How to Win Deals in B2B Sales: Strategies for Creating Value and Becoming Consultative

Unlock the secrets to winning more B2B sales deals by mastering the art of creating value and adopting a consultative approach.

You don’t win deals by trying to win deals. When you try to position your company as the right partner for your client, you score no points from your contacts. When you attempt to prove your solution is the best in class, beating all others, you are no closer to winning the client’s relationship and their business. These attempts to win the client make it more likely that you’ll lose the opportunity.

If you want to win deals, you have to do something different than trying to prove to your client that they should buy from you. The only way you win deals is by doing several things designed to cause the client to choose you over your competitors. Without these outcomes, you will struggle to win your client and their business.

How to Create Value in Sales

When we talk about creating value for your prospective client, we are describing the education we provide them in the sales conversation. Instead of talking up your company, your clients, and your solutions, you provide your contacts with what they need to know to solve their problem and ensure they succeed in acquiring their desired outcomes. The reason you need to be One-Up is that you have the insights, information, and experience that will allow you to know what your client needs to move forward toward their goals.

You will score points for creating value for your prospective clients. Done well, you will gain an advantage over the many competitors who have no real understanding of creating value. Many salespeople still use outdated sales approaches that cause their contacts to look elsewhere for a better salesperson.

Benefits of a Consultative Sales Approach

If you ask salespeople if they are consultative, they will suggest they are. When you ask them what makes them consultative, they will mumble something about asking good questions and avoiding any pressure tactics or manipulation. While good questions are important, it is also important that you don’t use any strategies or tactics that would cause your contacts not to trust you. None of this has anything to do with being consultative.

Your prospective client is making a rare, strategic, important decision to make a significant change in their business. There are a lot of things you can talk about, but the only thing that makes you consultative is telling your client what they need to do. If you want to assess how consultative you are, in your next meeting with a prospective client, count the number of times you offer your contacts your advice and recommendations.

You sell every day, but your contact rarely makes this type of decision. They appreciate the value you create and the advice that improves their ability to succeed. You are not likely to have any B2B sales training that will prepare you to lead your clients through their change initiative.

Developing Expertise on the Client’s Problem

It is almost certain you know more about your solution than you do about your client’s problems. Your contacts want an expert and authority on their problems. In the future, you will notice that those with the expertise will win big, while others struggle to reach their sales goals or their targets. This isn’t your parent’s sales environment. Their environment was all about the solution. In a time when everyone has a solution that might work for the client, you are better off increasing your expertise on the client’s problems.

You are most likely to improve your expertise on the problem by looking at what your contacts and their task force are doing to cause them to have several problems that prevent them from being able to produce the results they are chasing. This approach is levels greater than what an average salesperson, one that isn’t aware of what the client must change to solve their problem, can achieve.

Importance of Understanding the Client’s Decision-Making Process

There are a small number of sales organizations with expertise on the client’s decision-making. For the next couple of decades, this is what you will need to do to succeed in B2B sales. The sales organizations that choose a transactional sales methodology will lose deals to salespeople who focus on helping the client with getting their decision right. Because the client needs to get the decision right the first time, having an expert to guide the client’s decision-making is helpful.

One way to think about decision-making is that your client would make the decision you would make if your contact asked you to make the decision for them. By creating value, using a truly consultative sales approach, and having expertise on the client’s problems and their decision-making, you increase your ability to win deals.

If you are a sales leader, before leaving this article, assess your sales force as it pertains to their ability to create value for their clients, how consultative they are when sitting across from their clients, and their expertise on the problems and decision-making of their clients.

If you are a salesperson, you may want to bookmark this article and do the work to be able to provide the client with the experience that will cause them to prefer to buy from you.

Do good work, and we’ll see you here tomorrow.