Stepping Beyond Consultative Sales:
Collaborative Selling is the Future
Collaborative or consultative selling. What’s the difference?
Aren’t they interchangeable terms? Not really, collaboration is
a step beyond traditional consultative selling. And an
opportunity to sell more WITH your buyers.
Consultative selling is a term in use around the globe. And
it is effective - a selling methodology and mindset where the
seller, acting as a trusted advisor, assists the buyer in
identifying needs and offering solutions within their
relationship. (This definition is from the glossary at
Salesopedia). And we know consultative selling works - we’ve
trained consultative
selling skills for over a decade with 5-25% increases in
sales!
But is a consultative approach enough today? Are the buyers
in today’s economy and demographics wanting more? I think yes.
They want to be a PART of the process and the solution and
selling collaboratively allows for that.
The definition of collaboration is: Noun:
The act of working jointly.
Collaborative selling is working WITH your buyers in a joint
process to identify needs, identify how the solution you
provides benefits them and then navigate through the decision
making process. It’s a side-by-side process instead of a head-on
process.
This quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks to this:
"Many ideas grow better
when transplanted into another mind than the one where they
sprang up."
Who knows how much more our buyer can add to the depth of how
they use our product/service? They may have ideas for
application, usage and implementation that we had never thought
of! Our buyers are so much more informed than they ever were
with so much information accessible in a moment.
They have some sort of background, experience or information
to bring to the discussion on most topics. And when we can
collaborate WITH them and jointly discover needs, wants,
challenges and solutions to help them, we build a deeper
relationship and more loyal customer.
Who wants to be “told” or “pitched” information? Not many
people, though I may be clouded by the fact I live with teens :)
Most people want to be next to you exploring a topic and adding
their input to the discussion.
Does this mean we don’t need to be the experts? Not at all!
It means that we need to be more of an expert and prepared to:
- Ask questions that engage and involve
- Allow time for more discussion
- Explore with them how what we offer will work for them
- Adapt our communication to their style (including verbal
style, decision making style and level of involvement style)
- Share expertise and information without sales pressure.
A recent sales meeting illustrates the point. Two educated,
experienced professionals who have used our training solutions
for many years wanted to review our curriculum. Within the first
10 minutes I could tell this wasn’t just a review, there was
something more they wanted from the discussion. In asking some
open questions like “what is working well?” “How is the current
economy affecting the types of skills you need to strengthen in
your organization?” “What type of changes need to be
incorporated to address your audience?” I found that they had
some DEFINITE ideas on what they wanted to do. They wanted to
continue to use our platform but to tweak it to fit into some
specific initiatives they have. AND they wanted to lead the
charge in identifying what is needed and how they want it
addressed. After all, they do know their business from the
inside.
At first I thought “they are replacing me.” But then found
that they still want me involved and bringing expertise but they
want to be a bigger part of what and how the work is done.
Will we continue to work with them? Absolutely! But not only
as a solutions provider…as a collaborator on implementation of
their ideas and bringing outside credibility for an internal
initiative. And this makes the value of the solution even
stronger.
Collaborative selling IS a step beyond consultative selling.
And it’s a step in the right direction for long-term sales
success. |
