How to Transform from a Salesperson to a Trusted Advisor and Skyrocket Your Sales

Get ready to elevate your sales game and become your clients' indispensable advisor.

Understanding the Difference Between a Salesperson and an Advisor

You might be a very good salesperson—competent, problem-solving, and able to deliver results. Your clients like you enough that you have no concern they will continue to buy from you. All the statements can be true without you being your client’s advisor.

In B2B sales today, there is a dangerous trap: focusing solely on selling your solution. If you want to be treated like a commodity, pitch your contact. But my advice is to take a consultative approach instead, unless you want to risk losing your clients.

Allow me to open your eyes to the reality of sales in the 21st century. If you do not provide your counsel, advice, and recommendations, another salesperson will. This highly skilled salesperson will be One-Up, meaning they have the knowledge and experience to sit across from your client and provide a better experience by creating a greater level of value than just selling their solution.

The One-Up salesperson doesn’t just know their product inside and out, but they also have the knowledge and experience to provide a richer, more valuable experience for the client. They sit across from your client and educate, consult, and recommend.

Elevate Your Sales Status Beyond Your Company and Solution

Imagine a client choosing between two sales reps. Who will they trust more—the one who pitches solutions or the one who provides insightful counsel?

If you want a higher sales status in your client’s eyes, you must become their advisor. You know how to talk about your company, clients, and solution. You may have mastered this part of your sales process, but to move up to advisor level, you must have the conversations your competitors do not offer.

Instead of trying to create rapport to build the relationship you need, you are better off being armed with information disparity, which means you know things that your client doesn’t know. Few, if any, of your competitors have any idea about the power of information disparity.

Steps to Becoming a Trusted Advisor: Part One

What topics will elevate you to advisor level?

Because I am here to help sales organizations improve their results, I talk about the data and trends in B2B sales. For instance, only 42 percent of sales reps attain their quota. The sales cycle has expanded, so deals take longer to close. Sales organizations experience a greater number of stalled deals. Nothing in this paragraph is about my solution or a pitch. Instead, I am sharing insights that help the client to better understand their environment and the context of their decisions.

This is a set of insights about my industry, but I can also share insights about my experience with clients in other industries. By sharing topics outside of what you sell, you are stepping into the role of the advisor.

Sharing such insights positions you as an expert, helping clients understand their environment and make better decisions.

Steps to Becoming a Trusted Advisor: Part Two

You will need to put in the work to act on the big and important task of becoming an advisor. For as long as I can recall, salespeople who want to be trusted advisors have tried to get there by selling the client their solution. Even if you are charming, handsome, and have a great bedside manner, you are not an advisor if you don’t offer your clients your advice.

Transforming from a salesperson into an advisor requires effort. Here’s how you can start making that impactful shift:

1. Consider what you could brief your client on that is adjacent to what you sell. If you struggle to know what you could do, review the sales trends and data I offer above to establish the context about B2B sales.
2. Make a list of the mistakes your clients make when facing a decision to change. What information are they missing that leads them to make these mistakes? Organize this with supporting data so you can educate your clients and enable them to make a good decision.
3. Make a list of the insights you have acquired by selling into an industry. If you struggle with this assignment, sit down with a couple of peers who might be interested in sharing what they have learned about the industry. You can share your company’s insights, including common client problems and the root causes that lead them to fail to produce the results they are trying to improve.

I have always used an executive briefing in a first meeting simply because I want to be an advisor from the moment I walk in the front door. I don’t want to waste a first meeting by seeming to have a lower status than my competitors. By starting the conversation in the context of the decision the client will make later, I position myself to be their advisor.

If you are a salesperson who wants to become your client’s advisor, make certain you do the work you find in this article.

If you are a sales leader and want higher win rates, spend time enabling your sales teams to show up as advisors rather than average salespeople. Do good work, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

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