Progressive Distributor - Consultant, sell thyself

Consultant, sell thyself

by

Just a few short years ago, distributors were complaining that they were having trouble getting their salespeople to switch from being product peddlers to adopting a more consultative sales approach. The good news is many of todays distributor salespeople have managed the transition well. Customers are learning to value the salesperson turned consultant.

The bad news is, since very few distributors (if any) have changed their pricing models to keep up with their new model of selling, distributors may soon head down a road they hadnt expected to travel.

In his article Consultative selling and the road to poverty, Scott Benfield makes a convincing argument that the consultative sales approach in which salespeople give away their valuable product, process and applications knowledge in an effort to make a product sale has done more harm than good.

Benfield believes that by bundling unique services into commodity products, distributors have essentially commoditized their service offerings. Customers identify the distributor with the commodity, not the service.

The sales-driven nature of most distributors must change from selling products (or consulting for them) to marketing unique services, Benfield says.

When I talk with distributors about the industry changing from being product-centric to becoming more service focused, I rarely find anyone who disagrees. If I ask them if they charge for their services, however, most admit its something theyve thought about but havent gotten around to doing.

Some are unsure which services to unbundle; some are afraid that customers wont be willing to pay for services they have traditionally received for free. Others worry about what will happen if they put a price on a service that the competition continues to give away.

As Benfields story indicates, there are no easy answers to those concerns, and distributors will likely continue to offer certain services to customers at no charge. But the sooner you start to think about the unique services your company can offer customers and which of those services you can sell outright the sooner you can get a leg up on your competition.