Being a Trusted Advisor

Trusted Advisor: the term is to consulting business as cat videos is to the internet.

Every sales personnel or consultant in the business aspires to build a relationship with their customer or client; a relationship that is built not merely based on their subject-expertise but something beyond that. What is that something? How can you be that professional who your clients and customers consider a trusted advisor?

It all comes down to how you drive your conversation with your customers or prospective customers. The key to driving this dialog successfully is by slowing down the urge to try an figure out what solution/product/service a certain customer would find valuable from your portfolio. The moment you have this figured out; it is very natural to push that solution to the customer. This is the very same moment the customer categories you among the rest of the noise has heard from other consulting partners. This is so; because it is a self centric approach and even if you close the deal you'd have done an arm's length transaction; and that is nowhere close to trusted advisorship

The scenario is entirely different if you could keep the self orientation under control. Allow the customer to speak about the problems they face or the needs they want to address. Most entrepreneurs get this right while they pitch their startup or idea; they start with the problem/need they are addressing in a certain market. The brilliance in technology used to solve the problem, how large the market is, what their patents and IPs are; can all wait. The pitch is valuable only if the problem is well understood.

As an advisor you'll have to probe well enough into the unique problem they face. The more you let the customer speak about the problem uninterrupted the better. Follow this up with questions that uncovers the underlying needs to understand all tenets of the situation. The method is as Steven Covey puts it "Seek first to understand and then to be understood”.

While you explore all aspects of the customers situation, it is important that you share your experience of what you see in the industry and with similar businesses. This is to bring to light that you're invested in the same space where their problems live and you're familiar with the not just one but probably several solutions for the problem. The customer will also trust your judgement when you allow them to collaborate and co-create the solution.

There's a thing or two to learn if you pay attention to how contact center support employees do this; at least some of the finest ones. They demonstrate how invested they're in fixing the problem the problem you face, with absolutely no hint of their agenda of dealing with their internal metrics. They build credibility by talking of their experience fixing similar issues and share information whether it is a common issue happening with the product or service or update you're calling about. Reinforce your confidence by guaranteeing that they'd flex every muscle of company they represent on your behalf to fix the issue you're dealing with if need be. Finally when they've the issue sorted out, they say "We've fixed it!" giving you a sense of having been a part of the solving it.

This way you're setting yourself apart form everyone else attempting to categorise the problem and toss one of the solutions out of the portfolio. You'll no longer have to qualify or compete for budgets.

After all, your customers don't just buy the solution, they buy the story they get to tell themselves.

Originally published on LinkedIn