Sales consultants are crucial in addressing prospects’ inquiries at the bottom of the sales funnel. They take a proactive approach, focusing on converting these qualified leads into customers.
In today’s rapidly evolving market, where consumers have access to abundant information, new roles have emerged to meet changing demands and enhance the buyer’s journey. To provide clarity on this topic, we’ve compiled a comprehensive guide explaining the role of a sales consultant and their place within the sales team. Let’s dive in!
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What is a sales consultant?
Consumer habits have been changing rapidly and systematically in recent years, in line with digital transformation, which facilitates and dictates the pace of today’s buyers. Before making a purchase, customers now conduct extensive online research, comparing products, prices, and conditions and reading reviews.
While this behaviour is particularly noticeable in B2C markets, B2B customers also adopt this proactive approach. They seek relevant information about potential partners before, during, and after closing a deal. It’s crucial to recognise that Customer Success extends beyond the point of conversion.
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The sales consultant’s role becomes crucial once a lead is ready to consider purchasing. In complex transactions with longer sales cycles, the consultant steps in to guide the potential customer through the decision-making process.
In other words, the sales consultant will work closely with the future client, answering their questions, helping the consumer along the final path of the purchasing journey and building a path that is conducive to closing the deal.
Therefore, they need to be aligned with the needs and problems of the target audience, focused on creating and strengthening the relationship between the company and the consumer.
From this perspective, it is possible to say that the sales consultant is an “evolution” of the salesperson position, which requires a complete view of the client’s situation.
The sales consultant must be fed with information by the marketing and pre-sales teams – covering everything from the lead’s entry into the sales funnel to its current moment.
READ MORE: What is a Sales Funnel? Stages and How to Build an Effective Sales Funnel
What does a sales consultant do?
You might wonder what role a sales consultant plays in the purchasing process. The professional’s daily work is comprehensive, studying the target audience and consumer journey. They are responsible for making a complete diagnosis of the client’s market.
This study will provide insights into the audience’s needs, pain points and desires. In addition, the diagnosis obtained by the sales consultant also covers opportunities and improvements in the negotiation process that can boost flows and exchanges between the company and its prospects.
It’s also worth noting that the sales consultant is responsible for qualifying the sales team. This brings up an important question: what distinguishes a sales consultant from a salesperson?
Sales consultant vs. salesperson: What are the differences?
While a salesperson’s primary goal is to close deals, a sales consultant takes a different approach. They focus on deeply understanding the customer and their business environment. This creates a favourable situation that can ultimately facilitate sales.
A sales consultant is someone who connects with potential customers. They focus on consultative selling, diagnosing the customer’s problem before making a sale. This approach helps them convert prospects into clients.
A sales consultant is adaptable and focuses on finding the best solution for each client. They study the client’s needs, leverage their market knowledge, and aim to recommend the most suitable investment or product.
Sales consultants can also be separated into internal and external, who have different actions, but who work in harmony to optimise the customer journey and make the sales process more profitable for the company.
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What types of sales consultants are available on the market?
Having defined the role of a sales consultant, let’s examine the most common types in the industry.
Internal sales consultant
The internal sales consultant focuses on attracting new customers and managing internal sales. In other words, this professional is responsible for prospecting new opportunities, studying and determining the ideal customer profile (ICP), sending commercial proposals, etc. In this sense, the internal sales consultant has the obligation to be the bridge between the sales and marketing teams, focusing on sales strategies and working on all customer relations and service.
External sales consultant
This role focuses more on closing deals than an internal consultant does. The external consultant:
- Visits clients to complete sales processes initiated earlier.
- Uses consultative selling techniques like SPIN (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff).
- Conducts external prospecting and relationship-building activities.
- Performs market analysis.
Unlike internal consultants who build relationships within the company, external consultants primarily work with clients outside the organisation.
Why hire a sales consultant?
A sales consultant brings value to your business through their communication skills and market knowledge. They use these abilities to help your company close sales more effectively.
Furthermore, based on consumer behaviour, seeking information before closing the purchase prevents the same customer from seeking another source of information, meeting all needs while still trying to guarantee the final action.
The sales consultant is also able to observe a company’s entire process in a broad and optimised way. He is also responsible for researching, learning, and inserting market trends, actively working to create an action model more efficiently and effectively.
In this way, sales consultants can significantly reduce company costs. For example, unprofitable or time-consuming sales approaches can be replaced by others that are more relevant to the target audience. In this sense, sales time is also shortened since the sales consultant can observe the customer’s real needs and avoid rough edges in the process.
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After gathering all this information and learning, an action plan is designed to help your sales team in their daily work. In addition, as mentioned earlier, the sales consultant is responsible for actively prospecting customers, which is also a market trend due to growing competition.
Also, a sales consultant correctly qualifies your company’s leads, cleaning the base by identifying the contacts most likely to close a deal. Thus, you avoid wasting time and money on prospecting that will probably not be converted into a sale at that time.
From this broad vision and growing relationship, the professional consultant can have an in-depth understanding of the client’s needs and, as a result, offer the best and most profitable solution, negotiating the best terms and values.
READ MORE: 5 Sales Skills Every Rep Needs To Master Right Now
3 signs that show you need a sales consultant
Not yet convinced about the value of a sales consultant for your company? Consider these additional reasons to seek the right professional for your business:
1. Difficulty in prospecting or retaining customers
Prospecting new customers is a more expensive process for a company than retaining an existing customer. Therefore, it is essential that your business has a person focused on the relationship and retention of this audience.
2. Low productivity of the sales team
Your sales team might need help with effective strategies, such as focusing on leads who aren’t ready to convert or misunderstanding your business’s buyer personas. If these issues sound familiar, you need a sales consultant. They can guide your team toward the right audience, improve prospecting techniques, and refine your overall sales approach.
3. Lack of processes or difficulty in monitoring actions
If your sales processes and internal organisation lack clarity, your team may struggle to find, nurture, and close deals effectively. This is where a sales consultant becomes valuable. They can analyse and optimise these processes, designing clear steps to guide your sales team toward success.
READ MORE: 9 Sales KPIs Every Sales Team Should Be Tracking
Did you enjoy learning more about Sales Consultants?
Our blog and Resource Centre are always up to date with news and content about CRM and sales. Below, we suggest other readings that may be useful to you:
- How To Make a Good Sales Pitch: 9 Tips
- 50 Sales Statistics that Reveal How Great Teams Sell
- What Is Sales Reporting? Steps and Tips for Success
- What is Sales Projection?
Take the opportunity to check out all the features of Sales Cloud and understand how our CRM transforms your sales routine. Good work, and see you next time!
