Sales – Consultative Selling

Suitable for sales professionals who need to use a consultative sales approach to identify and respond to customers’ needs. Additionally, this workshop is suited to business professionals who act in an advisory capacity and whose role requires developing positive relationships with their customers.

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Move towards a consultative and added value selling model to improve results and generate opportunities.
• Develop an awareness of the different Social Styles and develop a strategy to adapt your sales style.
• Identify the root cause of your customer’s problems and offer the ideal solutions.
• Understand the effect of your sale on your customer’s business.
• Link your offer to financial ROI.
• Create a greater commercial awareness of your client.
• Ensure that you understand and deliver both tangible and intangible benefits to your customers.
• Develop the skills and behaviours needed to successfully deliver solutions that win business.
• Create a personal development plan.

Pre-course Activity
Think about any specific challenges you face in sales interactions and be prepared to share them and what you would like to achieve in terms of improvements in your sales approach.

Course Outline

The Psychology of Influence

• Robert Cialdini’s Six Principles of Influence
• How the principles apply to your interactions with customers

Customer Social Styles and Decision Making

The theory behind the Social Styles model and how customers’ styles can affect influence your interactions with them
The impact on relationships when styles are not in-sync
A strategy to adapt sales approach to complement customer buying decision making style.

Good Selling and Value

• Exploring what good sales looks like and what value a salesperson adds for customers
• Understanding what is meant by value
• Building beyond transactional sales to trusted partner status

Preparing for the Customer Conversation

• Research the customer’s business and refresh on known facts and past conversations
• Create assumed potential wants and needs to develop potential solutions
• Anticipating and preparing for objections
• Researching the scope and strength of the competition
• Be clear of your call objectives, having linking questions that invite a conversation
• Preparing for gaining customer attention and interest

Building Rapport with Customers

• Creating a first-class impression, in 30 seconds
• The importance of personal presentation, body language and personality
• Assessing the customer’s style and behaviour
• Self-assessment on own body language and the message it may send

Identifying Needs and Gaining Commitment

• Using questions that drill for true needs
• Types of questions, TED PIE
• Examining impact of customer needs to create opportunity
• Understanding customers’ perceptions of your competitors and/or other suppliers
• Summarising customer needs to gain opportunity
• Summarising results of needs-based discussion gaining commitment to a desire for a suitable solution
• Design a fact find form?

Presenting Solutions and Gaining Commitment

• Presenting your proposal matching features, advantages and benefits to customers’ needs
• Using persuasion and influencing skills to enhance your presentation
• Positive and confident language
• Creating commitment by linking benefits to the client’s stated needs
• Design solutions with options and flexibility
• Using Value Propositions to differentiate and prove value
• Using information gathered in fact find to prove value and eliminate price objections
• Use of visuals, testimonials, statistics, competitive comparisons, social proof to prove value

Handling Objections

• The psychology of objections
• Identifying types of objections
• Handling and overcoming objections

Closing 

• Understand when to close and what style to use
• Price presentation techniques
• Different closing approaches

Negotiation 

• Never negotiate until sold
• Avoiding price negotiation
• If you, then I offer
• Offering high customer value / low cost extras