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How to be a consultative seller?
First thing first. Consultative selling is not a required aspect for all kind of selling (I explained in Part-1). It is important for a salesperson who mostly sell high-ticket items. As it requires investment to hail and retain quality salesperson & leaders. It is also a long process, long-term planning and not for quick resolution and quick result.
One challenge consultative seller has been facing in recent times is they are losing their superiority tag. This will be more intense with the availability of information free of cost. In past a purchaser had to depend on the knowledge of a salesperson to understand the product in depth. Nowadays it is not only the information but typical comparison and analysis also available. Videos and user’s reviews became more authentic.
I am considering two completely different kinds of products for better understanding. One is a confocal microscope and the other is Mediclaim policy. A customer can find complete details about the microscope on the company website. Then can find details of competitor products on the competitor’s websites. Can check thousands of published papers online. Can see equivalent experiments, pictures, results, interpretations and pros and cons on public domains. So, he need not to be coached much by a salesman anymore other than local service capability and commercial aspects.
One can find details of any Mediclaim policy on the company website, all terms and conditions. Several reviews, pros and cons and the risks involved in it. For example, ‘Policy bazar’ and at least a hundred websites can give you an in-depth idea of which company offers the best policy, cheaper policy, fair compensation and most importantly claim settlement rate etc. Which was not possible in past, and people had to depend on the salesperson.
It is reality that day by day salesperson’s dependency is going down. It may not be totally abolished but knowledgeable salespersons only shall survive. Knowledge is not product knowledge only but panoramic knowledge including product, process, E-comm, buying selling pattern etc. So, it is important to gather knowledge and apply it. Also, to choose the right company, the right product and the selling strategy which suits you best.
You must be a little demotivated by now as apparently above comments are not so optimistic. True, it is better to be realistic than optimistic. The good part is still three-forth (3/4) of the buyers prefer to buy from a consultative seller unless it is a very regular item.
Now come to the point, further discussion on and above my last post on the subject matter. In case you did not read it yet then please read that first and then this article.
Consultative selling can help a salesman:
i) Qualify a lead more accurately and efficiently.
ii) Building trust and get repeat orders.
iii) Bypass competitors.
iv) Seamless resolve of challenges of both sides.
v) Need creation with good understanding and trust.
Consultative selling can help a buyer.
i) When a buyer buys something especially very expensive and/or high-tech products, he/she always feels comfortable buying from a trustworthy person. As it may require services beyond the legitimate one and buyers may have to go through unforeseen challenges.
ii) Configure the system/ product as per his/her need. Sometimes it can be custom-built.
iii) Less possibility of choosing the wrong product.
Consultative Selling Strategies
Consultative sellers should follow some guidelines to qualify him/her from transactional sellers to consultative sellers. Some of the guidelines are as below.
1. Research
Do good research about the customer’s needs, would be needs and desires. Must have and would have desires.
A salesman needs to do good research to find the needs of the buying organisation or a particular customer. They can take help from the website of the organisation, LinkedIn and talking to their peers.
The research should not be on the technical aspect only but include the funding, buying pattern, and pressure for the organisation to implement something within a timeline.
Be curious, talk like an investigator and not an interviewer. Use the right kind of open-ended and close questions when you are probing and it should sound like you are asking to help and not to find any confidential information. (to know more about probing can read my article Selling Skill in this blog).
2. Be authentic.
Need not to explain more what it means. It is not between seller and buyer but everywhere a person should be authentic.
Here I can give some hints where a salesman can make mistakes and be treated as not authentic.
Never discuss your findings with your friend, even not openly in the office or meeting. Discuss keeping the confidential information unexposed.
Never use the wrong tricks which can be applicable for other kinds of sales strategy. Like offering very high price and give high discount so the customer feels he won. It works the other way around. Customers lose trust.
3. Work as consultant
Provide authentic information to customer. Coach/ teach him as at times it may require. Arrange seminars/talks, if required, so the buyer may get the support of like-minded people and his/her superior in the organisation.
4. Keep in touch
The project may have a long gestation period. So, remain in touch to ensure that the matter is moving in the right direction favouring you. Also, to keep an eye that your competitors in not intruding in it.
It is very common that seller get overconfident that everything is done and it is just a matter of time the order to come and get a jolt at a maturity level that they are not in the picture, some other company hijacked their case.
5. Human psychology
Understanding human psychology is important in sales job. The customer may have his/her specific desire, ego, high handed and on the other side he/she may highly trust people or does not trust people, arrogant or polite. So, with so much of derivatives, no thumb rule can be designed. The salesperson needs to design his approach and strategy accordingly.
Sometimes competitors can misinform the customer. Customers can sometimes doubt the authenticity of the person or company. The salesperson needs to have an open mind to hear the doubt and respond logically.
6. Closing
Consultative sellers are often technically good. Because of this or maybe because of his/her good relation with customers, they feel shy to ask for order. This is the biggest mistake sellers make that they do everything but forget to ask the most important question, which is ‘Sir/Mam, when I shall get the order’.
Closing is most important and unless the closing is good then every good work done does not make any sense.
Closing can be bad-
-if the case lingers for a long time and competitors can enter, funds can be diverted, the cost of the product can increase, and the project can be dropped also. So, it is important to close as fast as possible. For that if the seller has to give some special benefit, some discounts that also good because fast closing is very important.
– salesperson failed to understand the commercial part in the developing stage. It might be a higher specification he/she set in the mind of the customer without doing proper research (point 1) on the customer and end up selling with a poor margin.
– negotiated too early without establishing a mutual agreement (closing of sales, read Negotiation article in this blog). As a result had to provide many supporting things to fulfil the requirement which costs money to the selling organisation.
I feel this is enough to understand the subject with good clarity within a comfortable reading time.
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