Stepping Beyond Consultative Sales: Collaborative Selling Is the Future

Sales Strategy: Stepping Beyond Consultative Sales: Collaborative Selling Is the Future

By Nancy Bleeke


Collaborative or consultative selling. What’s the difference? Aren’t they interchangeable terms? Not really, collaboration is a step beyond traditional consultative selling. And an opportunity to sell more WITH your buyers.

Consultative selling is a term in use around the globe. And it is effective - a selling methodology and mindset where the seller, acting as a trusted advisor, assists the buyer in identifying needs and offering solutions within their relationship. (This definition is from the glossary at Salesopedia). And we know consultative selling works - we’ve trained consultative selling skills for over a decade with 5-25% increases in sales!

But is a consultative approach enough today? Are the buyers in today’s economy and demographics wanting more? I think yes. They want to be a PART of the process and the solution and selling collaboratively allows for that.

The definition of collaboration is: Noun: The act of working jointly. Collaborative selling is working WITH your buyers in a joint process to identify needs, identify how the solution you provides benefits them and then navigate through the decision making process. It’s a side-by-side process instead of a head-on process.

This quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks to this:

"Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up."

Who knows how much more our buyer can add to the depth of how they use our product/service? They may have ideas for application, usage and implementation that we had never thought of! Our buyers are so much more informed than they ever were with so much information accessible in a moment.

They have some sort of background, experience or information to bring to the discussion on most topics. And when we can collaborate WITH them and jointly discover needs, wants, challenges and solutions to help them, we build a deeper relationship and more loyal customer.

Who wants to be “told” or “pitched” information? Not many people, though I may be clouded by the fact I live with teens :) Most people want to be next to you exploring a topic and adding their input to the discussion.

Does this mean we don’t need to be the experts? Not at all! It means that we need to be more of an expert and prepared to:
Ask questions that engage and involve
Allow time for more discussion
Explore with them how what we offer will work for them
Adapt our communication to their style (including verbal style, decision making style and level of involvement style)
Share expertise and information without sales pressure.

A recent sales meeting illustrates the point. Two educated, experienced professionals who have used our training solutions for many years wanted to review our curriculum. Within the first 10 minutes I could tell this wasn’t just a review, there was something more they wanted from the discussion. In asking some open questions like “what is working well?” “How is the current economy affecting the types of skills you need to strengthen in your organization?” “What type of changes need to be incorporated to address your audience?” I found that they had some DEFINITE ideas on what they wanted to do. They wanted to continue to use our platform but to tweak it to fit into some specific initiatives they have. AND they wanted to lead the charge in identifying what is needed and how they want it addressed. After all, they do know their business from the inside.

At first I thought “they are replacing me.” But then found that they still want me involved and bringing expertise but they want to be a bigger part of what and how the work is done.

Will we continue to work with them? Absolutely! But not only as a solutions provider…as a collaborator on implementation of their ideas and bringing outside credibility for an internal initiative. And this makes the value of the solution even stronger.

Collaborative selling IS a step beyond consultative selling. And it’s a step in the right direction for long-term sales success.


The moral right of the author, Nancy Bleeke , has been asserted.


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