| Today, the sales role has more in common
with a fighter pilot's job than anything else. It is defined by periods of patient waiting
punctuated by moments of unimaginable excitement. The secret is to keep a constant flow of
fresh leads without losing track of any of your current prospects and customers.
Your Prospects Want a Quick Follow-up
A technology research firm known as KnowledgeStorm recently
produced a report in which they revealed that a prospect's receptivity to salespeople
declines drastically as time passes. Their data shows that 88% of prospects were happy to
hear from salespeople when their Internet inquiry was responded to the same day. That
means that salespeople who want positive reactions from prospects should respond to all
inquiries the same day they receive them.
Despite a quick response, you should still expect a
decision slow down.
While doing research for Cahners, Susan Mulcahy discovered
that the typical B2B sale exceeding $35,000 now requires 5.12 sales calls to finalize, up
20% since 1989. Additional research in 2005 showed that there are 3.5 more people involved
in a B2B buying decision than there were in 2001. Knowing that the average sales cycle for
a high-dollar B2B sale lasts between 6 and 36 months, salespeople must be sure to be very
responsive while at the same time very, very patient.
In other words, you must reply to prospects as quickly as
possible, but they will not necessarily respond in kind. These forces have continued to
push the need for a transition from a traditional selling mentality to a consultative one.
How to Shift from Traditional to Consultative Selling
21st Century Selling requires a unique mixture of skills.
On one hand, a salesperson must exhibit a relative sense of urgency while, on the other
hand, display a certain degree of patience. Immediate follow-up and a need to addressing
your prospect's specific needs should be combined with a willingness to move at a speed
your prospect is comfortable with.
The most blatant example of a traditional selling mentality
belongs to the much clichéd "used-car (now called pre-owned) salesman."
However, less extreme examples of the negative traits of traditional selling are exhibited
in other ways, as well.
Salespeople who engage in excessive small talk, demean
their competition or simply "pitch" their offering with scores of
features-per-minute all exhibit traditional traits that will drive today's
highly-demanding prospects away.
The traditional sales role should be eliminated. Today's
sales professionals must become trusted advisors filling a consultant's role regardless of
their product or service. They can no longer “pitch" their product. Instead,
they must:
- Ask questions
- Listen to answers
- Provide sound recommendations and advice.
Sometimes that may even mean facing the difficult reality
that their solution isn't the right one for every person who is in front of them. They may
also have to determine whether the prospect is the right one, long-term, for their
organization.
Consultative Selling Requires Sales Professionals to Focus
Every Ounce of Attention on the Needs and Wants Their Customers
Today, in order to advise a prospect appropriately about
the implementation or use of your products or services, you must provide objective
information about how to make a buying decision for the product or service. And it must
appropriately meet the prospect's needs and wants.
Only after identifying the prospect's needs and wants can a
consultative salesperson discuss the product or service and its application to the client.
How to Implement Change
Training a traditionally-minded sales team how to be
consultative is no easy task. Part of the problem rests squarely on the shoulders of the
sales management team. According to a survey released in Sales and Marketing Management
Magazine and conducted by Equation Research, sixty-five percent of sales managers say they
focus on building volume rather than finding more profitable customers. Sixty-three
percent say they neglected personal skills development. Both of those statistics reveal
startling tendencies toward traditional sales techniques rather than consultative sales
strategies.
In order to see maximum return on your bottom line,
adequate sales training, evaluation and compensation must also accompany structural
changes to your sales force. In other words, a unilateral decision to transition from
traditional to consultative selling will fail.
Remember, training is only one component of a successful
transition. The most positive effect will come when training is coupled with follow-up and
reinforcement components that extend beyond the classroom and into the field. Too often,
sales-driven organizations believe that an annual sales conference and (supposedly) weekly
sales meetings will be sufficient to upgrade the knowledge and skills of salespeople.
While those are important pieces they do not, by themselves, complete the puzzle. |
