Consultative Selling Definition

Consultative selling is both a philosophy of business, and a specific and systematic approach to customer relationships.  As a philosophy, it can be defined as "Cooperation between customer and supplier for sustainable competitive advantage and profitability of both parties".  The consultative relationship is built by offering continuous incremental profit, over a long-term period.  To be able to do this both parties must be aware of the financial goals and measurements of each others’ business, and should then prepare and present joint Profit Improvement Proposals to each other and their respective managements.
As a process, it is about much more than selling products and services, although of course they remain fundamentally important.  It requires at least the following additional steps:
  • monitoring the customer's business for future opportunities
  • planning the business development of the customer, with the customer
  • evaluating the impact of market trends on the customer's business
  • selling the benefits of establishing a long-term relationship to both parties
Financial Selling|Shoppers
In most markets, financial selling skills are particularly important for consultative selling. To provide continuous incremental profit or profitability for the customer, it is important to understand the financial metrics which drive the customer's business, and to quantify the benefits of joint proposals in their terms.  Download our free corporate backgrounder on using consultative selling to deflect price pressure.  And keep watching... we will be adding some very cool financial tools soon,

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