About 15 years ago I interviewed Mack Hanan, who wrote the book, Consultative Selling, and pioneered the sales movement by the same name. At the time, Hanan was disturbed by sales organizations who borrowed the style and semantics of consultative selling while not investing in the content needed to provide a true consultative selling service. He was particularly upset with media sales organizations, most of which he felt, had embraced consultative selling in name only.
Today, that same activity that upset Hanan is alive and well. How many sales presentations begin by appearing to take the side of the customer, imply that great and helpful content useful to increase business and profitability is coming, only to have the presentation deteriorate into a product pitch. Presentations like this are consultative in style only. Customers nod politely through them and five minutes after you leave the room have forgotten everything you said.
Content that fuels consultative selling feels different. It is…
• About their business, not about your products
• About their profitability, not your sales terms
• About their customers, not your customers
• About a new market opportunity
• New information about your customer’s customers they didn't know before
The real damage for using consultative style presentations comes when it marks the end of deeper inquiry into your customer's needs. When organizations believe they are delivering a consultative approach by stylistically shaping their product pitch, a deeper understanding of the customer, and all the opportunities that come with it, are lost. Over time this can kill a company.
I have a copy of Mac's book. You make a good point. People have usurped the term and used it to describe other sales approaches. The term often seems to be interpreted as a soft approach. This couldn't be further from the truth.
Consultative Selling is about helping the customer obtain and evaluate their own data before considering a solution.
This is harder than one might think. The sales person must be tenacious and have excellent objection handling skills.
Posted by: Clive Miller | May 18, 2010 at 07:24 AM
This is very interesting since most companies do consultations before doing sales pitch. Although, for some, consultative style really works.
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Posted by: ベトプティック | August 10, 2011 at 07:52 AM
Presentations really are important no matter what you're selling.
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