Consultative Selling

Catalog description

The goal of Consultative Selling is to provide students with the knowledge and skills that entrepreneurs - and nearly all other business executives - need to win customers and grow their business. We will use the consultative selling model to understand the process of selling discovery of and alignment with customer's needs, presentations of solutions, overcoming objections, and gaining agreement. Rather than pigeonholing selling as "something done by those sales types," we look at it as providing solutions to customer's problems. Selling is unique in that everyone does it. In business, we sell our products, proposals, IPOs, projects, budgets, and anything else that someone else has to approve. In life we buy cars and houses (buying and selling are two sides of the same coin), interview for jobs, propose marriage, and many other things that someone else has to say OK to. In short, selling is a fundamental life skill. The course is primarily an interactive discussion including debates, case discussions, and many small group "skills drills" to apply the concepts and methods. In addition to learning the aspects of contemporary selling as it applies to their chosen careers, students will also gain a better appreciation of this important - and often misunderstood - aspect of an organization. The course is focused on professional business-to-business (B2B) sales issues and sales management. We frequently draw on our own experiences as consumers (B2C) as a basis for developing perspectives, insights, and understanding of B2B sales themes.