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Monday, May 15, 2023

How Do Enterprise Software Sales Teams Win Deals? (Part 2 of 4)

This is the second installment in a series of blogs discussing how sales teams win more by demonstrating value through taking a consultative approach. The first blog established how sales teams win more by demonstrating value. This blog was written by Yosen Wang, Analyst. 

The Importance of a Consultative Approach

In order to convince prospects of the value of their solution, sales teams need to effectively assess customer needs and deliberately articulate how their solution can solve those customer needs. In other words, sales teams need to take a consultative approach.

Two pieces of data illustrate how influential a consultative approach can be in whether a sales team wins or loses:

• In 88% of win situations, Clients outperformed their competition in being consultative in their approach to the sales process.
• In contrast, in 76% of losses, Clients were rated lower than the winning vendor on taking a consultative approach.

Consultative approach is also directly linked with value articulation. In situations in which satisfaction with expected value / ROI was rated higher than that of the competition, 89% also rated the sales team’s consultative approach as better than the competition.

How Can Sales Teams be More Consultative?

Taking a consultative approach entails three vital principles: clearly understanding the buyer’s unique needs, carefully demonstrating how their solution’s capabilities meet those needs, and effectively differentiating it from competing solutions.

Click here to read the full case study.