World-class PSO: Daily Thought

I had the good fortune to sit in on two sales training sessions delivered by Jeff Thull (Prime Resource Group) today. Jeff is the author of The Prime Solution, Mastering the Complex Sale, and Exceptional Selling.

Throughout the session, Jeff spoke to the team about what he calls the "Three Eras of Professional Selling." In the first error, the sales process was scripted, and sales professionals were not encouraged to "think" as Jeff says it. In the second era, sales pros hung their hat on the process of "Needs Analysis" to get through the day. In the third era, the era we are in today, sales professionals are encouraged to "STOP SELLING." This is one of Jeff's "Key Thoughts," as he calls them.

While I am not a sales person in the traditional session, as a consultant I am a sales professional. As I mentioned in an earlier post, consultants are always selling. Some of us sell in a traditional sense. We conduct pre-sales discovery with the goal of understanding the customers needs, challenges, pains - what ever you want to call them. We develop standard and custom consulting solutions for our customers. We write proposals and SOWs, and we work to close the deal. Others of us are selling during every meeting. We are working to ensure that the customer buys into the engagement format, the approach, the action plans, and the recommendations - even after the ink is dry on the contract.

What became increasingly clear to me throughout the sessions with Jeff is that the role of the sales professional has to stop selling and be a consultant. Now, I know there are countless books out there on the topic of "consultative selling." I recognize that my realization is a bit old news. Still, I witness situations every day where consultants in a selling role forget to be a consultant in pre-sales situations, or the pressures of the sales process result in a sales rep falling back into the Era 1 or Era 2 ways of selling. So, its worth repeating: To be a successful sales professional, one must be a consultant.

WORLD-CLASS SALES PROFESSIONAL = WORLD-CLASS CONSULTANT (and vice-versa)