Designing Effective Consultative Selling Training: A Strategic Guide
High performing sales managers know that top solution sellers build strong client relationships, uncover client priorities, and link their solutions to what matters most. Unlike traditional sales methods that focus on pushing products or services, consultative selling emphasizes client-centric collaboration and problem-solving to help clients to succeed. To ensure your sales force can master this approach, designing effective consultative selling training is essential.
Designing Effective Consultative Selling Training: A Strategic Guide
According to research from RepVue, only 42 percent of sales reps hit their quotas last quarter. We know from sales leadership simulation assessment data that an underperforming sales force can cost millions in missed opportunities, lost deals, and decreased customer loyalty. If you are interested in designing effective consultative selling training, here are the proven steps to take:
- Ensure Your Sales Strategy is Clear Enough
Strategic sales clarity accounts for 31% of the difference between high and low performing sales teams. Even the most skilled sales reps can miss a quota when the sales strategy is unclear or at odds with the marketplace. Before you invest the time and effort to upskill your sales team, ensure that leadership agrees upon your ideal target clients, unique value proposition, success metrics, and big bets for success.
Is your sales strategy clear enough to succeed? - Align Your Sales Culture
We define sales culture as how and why things truly get done to market, sell, and serve clients. Because your sales strategy must go through your sales culture to be successfully implemented, your sales culture plays a major role in accelerating or undermining your sales success. If your sales culture is not healthy enough, high performing enough, or is misaligned with your sales strategy, your sales training effectiveness will be diluted.
Is your sales culture helping or hindering your sales strategy? - Establish Clear Objectives
Before diving into the content and structure of sales training, it is crucial to establish clear objectives and success metrics. Most effective business sales training programs look to measurably improve sales revenue, margin, win rate, portfolio mix, deal size, or cycle time.
What business and learning objectives are you trying to accomplish? - Define Your Ideal Sales Rep
What skills, traits, and mindsets are required to be a high performing seller at your company? We know from solution selling training data that high performing sales reps can consistently:- Ask insightful questions, actively listen, and uncover the customer’s true underlying needs and desired outcomes.
- Understand their customer’s perspective, build rapport, and develop relevant solutions aligned with their strategic priorities.
- Negotiate mutually beneficial agreements focused on long-term success, not just “winning” the deal.
- Put the customer’s best interests first and act as a trusted advisor, not a pushy salesperson.
- Understand Your Sales Process
A well-defined sales process outlines how and when to conduct the sales cycle from beginning to end in a way that makes sense for your buyers. Having a clear understanding of your ideal sales rep profile and sales process enables you to customize your sales training approach to the unique sales skills, sales scenarios, and sales tools your reps need to navigate each stage successfully.
At a minimum, your sales process should include:- Agreeing upon the key stages in the customer’s buying journey.
- Identifying criteria for each stage in the sales cycle.
- Determining the optimal approaches to maximize sales success at each stage.
- Conduct a Training Needs Assessment
Whether you use a sales simulation assessment or a standard training needs assessment, effective sales training requires an in-depth, data-driven analysis to ensure you’re addressing your team’s true capability gaps and setting you and your sales team up for success.
We know from sales training measurement data that generic, one-size-fits-all sales training only changes the on-the-job performance of 20 percent of sellers. Your sales team is unique; your sales training needs to meet them where they are. An effective skills assessment allows you to focus on the sales skills and behaviors that will move the needle. - Customize Your Sales Training
The more you personalize the content, the better your chances of making the sales training more relevant and impactful. Effective consultative selling training should be highly experiential and make sense for your specific industry, company culture, and sales team’s experience level. It should address the unique challenges and opportunities your team faces and include approaches like:- Sales Case Studies:
Use real-life examples from your industry to illustrate key sales concepts and strategies. - Role-Playing Scenarios:
Tailor these exercises to reflect common situations your salespeople encounter, making the training more relatable and practical. - Product/Service Knowledge Integration:
Ensure that your team can seamlessly integrate their deep understanding of your offerings into the consultative process.
- Sales Case Studies:
- Measure and Adapt
Finally, the effectiveness of your consultative selling training should be continuously monitored and refined to ensure it remains aligned with goals and marketplace. Implement metrics to track progress, such as:- Are people using the new sales knowledge, skills, and processes?
- Are sales managers involved, supportive, and reinforcing?
- Are the new sales skills and behaviors making the desired revenue, margin, win rate, portfolio mix, deal size, or cycle time impact?
The Bottom Line
Designing an effective consultative selling training program requires a strategic approach that aligns with your business objectives, your ideal target clients, and the specific needs of your sales team. By defining clear goals, customizing content, and incorporating action learning, you can equip your salesforce with the solution selling skills necessary to thrive.
To learn more about designing effective consultative selling training, download The 6 Top Reasons Business Sales Training Initiatives Fail