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Consultative Selling

Written by: Harry Frisch

Article Overview: Consultative selling is a highly evolved and extraordinarily successful approach to selling. In consultative selling, the entire sales process is oriented toward the salesperson, or “consultant”, understanding the nature of and assisting his customer or client in the solving of the client's product-related problems.

Consultative Selling

Consultative selling is a highly evolved and extraordinarily successful approach to selling. In consultative selling, the entire sales process is oriented toward the salesperson, or “consultant”, understanding the nature of and assisting his customer or client in the solving of the client's product-related problems.

While nearly all schools of selling require that the salesperson, to some degree, get the prospect into good, trusting, open communication, in consultative selling it is of even greater importance that the salesperson have excellent “opening” skills. Likewise, any school of sales worth its salt requires that the salesperson discover the prospect's major needs and wants before proceeding into the sales presentation; but in consultative selling, it is absolutely essential that the prospect be thoroughly qualified before the salesman attempts to enter the presentation.

Unlike conventional selling, in which a salesperson will often present his goods in a pretty similar manner, one prospect to the next, in consultative selling the sales “consultant” is required to carefully take and analyze the data he has gathered from his prospect, and from that data, create a unique presentation, customized specifically for that particular prospect's needs and wants.

The salesperson involved in consultative selling, therefore, has to have some very strong skills which are not ordinarily required in many other schools of selling.

In the manual of consultative selling, HOW TO SELL – Clear and Simple, each of the unique skills required, as well as the essential “people skills” upon which these skills are based, are presented in a straight-forward, easy-to-understand fashion. This manual is the quintessential source for the effective application of the highly workable tools of consultative selling.

(c) 2004, 2005, 2006 Harry Frisch, STI Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

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