What is consultative selling? Consultative selling is providing the products and services that best meets your customer's needs as opposed to using traditional pushy selling selling tactics to get the sale by any means necessary. Using a consultative approach means not selling something to a customer that he does not actually need. It means being honest and upfront about which product or service best meets the requirements of the customer. It means not being manipulative. Consultative selling is doing what's best for the customer and not what's best for you, the salesperson. In other words, if you use a consultative sales approach, you look after your customer's best interest, regardless of what would be the best for yourself (in terms of commission revenue).

Consultative selling has been popularized relatively recently in response to customers upset about pushy salespeople using the hard sell. In response to the general public not trusting pushy salespeople, a new school of thought about selling came about where the salesperson played the role of a "consultant" rather than the traditional salesperson. A consultant doesn't sell something that a client needs and a consultant is seen as a trustworthy business partner. The consultant is there to help the client. That level of trust provides a relationship where the client does what the consultant recommends because the consultant is considered the expert. The customer benefits from the consultant's expertise. Salespeople, realizing this shift in attitudes began to use a consultative approach to selling.

A salesperson that uses a consultative sales approach provides the products or services that best meet the customer's needs. He doesn't push the products or services that give himself the most commission at that moment. Looking out for the customer's best needs doesn't provide immediate benefits for the salesperson. But it does something else. The trust that develops in this type of relationship provides dividends in the future. That customer, being pleased with the salesperson's consultative sales approach, could be a life-long customer because of it. Further, that customer may refer others and the salesperson could get even more business in the future.

Consultative selling practices has grown and become popular recently and many salespeople swear by it. It is a relatively new method of selling and is considered a selling technique that works well.