When you’re looking for a particular product, and speak with a salesperson who seems genuinely interested in your needs, it can be extremely refreshing. It can be a big relief to be able to voice your concerns out loud to the person you’re doing business with. It’s as if that long interior monologue you’ve been having with yourself during the drive over, concerning what you’re looking for, why you need it, as well as all the possible variables that you want to keep in mind while you’re looking, is suddenly out in the open, and someone is asking you the same questions you’ve been answering for yourself. You can actually get the exact perfect thing you were looking for, because the salesperson took the time to find out what you actually wanted.
In this business model, part of its effectiveness comes from the fact that you did know what you were looking for, but had certain questions about the specifics, and really needed the salesperson there to help you narrow down your options to find the perfect fit. This is the model Steve Barbarich in his enterprises, and it’s called consultative selling . It means that the salesperson is focused entirely on the customer’s needs, and then finds the best way to meet those needs, for the mutual benefit of both parties. Satisfied customers come back, and also tell their friends when they’ve had a good experience.
This model is proving to be very effective today, because it saves a lot of time further down the road, as well as saving bitterness, from a customer who was talked into buying something they didn’t want, and certainly didn’t need. Just a few years ago, the usual model for selling was focused on the product. It was the salesperson’s job to talk up the product, and often this lead to extreme claims, exaggeration, or other kinds of manipulations that generally lead a bad taste in people’s mouths. The consultative approach takes the focus back to the customer, and good salespeople have known intuitively for generations that this is where the focus should have been all along.