A couple months back, I had a conversation with a CEO at a Mid-Market manufacturer about their “consultative selling” process. Well, she believed that her team was using a Consultative Selling approach.
Her VP of Sales had the sales team learn six questions to ask their prospects in a discovery meeting. The sales team had a good sales process to understand what the next milestone was and where they were in the sales process.
The sales people would ask these questions, note the answers and present a solution to one of the “problems” the prospect mentioned.
Her sales people were executing what was being asked, yet revenue was flat, and the competitors were gaining market share. The sales people were frustrated, and the CEO could not tolerate another quarter of weak sales results
The questions were not bad questions. In fact, most were Good questions. The issue is, or was, the approach was not consultative.
Consultative Selling is nuanced, and must be tied to a sales process. It requires active listening by the sales people, and most importantly a conversation with a prospect with many, many questions about the prospect, that dig deep into the prospect’s situation, the depth of the problem(s) with a cadence of inquiries that engage the prospect. The questions must uncover compelling reasons for the prospect to do business, and create urgency.
This approach to selling requires the sales person to have three specific core elements or what we call Sales DNA to be effective. The sales people need to:
- Control of their Emotions: this allows them to slow down, stay in the moment and be engaged in the conversation, not just waiting for the opportunity to talk or pitch.
- Have business conversations about money: we all were taught not to talk about money because it is rude. In business, especially in sales, being able to monetize a legitimate problem is essential to creating a compelling reason to take action. The sales person’s mindset must not be clouded with beliefs that create hidden weaknesses.
- Not have a need to be liked: this is often the Achilles heel; the sales person must be able to ask the prospect tough, professional thought provoking questions and not worry, if it makes the prospect a bit uncomfortable. If the Need to be Liked is too important, the sales people will not be able to perform.
So, once we determined who on the sales team had the Sales DNA to execute, we could begin implementing coaching a consultative selling approach with the VP of Sales and the Sales Team.
In less than 6 weeks, sales are up and the trend is reversed.
- Their sales pipeline is not bloated with “sales hope”
- The conversion rate of meetings to closed deal is up
- The buy cycle is being reduced
- Q4 revenue is forecast to increase YOY by 18%.
Oh, and gross margins are also trending up. There is much work to do, but 2019 will be exciting. The frustration, fear and angst for the future is gone.
Why? Because the CEO decided she needed to fix the problems with the sales team once and for all.
