Sales Consultant Training – What You Need To Learn

Nov 20, 2019

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Sales consultant training is crucial for not only new Sales Consultants, but also for seasoned consultants who want to refresh their sales process, and even learn new skills and ideas.

Consulting can be a very lucrative career; because if you know your industry and craft well, the opportunities are endless.

In this article, we’ll explore:

The upfront requirements to be a successful sales consultant
How to position yourself as a specialist
The various aspects of sales consultant training, to ensure you’re successful in your field

Sales Consultant Training – What You Need To Learn

Requirements To Be A Successful Sales Consultant

The first part of your sales consultant training should be understanding and having clarity on what’s required to be successful as a sales consultant.

Consulting; although lucrative, can also be very competitive.

There are a number of key things you’ll need to focus on to ensure you’re successful. These are:

Having a business owner mindset; versus an employee mindset
Pick a niche that you want to serve and sell to
Know your ideal audience
Have lead generation systems
Implement your sales process
Understand the various sales methodologies, and choose what works
Consistently deliver results
A system for referrals

We’ve written an in-depth article to teach you how to reach all of the points shared above.

To learn how, read the related article below:

Sales Consultant Training – How To Position Yourself As A Specialist

Another important and vital tip in your sales consultant training, is your positioning strategy.

Having been a part of literally thousands of sales meetings and presentations, salespeople generally approach their sales with this approach:

They say hello, and build some basic rapport
Present their products or services
They ask if there are any questions, and meekly ask for the sale
Objection handling, and then again – ask for the sale

Although this may be common practice, this approach will keep you at a mediocre level at best and positions you as just another commodity.

A commodity is a person or product that is common place; that they can get anywhere.

Being positioned as a commodity, will mean that you won’t stick out with your potential clients; and you may even encourage them to price shop on your offer.

A specialist on the other hand, is a person who positions themselves as an authority.

Instead of presenting their products or services upfront, they diagnose the situation, issues, pain points, and learn what it is their potential clients ideally want to achieve.

They then prescribe what’s needed, and clearly identify how their product or service will help them overcome their pain points and serve their goals.

An important part of your sales consultant training should be switching from the usual commodity stance, to that of a specialist approach instead.

The Aspects Of Your Sales Consultant Training

Although there are various forms of sales consultant training; from in person workshops to online programs and courses, a vital part of your sales consultant training should be to follow a systematised process.

A sales process is a step by step road map that you can follow, that gives both you and your potential clients certainty; and if they are in fact qualified – will help you win the sale.

Certainty is crucial for sales success; not only does it allow rapport and trust to build, but it also puts you in the driver’s seat of the sales conversation.

People like to be led by competent people; and the same is true in sales.

The sales process is key to your sales consultant training, because it allow you to know where you’re at in your sales conversations, rather than just hope and wing it instead.

Your Sales Process

Although there are many types of sales methodologies out there, we teach a process called The 5% Sales Blueprint.

The 5% Sales Blueprint was designed with both the sales professional, and your potential client in mind.

For a sale to be successful, both parties would need to be happy and satisfied, so we created it to accomplish both these outcomes.

The steps in The 5% Sales Blueprint are:

Goal setting for success
Sales psychology – why people buy
The importance of using a sales process
Building rapport
Setting pre-frames
Finding pain
Learning desire and pleasure
Money talk
Presenting
Handling objections
Asking for the sale

Your sales process may be similar or completely different; or perhaps even like the example we used with the average salesperson.

Either way – it’s imperative that you use a trusted sales process if you want to consistently win more sales.

Related article: The Sales Process – A Step By Step Guide

Sales Consultant Training #1 – Prospecting

Once you’ve got your positioning and sales process in line, the next stage of your sales consultant training is learning how to bring in clients; also known as prospecting or lead generation.

There are two kinds of sales prospecting methods.

Inbound Prospecting

Inbound prospecting is the method of setting up lead generation systems, where the leads come to you.

This generally involves setting up a website, landing pages for where people will go to when they click on your offer, and then driving advertising pay per click campaigns to your website or landing page.

To learn how to set up inbound sales methods, also known as sales funnels; check out the link below.

The 5% Client Conversion Formula – Inbound Lead Generation Training

Outbound Prospecting

Outbound prospecting is the method of proactively reaching out to your potential clients.

Prior to starting your outbound lead generation efforts, we recommend you create a sales strategy plan, and well as a marketing plan.

This will help you identify where your potential clients hang out; and how to reach them.

In our sales consultant training, we teach our students in their outbound prospecting activity to reach out by email, and then follow up with a call if need be.

They find emails of their potential clients (who would qualify using the BANT method) on LinkedIn, and then scrape emails using a tool.

To learn how to do this, check out the program below.

Find An Endless Supply Of Leads – Online Program

Sales Consultant Training #2 – Rapport

Rapport is an important part of the sales process, because people buy from people they like and trust.

True rapport is the art of finding commonality between you and your potential client.

As a sales consultant, you may have been taught that rapport is being enthusiastic, cheerful and excited to meet and sell.

What happens though – if your potential client isn’t feeling particularly warm that day?

All of a sudden – you’re nothing alike.

And you’ve just broken rapport.

Rapport consists of using the communication ratio, pacing and leading, and of course – mirroring.

To learn more about rapport, read the related article below.

Sales Consultant Training #3 – Setting Expectations

Setting expectations are another important part of your sales consultant training. At The 5% Institute, we call this a Pre-Frame.

A Pre-Frame is setting up key expectations with your potential client, so that you lead the conversation, create certainty, and know that you’re there to prescribe solutions to their situation.

This does two key things:

It positions you as a Specialist, rather than just another eager salesperson
It eliminates major sales objections

By setting a Pre-Frame, you’re making sure that you’re meeting with key decision makers.

Many sales consultants make the mistake of presenting to people who aren’t decision makers, which results in potential clients saying, “They need to speak with XYZ”.

By using the BANT method for qualification, you can ensure up front that you’re meeting with decision makers.

Secondly in the Pre-Frame you want to let people know that at the end of the conversation; you’d like to know their thoughts on whether you can in fact assist, or whether you can’t.

This ensures you get a definite yes, or definite no.

Finally – you want permission to ask deep diving questions.

Questions are one of the foundational pillars of your sales consultant training.

To learn more about putting together a Pre-Frame, check out the related article below.

Sales Consultant Training #4 – Questions

As mentioned, one of the key pillars of your sales consultant training is asking the right questions.

Questions can come in various forms, and should be asked to do the following:

Learn about their situation
Understand their pain points
Find out their desires and preferred outcome
Move them towards the sale

Finally, you also want to ask questions that help people sell themselves.

Questions that help people sell themselves, are called tie down sales techniques. You can learn more about this method here.

Below, we’ve included a related article to help you learn what kind of consultative questions you should be asking.

Sales Consultant Training #5 – Presenting

As previously mentioned, presenting correctly is an integral part of positioning yourself as a specialist, rather than just another commodity.

As per our article here in Entrepreneur, salespeople generally do something called premature presentation.

This means they have a spray and pray approach; hoping something they say will stick, and that they’ll win the sale.

Instead, when presenting, you should follow a system that bridges the gap of your product or service, to the pain points and desires they have.

This way, you prescribe your product or service; rather than position yourself in a way where you need the sale.

Final Thoughts

There are many other aspects to sales consultant training, as mentioned in this article.

To recap; positioning, sales training, and sales process are all key – and is the difference between a mediocre sales consultant, and a sales consultant who sits in the top 5% of their industry.

To learn the skills and enhance your sales consultant training, apply for The 5% Sales Blueprint here.