as well.

After being told that you did not get the business, but your pricing and program was very good you might feel cynical, believing that your price was shared with the competition.  Rather than show the attitude, just professionally ask the customer the question!  You may doubt honesty, but I don’t see anything wrong with asking in a professional manner.  You might say, “My team worked hard on our numbers and we did it without any knowledge of the competition.  Were we were all on even ground in that regard?”

That is far superior to rolling your eyes or other facial gestures that we acquaint with the word ‘attitude’.  It is also honest.  Obviously, it is even more important to ask the most important question before hand regarding how the bid/quote process will be handled.

It is very difficult to mask how you feel about something over a long period of time.   A roll of the eyes, or a quick smirk will give you away at some point.  It is even more difficult when you feel that you are new or racially different than the other sales professionals.  Any display that is negative will be interpreted as a display of a ‘bad’ attitude.

Keep the Edge

So a quick analysis tells us that sometimes the attitude is present because you have an ‘edge’. This edge is your sharp point…what drives you!

My edge was always to prove that I could sell in a market that was not always friendly to minorities.  I guess that I could also say that my other edge was survival as I was raising three small children.

It presses you and often gives you a positive impetus because of the amount of effort you will put into a venture.

Your edge presses you to:

• Demand and expect equal and fair treatment
• Get answers and assistance to make you successful
• Not accept ‘no’ without good reason
• Be successful

Keep an ‘edge’ for life, but always be in control.  It will serve you well.  Every sales call, every prospecting visit, use that edge to fuel you.  Employers and customers will understand you are driven, even if they do not know why.

Be the professional and always be the best!

Your comments are welcome.