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White Paper 12:
What Happened To Consultative Selling?
Our research findings suggest customers still find a value-
added approach important, but some salespeople aren’t
delivering.
Earlier this year, we asked 400 customers of one of our client
companies what they felt was important to them in the sales process
and how frequently they were actually experiencing those valuable
attributes. Using the C-Lens Index, the results showed that
consultative sales actions—like offering alternatives, providing advice,
finding other valuable resources, etc.—were rated as important, but
were practiced less frequently than more transactional skills.
This led us to wonder what happened to consultative selling. After all,
the concept of helping solve a customer’s business problem has been
the gold standard in selling circles since the early 1970s and the
number one aspiration of most sales managers we’ve talked to over the
past 25 years.
To get some insight from people who are close to selling, we posted
questions on a number of our sales-oriented LinkedIn groups. We
received more than 50 responses from sales professionals, managers,
consultants and coaches. Basically, the opinions fell into two broad
camps: 1) those who felt consultative selling was alive and well, and 2)
those who acknowledged consultative selling was under pressure and
facing hard times. Let’s look at each category.
How Consultative Selling Continues to Work
Where people have the skills and attitude, consultative selling is alive
and well. The necessary skills mentioned most frequently included face-
to-face relationship skills, sophisticated product and technical
knowledge, and understanding current trends and challenges in the
customer’s business as well as in the customer’s industry. But more
than skill mastery was mentioned. Many LinkedIn respondents said
consultative selling required confidence. Salespeople who were
successful at consultative selling felt they wanted to and could make a
contribution—that their role was to find a “true” fit of product or service
to the customer’s need, making recommendations with integrity. The
result was to become a trusted advisor—a person who the customer
could rely on for the long view, providing the advice of a confidante,
and the knowledge of an expert.
To earn trusted advisor status, these respondents summed up the
journey. Salespeople had to step up to a being a sales professional.
They had to study the profession, practice the fundamentals, learn the
details of the customer’s world to earn the respect of the customer, and
have a point of view about the different ways his/her products or
services could help. He/she had to build a network of resources, any of
whom could offer support to potential problems the customer’s
business might encounter. These professionals exuded value and
could articulate their role as providing that value well beyond the
delivery of a product or service.
But It’s Tough To Be Consultative In A “Wal-Mart World”
On the other hand, some respondents paint a different portrait of why
customers might not see consultative selling in action, despite sales
managers’ entreaties and four decades or more of sales training. For
one thing, many respondents point to a “remote-access” environment.
Purchasing processes designed and managed for the benefit of buyers
seem to be the most frequently mentioned inhibitor. These systems
deny access to decision-makers and are staffed by buyers who are
rewarded for lowest price, period. The long-term view and relationships
can’t even get a beachhead in this kind of environment, report our
respondents. Add the notion that some buyers often have short
tenure—a year or two and they’re gone—making for shallow
relationships at best.
Then there’s what one respondent called the “Wal-Mart phenomenon,”
where low price not only prevails but is a philosophical and practical
way of being. Even if you could get through to the decision-makers, the
decision is bound to be price-only, they say. Our whole society has
been driven to buy at the cheapest price possible at every opportunity.
This shows up in the purchasing process where your product or service
is “commoditized,” where differentiation is minimized or ignored, and
purchasing agents get a “commission” for buying low.
Another reason is that salespeople are inexperienced, often untrained,
focused on orders but not relationships, and are impatient with a
relationship-oriented sales process. This crop of salespeople has a
window for success that is 30-, 60-, and 90-days long and where
commissions are based on short-term results. This sounds like an
environment where control of the game is ceded to the buyer, and the
seller is willing to do what it takes to get a score. That means a lot of
dialing for dollars, cherry-picking predictable orders from regular
customers without too much focus on segmentation, targeting,
prequalification or penetrating existing accounts.
In addition, respondents point out that many companies don’t invest in
or use more up-to-date sales training beyond a brief initial on-boarding.
The training investment is “past due;” people are “thrown on the
phones” with a quota and numbers to call. Whatever training that is
done isn’t followed up or supported in the field.
Finally, there is an interesting notion that consultative selling doesn’t fit
every buying process. While some relationships do lend themselves to
exchanges of information, establishment of relationships among a
number of different customers within an organization, and all the other
consultative sales attributes, there are those who say that kind of
approach might not be for every customer. Some customers just want
product information: a salesperson who can write up the order and
make sure it is fulfilled without errors or delay. That makes it easy for
the salesperson since he or she is turned into a human catalog and
order pad. If you are selling in that kind of environment, you go with the
flow and settle into the expectations your buyer has created for you.
Missing Customer Expectations: Creativity and
Persistence Apply Within
So, what’s happened to consultative selling? Our point of view is that
where it works, it really works. Where it doesn’t, salespeople aren’t
trying with ingenuity and perseverance. Why do we say that? Our
findings show that customers do find consultative sales actions
important. Sure, our sample is limited, but even this group says that
ideas, advice, resources, options and the like are all important to them.
Therefore, salespeople have to try, despite the challenges. Here are
some suggestions:
Define the value you bring
You have more value in your tool kit than you probably give yourself
credit for. You have your experience—the people you’ve worked with,
the kinds of problems you’ve seen and solved for others, your network
of people and other resources both inside and outside your current
organization. You can also define uniqueness in how you do business—
your own belief system and how that shows up in your personal
business process. Of course, you also can tap into your organization’s
official differentiators, including resources such as training, experts,
process, web tools, customer referrals, demo methods, and customer
services that make a difference. If you’ve identified and documented
these personal and company values and linked them to the kinds of
needs they address, you can better spot when to bring them out of the
box.
Find an opening, any opening
If there is a computer application between you and a customer, then
continue to supply exactly what that customer needs, in the way they
need it, and anticipate—if possible—what terms are important to them, i.
e., delivery, credit, choices, packaging, staffing, and let them know you
are supplying these. Stand out by error-free and timely compliance and
by anticipating needs. When you have an opening of any kind, find a
way to ask your contact “What kinds of challenges are you facing in your
job?” Then, find a creative way to help, or at least begin helping that
person do his/her job better, easier, faster. That’s a beginning.
Don’t believe that some people don’t want value
As we mentioned earlier, there are those who hold that some sales
situations don’t require a consultative approach. That view is that some
customers know what they want, and the sales role is more order
fulfillment than consultant. But think about it; you just want a pair of
socks for formal or business wear. Would it be valuable to you for a
salesperson to suggest a style that goes over your calf, making for a
more elegant presentation than six-inches of bare skin between your
cuff and your shoes? Absolutely; that’s a valuable suggestion. Now
multiply that tiny suggestion by the kind of advice and insight you can
use to help your customers, no matter who they are or what they are
buying. Our research suggests that ideas are important to customers.
Offering them as a way to help customers solve their problems, big and
small, is adding value. And that’s what consultative selling is all about.
Looking Ahead
It is clear to us the opportunity is there for salespeople. While there
are challenges, the goal is to best serve the customer. It really is an
attitude that permeates and drives sales interactions. Take the
pressure off the closing-the-sale-button; think instead of how to help,
no matter how small or grand a form that help takes. Customers will
remember what you’ve done for them, and the next time they need help,
they will remember you.
Copyright 2010, Singularity Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
What Happened To Consultative Selling?
Our research findings suggest customers still find a value-
added approach important, but some salespeople aren’t
delivering.
Earlier this year, we asked 400 customers of one of our client
companies what they felt was important to them in the sales process
and how frequently they were actually experiencing those valuable
attributes. Using the C-Lens Index, the results showed that
consultative sales actions—like offering alternatives, providing advice,
finding other valuable resources, etc.—were rated as important, but
were practiced less frequently than more transactional skills.
This led us to wonder what happened to consultative selling. After all,
the concept of helping solve a customer’s business problem has been
the gold standard in selling circles since the early 1970s and the
number one aspiration of most sales managers we’ve talked to over the
past 25 years.
To get some insight from people who are close to selling, we posted
questions on a number of our sales-oriented LinkedIn groups. We
received more than 50 responses from sales professionals, managers,
consultants and coaches. Basically, the opinions fell into two broad
camps: 1) those who felt consultative selling was alive and well, and 2)
those who acknowledged consultative selling was under pressure and
facing hard times. Let’s look at each category.
How Consultative Selling Continues to Work
Where people have the skills and attitude, consultative selling is alive
and well. The necessary skills mentioned most frequently included face-
to-face relationship skills, sophisticated product and technical
knowledge, and understanding current trends and challenges in the
customer’s business as well as in the customer’s industry. But more
than skill mastery was mentioned. Many LinkedIn respondents said
consultative selling required confidence. Salespeople who were
successful at consultative selling felt they wanted to and could make a
contribution—that their role was to find a “true” fit of product or service
to the customer’s need, making recommendations with integrity. The
result was to become a trusted advisor—a person who the customer
could rely on for the long view, providing the advice of a confidante,
and the knowledge of an expert.
To earn trusted advisor status, these respondents summed up the
journey. Salespeople had to step up to a being a sales professional.
They had to study the profession, practice the fundamentals, learn the
details of the customer’s world to earn the respect of the customer, and
have a point of view about the different ways his/her products or
services could help. He/she had to build a network of resources, any of
whom could offer support to potential problems the customer’s
business might encounter. These professionals exuded value and
could articulate their role as providing that value well beyond the
delivery of a product or service.
But It’s Tough To Be Consultative In A “Wal-Mart World”
On the other hand, some respondents paint a different portrait of why
customers might not see consultative selling in action, despite sales
managers’ entreaties and four decades or more of sales training. For
one thing, many respondents point to a “remote-access” environment.
Purchasing processes designed and managed for the benefit of buyers
seem to be the most frequently mentioned inhibitor. These systems
deny access to decision-makers and are staffed by buyers who are
rewarded for lowest price, period. The long-term view and relationships
can’t even get a beachhead in this kind of environment, report our
respondents. Add the notion that some buyers often have short
tenure—a year or two and they’re gone—making for shallow
relationships at best.
Then there’s what one respondent called the “Wal-Mart phenomenon,”
where low price not only prevails but is a philosophical and practical
way of being. Even if you could get through to the decision-makers, the
decision is bound to be price-only, they say. Our whole society has
been driven to buy at the cheapest price possible at every opportunity.
This shows up in the purchasing process where your product or service
is “commoditized,” where differentiation is minimized or ignored, and
purchasing agents get a “commission” for buying low.
Another reason is that salespeople are inexperienced, often untrained,
focused on orders but not relationships, and are impatient with a
relationship-oriented sales process. This crop of salespeople has a
window for success that is 30-, 60-, and 90-days long and where
commissions are based on short-term results. This sounds like an
environment where control of the game is ceded to the buyer, and the
seller is willing to do what it takes to get a score. That means a lot of
dialing for dollars, cherry-picking predictable orders from regular
customers without too much focus on segmentation, targeting,
prequalification or penetrating existing accounts.
In addition, respondents point out that many companies don’t invest in
or use more up-to-date sales training beyond a brief initial on-boarding.
The training investment is “past due;” people are “thrown on the
phones” with a quota and numbers to call. Whatever training that is
done isn’t followed up or supported in the field.
Finally, there is an interesting notion that consultative selling doesn’t fit
every buying process. While some relationships do lend themselves to
exchanges of information, establishment of relationships among a
number of different customers within an organization, and all the other
consultative sales attributes, there are those who say that kind of
approach might not be for every customer. Some customers just want
product information: a salesperson who can write up the order and
make sure it is fulfilled without errors or delay. That makes it easy for
the salesperson since he or she is turned into a human catalog and
order pad. If you are selling in that kind of environment, you go with the
flow and settle into the expectations your buyer has created for you.
Missing Customer Expectations: Creativity and
Persistence Apply Within
So, what’s happened to consultative selling? Our point of view is that
where it works, it really works. Where it doesn’t, salespeople aren’t
trying with ingenuity and perseverance. Why do we say that? Our
findings show that customers do find consultative sales actions
important. Sure, our sample is limited, but even this group says that
ideas, advice, resources, options and the like are all important to them.
Therefore, salespeople have to try, despite the challenges. Here are
some suggestions:
Define the value you bring
You have more value in your tool kit than you probably give yourself
credit for. You have your experience—the people you’ve worked with,
the kinds of problems you’ve seen and solved for others, your network
of people and other resources both inside and outside your current
organization. You can also define uniqueness in how you do business—
your own belief system and how that shows up in your personal
business process. Of course, you also can tap into your organization’s
official differentiators, including resources such as training, experts,
process, web tools, customer referrals, demo methods, and customer
services that make a difference. If you’ve identified and documented
these personal and company values and linked them to the kinds of
needs they address, you can better spot when to bring them out of the
box.
Find an opening, any opening
If there is a computer application between you and a customer, then
continue to supply exactly what that customer needs, in the way they
need it, and anticipate—if possible—what terms are important to them, i.
e., delivery, credit, choices, packaging, staffing, and let them know you
are supplying these. Stand out by error-free and timely compliance and
by anticipating needs. When you have an opening of any kind, find a
way to ask your contact “What kinds of challenges are you facing in your
job?” Then, find a creative way to help, or at least begin helping that
person do his/her job better, easier, faster. That’s a beginning.
Don’t believe that some people don’t want value
As we mentioned earlier, there are those who hold that some sales
situations don’t require a consultative approach. That view is that some
customers know what they want, and the sales role is more order
fulfillment than consultant. But think about it; you just want a pair of
socks for formal or business wear. Would it be valuable to you for a
salesperson to suggest a style that goes over your calf, making for a
more elegant presentation than six-inches of bare skin between your
cuff and your shoes? Absolutely; that’s a valuable suggestion. Now
multiply that tiny suggestion by the kind of advice and insight you can
use to help your customers, no matter who they are or what they are
buying. Our research suggests that ideas are important to customers.
Offering them as a way to help customers solve their problems, big and
small, is adding value. And that’s what consultative selling is all about.
Looking Ahead
It is clear to us the opportunity is there for salespeople. While there
are challenges, the goal is to best serve the customer. It really is an
attitude that permeates and drives sales interactions. Take the
pressure off the closing-the-sale-button; think instead of how to help,
no matter how small or grand a form that help takes. Customers will
remember what you’ve done for them, and the next time they need help,
they will remember you.
Copyright 2010, Singularity Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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| Singularity Group For more information: www.singularitygroup.com |
| Singularity Group For more information: www.singularitygroup.com |
| Singularity Group Helping organizations implement change since 1983 For more information: www.singularitygroup.com |