Consultative Selling/Mac Hanan 10-13

13 By equipping its customer's sales force with their own cost-benefit analyses and training them to sell consultatively, suppliers like Honeywell can help create cash flow that they would never otherwise be able to effect and can partner with their OEMs in sharing the benefits.

 

...suppliers who are low on a value chain can extend their reach to end users to whom the value added to highest and whose gains are greatest.

 

Consultative Selling makes time the customer's enemy. Delay works against the customer because it increases the opportunity cost of not improving profits day by day, weeks by week, and month by month. The longer the customer delays, the greater the cost. Once a revenue improvement or cost reduction is available, the customer must begin to flow it into operations or it is lost, either in whole or in part.

 

The internal pressures to improve profits provides customers with a strong incentive to close proposals.