Why Do People Say Consultative Selling is Dead?

If you read Dan Waldschmidt’s article, you learned that Consultative Selling isn’t a requirement.  You also learned that it doesn’t matter what selling system salespeople use and that relationships are not the key to success.  Is Dan right?  Are all of the sales experts wrong?

Everyone is right and at the same time, everyone is wrong.  The net effect is simply a lot of confusion.

Let’s take Consultative Selling.  It’s not important to sell consultatively if your interpretation of consultative selling is to ask a lot of questions that a prospect won’t want to answer.  As a matter of fact, if that is your interpretation, then I agree – it’s wrong.  However, if you equate consultative selling with becoming a trusted advisor, then it’s not only appropriate, it’s essential that your salespeople sell consultatively.  The challenge is that most sales experts don’t actually sell consultatively and when it’s time, don’t know how to teach others to do it.  I can assure you that when properly executed, the art of selling consultatively is a beautiful thing, prospects never become aware of it, certainly aren’t annoyed by it and very much appreciate it.  It is exactly how one differentiates themself from everyone else, and the only way to uncover an individual’s compelling reasons to buy and buy from you. 

What about Selling Systems?  Dan mentioned 9 in his article.  Baseline Selling, one he didn’t mention, has four stages and depending on how a company schedules its appointments and converts its customers, as many as five or six stages.  Each stage has a timeline, and also includes a number of steps, goals, to-do’s and milestones.  That is a process which, when followed, will produce consistent and predictive results.  By comparison, SPIN Selling, one he did mention, is a methodology.  A sales methodology differs from a process in that it deals with how to sell.  For example, if you mapped the SPIN methodology onto the Baseline Selling process, the entirety of SPIN would take place between stage one and stage two.  While most of the others that Dan mentioned are not complete systems or processes, other than Customer Centric Selling, they are all consultative methodologies! 

And what about relationships – are they no longer the key to success?  There was a time (before Dan) when all a salesperson needed was a strong relationship because people bought from who they liked. And in essence, that has not changed a whole lot.  People still buy from those they like, but only when the people they like bring something of value to the table.  And while it is nice to think that people will buy from you as long as your value proposition is better than the next guy’s, it simply isn’t true.  Today, you must still be well-liked in order for your value proposition to be seriously considered.  When was the last time you heard someone say, “We didn’t like them very much but we bought from them anyway because of their quality.”? Today, most prospects consider things like quality, value and price commodities.  The only thing that isn’t is the relationship.  It’s no longer the one thing that will get a salesperson the business, but it is the one thing that will advance a salesperson to the short list.