One of the milestones of moving from a newbie to a seasoned veteran is your ability to present yourself as a colleague to your prospects. One catchphrase I’m sure you’re hearing is “consultative selling.” The phrase is a bit disingenuous as it refers to giving prospects advice on how to best utilize your offering when solving business problems.
Indeed, consultants (i.e. advisors) receive compensation for knowledge shared, not the number of devices placed. The word “consultant” infers an air of neutrality without bias. You are advising. A sales manager, on the other hand, is extremely biased — there’s no neutrality in sales.
The best way to gain your prospect’s trust is to offer advice without expectations. For instance, when a prospect has an issue with their fleet of trucks, selling them a 50 ppm device isn’t going to help them get the oil changed.
On the other hand, because you’ve been asking all your other clients and prospects about their businesses, and you know one of your contacts repairs trucks for a living — and is good at it— you can simply forward their contact information to the prospect in need. Do things like this without expecting a payback, and you’ll be on your way to being seen as a trusted advisor in no time.
The concept is simple, but there are many characteristics to consider when becoming an advisor. Here are three of the most important:
Read the rest here.
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