How To Move From Transactional To Consultative Selling

By Éric Fugère, SherWeb

Transactional vs. consultative selling is somewhat of a buzz phrase in the industry, but what does it really mean? How can you implement consultative selling, and what will it mean for your organization?

Transactional vs. Consultative selling defined

Transactional selling is typically very product-focused. It’s pretty much the way sales were done in the past. You take a customer out to lunch, tell them about your new product and what it does, and they decide whether or not they’d like to buy. If they buy the product and it doesn’t meet their needs, they might call support, or perhaps they decide to go with your competitor next time, but you, the sales rep, are pretty much done with the transaction.

Consultative selling, on the other hand, focuses on you being less of a salesperson and more of a business partner to your customers. A consultative seller will research the company, get to know them and their business pain points, and then help them decide if your product will help them solve a business problem or not. If the product doesn’t work out, you’ll be around to help implement correctly or make appropriate changes, and the relationship will continue years into the future.

These days, business to business (B2B) customers expect consultative selling. If your company isn’t willing to provide that, they will likely use another provider. So how can you be this consultant?