AFFLINK, a leading sales and marketing organization for the professional cleaning industry, has identified four “core benefits” of consultative selling that are often missed or overlooked when distributors use traditional sales processes.

 Consultative selling is a sales strategy that places emphasis on the salesperson becoming a consultant to his clients. 

 The process is intended to assist customers, such as facility managers and building service contractors (BSCs), to better understand and address their customer’s needs and cleaning challenges. 

 The four core benefits of consultative selling are:

1. It allows the distributor to serve the customer, not just sell them

2. The customer has a better understanding of their own cleaning and maintenance needs

3. Distributors build their businesses by satisfying customer needs

4. It establishes a “tone of helpfulness” that fosters trust.

While all four benefits are significant, the second one — helping end-customers and facility managers better understand their own cleaning and maintenance needs — is possibly the most important.

 Many end-customers are not always exactly sure what their needs are.

Positioning the salesperson as a consultant allows distributors to take the time to listen, and then access new analytical tools to address the customers’ specific cleaning needs. This makes the entire [sales] process so much more valuable for the customer.

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