Fundamentals of Selling 13th Edition by Charles Futrell

Exercise 7

As a business consultant, the salesperson gives advice and service. The salesperson uses internal and external resources to gain an understanding of the customer's business and marketplace.
Customers are under great pressure to grow their sales and profits. Their time is valuable. Often prospective customers do not have time to educate salespeople about their organization. Today they expect salespeople to arrive at the very first meeting prepared to discuss some of the deeper issues surrounding the customer's organization and its needs. Because customers have many suppliers wanting to sell to them, they are impatient with salespeople who are unable to quickly demonstrate that they are knowledgeable business professionals and not simply persuasive "peddlers."
This is one of the greatest challenges salespeople face today. To add value for their customers, salespeople need to know a significant amount about the customer's business at the start of every sales interaction. They have to be prepared when they first walk in the prospective customer's door.
Would you hand a stranger your wallet or purse and let him or her go through your personal items Would you show a stranger your bank statement Would you tell the stranger all about your personal finances Would you let a stranger come into your home or apartment and go through everything That is what many salespeople face when just starting to sell a customer. They often must collect confidential information and data before being able to make purchase recommendations. Several of the things that help salespeople become business consultants are
Continually strengthening their business knowledge.
Today's salespeople need to be experts on a wide range of topics in order to be considered a business consultant by their customers. This requires information.