The April issue of Agency Sales featured an article on the subject of consultative selling. Overall, the article highlighted positives inherent in this approach to working with customers. That article prompted a letter to the editor that took issue with some of the views in the article. In turn, that letter prompted a response on the subject of consultative selling from former MANA President and CEO Joe Miller. That letter and Miller’s response follow.
Dear Sir,
Interesting set of articles and discussions about so-called consultative selling this month. However I think the terminology is misleading. It should be called “free-loading selling,” or “customer-mooching selling.” The bottom line is that buyers have gotten smarter and sellers dumber. Buyers use sales professionals as free consulting services to extract the most information and expertise out of us. Oftentimes they don’t feel any necessity to purchase from the person or organization that helped solve their problems. They go out for multiple bids and demand outrageous discounts despite the fact we have spent hours of time and expertise helping them do what they don’t have the knowledge or resources to figure out for themselves. The irony of it all is that the buyers have completely sold the salespeople on the idea of giving away all their help for free, with no tangible reward at the end of the process.
Those of us involved in any kind of machinery or process equipment selling regularly find ourselves dealing with technical people to develop the application and then the buying is handed over to purchasing personnel who have no knowledge of the equipment or complexity of the process. They have no problem with giving the work to lower bidders who have no time invested in the selection of equipment and applications assistance that goes into the total process. Most customers don’t even feel the need to pay their bills on time, despite being the recipient of all the free help. The fact is the customers want low price, free consulting, favorable payment terms, great selection, bullet-proof warranty and fast delivery — but they don’t want to pay for any of it.
How many of you also run into a situation where the customer is working with a consultant because they don’t want to deal with “just a salesman” and the highly paid consultant who doesn’t have a clue about your equipment asks the salesman for help. The consultant gets the $200 an hour for his time and the salesman may get an order if he is lucky and willing to drop his prices against all the other saps who can’t or won’t charge for their time and expertise.
I note that most of your articles are written by consultants or people who don’t make their living every day out in the trenches. The bottom line is our principals want sales, they want us to move product. We don’t get commission on free information giveaways, or feel-good relationship building. They want results. Calling it “consultative selling” is just a euphemism for enabling customers to bully us and is one of the main reasons many young people don’t want to get into the profession. There is still no substitute for knowing your product, working hard and closing hard and above all don’t waste too much time with non-decision makers, find out who the movers and shakers are and direct your attention to them. Sales is an honorable and lucrative profession, we don’t need to be labeled as consultants. A wiser man than I once said, “Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach. That neatly sums up the difference between a salesman and a consultant.
Robert Jamieson, President
Forward Precision Tools + Machinery
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
