Consultative Selling: 6 Key Steps to Keep in Mind

If you’re looking for a customer-centric sales methodology to try, consultative selling is a great framework to know.

In our comprehensive overview, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about the consultative sales process, including what it is, how it differs from traditional sales, skills to focus on, and a tried-and-true tool you can use to improve.

What Is Consultative Selling?

Consultative selling or consultative sales is a framework for selling that homes in on understanding the needs of the client. It’s a customer-centric approach, like value selling. A sales rep’s goal is to understand their prospect’s needs enough that they can then recommend their product as the solution. 

However, that doesn’t mean pushing your solution on customers. Instead, you’ll empathize and focus on how you can educate the client. How can you and your product help resolve their specific pain points?

Traditional selling vs. consultative selling

Consultative selling and traditional selling are two terms that differ in a variety of ways. While traditional selling is product-focused, consultative selling puts the customer at the forefront. Traditional transactional sales often feel more “pushy” to the customer base. 

Another huge difference is the type of relationship sellers want to have with buyers. With traditional selling, it’s OK if the relationship is short-term. On the other hand, consultative selling emphasizes the importance of building and maintaining long-term relationships. 

6 Key Steps of the Consultative Sales Process

In a nutshell, the consultative sales process works by cultivating meaningful relationships with clients while positioning your solution as the solution to their problems. Of course, it’s a little more nuanced than that. 

Here are the steps involved in the consultative sales process. 

1. Qualify your leads and prospects. 

Like any sales method, consultative selling can feel overwhelming at first, especially if you have lots of leads or prospects. To mitigate that overwhelm, you can use lead qualification. Lead qualification helps you better allocate resources to the most promising prospects or leads. 

To start, take a look at your potential clients. You can narrow down the list based on fit and needs. For example, there are tons of lead qualification methods and frameworks like BANT sellers can leverage to prioritize leads. 

That way, you can cultivate an ideal pipeline of the customers who’d be the best fit for your product or service. 

2. Understand the customer’s needs through and through.

When you’re working with a potential client, prioritize getting to the heart of their needs. Because consultative selling is so customer-centric, this step is essential to the process. As a sales rep, you should be actively listening to your customers while they describe their pain points. 

If the client hasn’t explicitly described their problem, you can ask questions to help them open up. What challenges are they facing? Finding out what their difficulties are and what their overall situation looks like can really elucidate their needs. From there, you can pinpoint potential areas for improvement. 

3. Showcase your product or service.

Depending on what you’re selling, you might want to offer a presentation of some sort to showcase your product or service. You can use the information you gathered about your client to customize the demo or presentation to address their pain points and needs. 

Remember, the goal here isn’t to push the product like you might with traditional sales. Instead, focus on building rapport and trust with the client while showing how your product can meet their needs. You can use tools like visual aids or leverage storytelling to keep the potential buyer interested.  

4. Anticipate objections and concerns.

Regardless of whether or not you end up doing a full presentation or demo, expect your customer to have objections. The biggest pitfall for many sales reps is not anticipating objection handling and feeling blindsided when clients have pushback. 

Preparing for objections is an easy way to set yourself up for success as a seller. For example, one strategy is transforming their objections and concerns into opportunities. 

5. Close your sale. 

When you move forward with the sale, make sure to summarize the main advantages of your product. You can also use this time to resolve any lingering concerns and move to close. If the client backs out, don’t push them further. Consultative sales is all about the long game and long-term relationships. It’s not a method that encourages lots of bridge burning. 

6. Continue the relationship and don’t forget to follow-up.

When you close the sale, be sure to thank the client for their time. It might seem like a small gesture to some reps but a little thank you and a follow-up thank-you card or email can go a long way. 

Since consultative sales homes in on the importance of long-term, fruitful relationships with clients, continue to check in every so often without risking irritating the client. If done right, keeping up with customers can help you cultivate meaningful relationships and open doors for future sales opportunities. 

Regardless of if you close the sale or not, feel free to ask the prospect for feedback. This can help improve outcomes for future sales and interactions. 

How to Practice Consultative Selling With Yoodli 

With a customer-centric sales framework like consultative selling, it can be tough to practice the skills you need to succeed. Many reps end up practicing new frameworks live with real customers. Instead, you can practice real-time interactions with Yoodli.

Yoodli is an AI-powered sales coach that leverages realistic roleplay for risk-free practice when working on new methodologies. Well-known brands — names like Google, Korn Ferry, and Dale Carnegie — have all used Yoodli to boost seller attainment and slash ramp across the board.

But Yoodli does so much more than simply offer sales roleplays. With its intelligent sales coaching, this tool highlights areas of improvement for reps based on their performance. For example, reps can practice using consultative selling in familiar sales environments, like customer discovery or cold calls. 

During these roleplays, reps participate in human-esque conversation. Because Yoodli provides tons of customer persona roles to choose from, reps can practice their skills in back-and-forth conversation with different types of AI-generated clients.

Once the roleplay is over, Yoodli evaluates their performance to offer actionable feedback. That way, reps can practice implementing consultative selling without risking losing a deal or client. 

For admin, Yoodli provides personalization capabilities. Brands can tweak Yoodli for their own needs, based on their company’s methodology. Plus, Yoodli offers enterprise-grade privacy.with SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, and more.

Learn more about how you can get started with Yoodli for free at https://yoodli.ai/.

Skills to Hone for Better Consultative Selling

If you’re new to consultative sales, there are some particular skill sets that can improve your interactions with potential buyers. Here are a few of the most essential skills to sharpen for consultative selling. 

Negotiation

Perhaps not surprisingly, focusing in on your negotiation skills can make the consultative sales process smoother. Negotiation boils down to finding solutions that work for both parties. So, for example, if cost was a concern for a client, you could negotiate an outcome where you get to close the sale and the customer feels comfortable with the price. 

If you struggle with negotiation, try to focus on finding common ground first, and go from there. 

Empathy

One of the most underrated skills for consultative selling is empathy. Knowing how to see things from another perspective and put yourself in someone else’s shoes is huge for customers. Because consultative sales prioritizes building a good rapport with potential clients, having the ability to listen with empathy is especially valuable. You’ll be able to more appropriately address any frustrations, concerns, or needs the buyer has, too. 

Efficient communication 

Although it might go without saying, knowing how to effectively communicate is essential for consultative selling. It’s a skill to be able to voice your ideas and information clearly.

But efficient communication goes beyond being able to express yourself clearly; it also includes active listening. In other words, leveraging the ability to focus on what the customer is saying and show that you’re engaged. For example, you can ask specific questions about their concerns and needs, or summarize what they’ve just said back to them for clarity. 

Persuasion 

Sharpening your persuasion skills is another worthwhile endeavor when you’re perfecting the consultative sales method. Similarly to negotiation, persuasion can help with everything from objection handling to influencing buyer decisions. 

At the end of the day, having solid persuasion skills can help you close more deals and improve your win rate. 

Problem-solving skills

Last but certainly not least, don’t forget about your problem-solving skills. For sales reps, the ability to problem solve is not always front-of-mind. Still, consultative sales stresses the importance of maintaining long-term relationships with clients, and as such, it’s worth investing in your problem-solving skills. 

Although the ability to think through problems and come up with creative solutions can be natural, it can also be learned. 

Common Pitfalls With Consultative Sales

Whether you’re new to consultative selling or you’re an experienced sales rep, knowing how to prepare for common pitfalls can help boost win rates. 

Here are some of the most common pitfalls when it comes to the consultative sales process.

Objections

Objections from potential clients and knowing how to handle objections is a normal part of any sales process. Anticipating objections can help you prepare in advance and make for a smoother transition to a closed deal. One of the most common objections you can prepare for is cost. 

If you have a customer concerned with how much the product costs, emphasize that product’s value. Instead of the price, show them what the return on investment (ROI) looks like. You can always negotiate different terms or offer them other complementary products or services to make it more worthwhile. 

Pressure from competitors 

With any sales method, there will always be a sense of pressure from your competitors. Chances are, there’s a competing product that could look appealing to potential buyers. 

That being said, focus on showing how your solution, be it a product or service, is different from others. Not only that, but show your product’s value propositions and how your product stands out from the competition. Having selling points unique to your product is key.

Sometimes, just the way you interact with clients can set you apart from competitors, especially if their customer service is subpar.

Fear of change

Many people tend to resist change, and that includes potential buyers. Because consultative sales prioritizes building rapport, trust, and credibility, offering your own guidance and support can help clients overcome this resistance to change. If you’re dealing with a customer who seems resistant to change, one of the best things you can do is educate them on how change can be beneficial. For example, many clients are looking for cheaper solutions, which is a positive change. Reframe their fear into opportunity.

The Bottom Line 

Consultative selling is a great sales framework that every rep should know. Even if you prefer other methods, knowing how the consultative sales process works can make you a better seller. Plus, with tools like Yoodli, it’s easier now more than ever to practice essential sales skills. 

Sources

• Salesforce: “What Is Consultative Sales? Principles and Best Practices.”
• LinkedIn: “Advantages of Consultative Selling Over Traditional Transactional Selling.”
• Richardson Sales Performance: “Everything You Need to Know About Consultative Selling.”
• RAIN Group: “What Is Consultative Selling?”