Consultative selling is a sales approach favoring relationship building and open dialogue to meet a prospective customer’s needs adequately. By building trust quickly, a consultative selling approach can help the customer better meet her/his expectations, and the salesperson hits her/his targets more effectively.
Understanding consultative selling
Spoilt for choice and with high expectations, modern consumers and businesses are extremely sensitive to traditional marketing and sales tactics.
This is particularly evident when they feel pressured to buy something from an aggressive sales representative determined to make a commission.
Consultative selling focuses on the experience or interaction a potential customer has with an organization.
It is solution-based, customer-centric, and prioritizes the formation of solid relationships.
Company representatives act more like advisors than salespeople, recommending value-providing solutions tailored to the customer’s individual needs.
Trust is about competence
This can radically improve the chances of closing a sale and speed up building trust between the potential customer and the salesperson.
The salesperson that uses the consultative approach is aware that to build trust with the customer, rather than trying to be pushy, she/he needs to build a solid competence around the product.
This is a critical step to serve the potential customer properly.
The consultative approach transforms the salesperson into an engineer with the sensibility of a potential customer
So much so to be able to interface with the product and engineering team, to understand all the facets of the product and how they can serve the customer.
Only, in that case the salesperson becomes truly useful to the potential customer, as she/he understands in the first place how the product can be applied to the potential customer’s business.
And the salesperson becomes a sort of analyst able to provide key business insights to the potential customer.
When the potential customer grasps the ability of the salesperson to provide insights for the business and identify opportunities, this makes the whole sales process way smoother.
The five steps of consultative selling
There are five steps, or guiding principles, to consultative selling:
1 – Ask the right questions
Here, the business must diagnose the root cause of a problem by asking the right questions.
Open-ended questions that avoid “yes” or “no” answers encourage the lead to volunteer information themselves, which increases trust and mutual understanding.
In the B2B space, it can be helpful to peruse the company’s social pages and website to get an idea of its size, approximate turnover, core product offering, and target market.
It’s also important to determine how much the customer has budgeted for a solution to avoid any unwelcome surprises later.

For that, the salesperson needs to identify early whether the customer is on target with the product.
Imagine, for instance, the case of a company offering an enterprise product that works well for larger organizations.
This solution might not be in target for the customer, and this might hamper the whole sales process, thus wasting the time of both the potential customer and salesperson.
2 – Listen actively
Customers are always aware of their own problems, but many believe they need one solution when they need something else entirely.
Active listening helps the business read between the lines, as it were. To listen actively, the advisor needs to spend 80% of the time listening and 20% speaking.

This allows them to pay attention to verbal and non-verbal cues, which provide essential insights into their motivations for buying.
Ultimately, these motivations are based on pain points, which are based on emotions not always communicated in words.
3 – Educate
In consultative selling, education means teaching a lead how to make an educated decision.
Always assume the lead has done their research and requires help implementing what they already know.
Education can take the form of related case studies from previous clients.
Alternatively, it may incorporate a well-presented plan for addressing the problem supported by factual evidence.
In any case, it is important to balance helpfulness with oversharing to avoid giving the lead everything they need for free.
When it comes to enterprise clients, it’s critical to find the sweet spot between what can be offered as a free service to introduce the service and make sure the potential customer, on the other side, fully understands the product’s value.
Indeed, at the enterprise level, it might be fine for the organization to offer a free pilot, for instance, as it might reduce the friction on a very complex product that needs the whole organization to be aligned.
Therefore, the onboarding and sales process will highly depend on the ability of the company to show value to have large clients commit to a complex and substantial deal.
Take the case of Palantir, which goes into very complex deals that very few are willing to take, investing millions upfront to do integrations before having the client sign up for the deal.
That’s because Palantir knows that when the deal is in, it’ll become a sizeable multi-year agreement that can be consolidated and grown over time, providing an incredible ROI in the long run.

A similar logic is followed by SaaS companies that look at the lifetime value of a potential customer and based on that, they invest in sales and marketing activities.

Of course, when capital is readily available and revenues grow quickly, sales and marketing people have way more flexibility in giving more – for free – to the potential customer to acquire it.
When capital is expensive, and it’s harder to grow the top line, then it becomes critical to understand what core actions salespeople can take to close deals with a consultative approach.
4 – Customise
As a potential sale draws nearer, tailoring the customer’s experiences becomes crucial.
The key at this point is to organically suggest how specific products or services may meet the consumer’s needs.
Abruptly entering into a sales pitch may pressure the lead and undo the good work done in the previous steps.
Showing the product in action can help solidify this suggestion.
While the advisor is trying to make money for the business, they must remain authentic and genuine.
A tailored solution must be just that: tailored.
Can the business tweak its existing product or service to meet the needs of a specific customer? Can it offer an exclusive discount or promotion?
Customization goes a long way, as long as it’s in target with the overall business strategy.
For instance, imagine you have a software business, but your potential clients ask for consultancy.
Offering a consultancy service on top of the software business can be a great way to acquire them.
Is this in line with the long-term mission of the business?
If so, you can customize your product to enhance it with services.
If not, you might have to rethink your sales funnel and the customers you’re targineting.
5 – Close
The chances of closing the deal are increased by following the above principles.
However, pushback may occur in certain circumstances for a variety of reasons.
In this situation, it may be helpful for the advisor to broach the topic of the potential consequences of not making a purchase.
What might happen if the buyer can’t reach a goal, execute on strategy, or overcome their challenges?
Above all, a successful close should feel like the natural conclusion to discussions for both the business and its new client.
This increases the likelihood that the two parties are a good fit.
When you walk into a deal, make sure you have the right mindset.
Usually, that is a win-win mindset.

And you can leverage concepts like WATNA, BATNA, and ZOPA.
With WATNA, you can set up negative boundaries for the negotiation.

Whereas with BATNA, you can set up positive boundaries for the same.

And the ZOPA will be the range within which the deal can be successfully closed.

Key takeaways
- Consultative selling is a solution-based, customer-centric sales approach with a core focus on building strong relationships.
- Consultative selling is underpinned by a deep understanding of the client. Avoiding open-ended questions and doing some background research on a company can go a long way to establishing trust from the outset.
- Consultative selling also advocates active listening, where 80% of the meeting is spent listening and 20% speaking. This approach allows the advisor to identify verbal and non-verbal buying motives often based on emotion.
Related Business Concepts
























Palantir Acquire, Expand, Scale Framework



Read: product development frameworks here.
Read Next: SWOT Analysis, Personal SWOT Analysis, TOWS Matrix, PESTEL Analysis, Porter’s Five Forces, TOWS Matrix, SOAR Analysis.
Main Free Guides: