Consultative Selling
One of the foundations of consultative selling is listening more than you speak, or certainly, at least, at first. Instead of the one shot sales call, where the salesperson is supposed to introduce themselves and launch right into the sales presentation, the consultative approach involved being more of a consultant, almost a partner, resulting in a sales process that involves two separate meetingsÐone to find out enough about the account to find out about the accounts needs and goals, and a second a few days later where you return with a formal recommendation of how you can help him meet these goals. The two meeting approach does a few things for you.

First, the customer and yourself can feel comfortable that you won't be trying to sell them on the first meeting. This usually results in the customer being more relaxed and open. Just the fact that you leave after the first sales call not having tried to sell them makes your second meeting seem less of a sales presentation and more like a recommendation.

Second, you get to collect all this information on the first sales call and go away and think about what the account told you about his business and create a customized presentation, including a spec ad, based on his particular business. This makes an infinitely stronger presentation than if you walked in cold and started selling immediately.

And thirdly, just the process of asking questions and then taking the answers into consideration when you present your recommendations will show the account that you truly do care enough about the account to learn about it, building a huge amount of rapport in the process.

You're going to meet salespeople who will try to sell all in one sales call because it seems faster. But even in the course of a couple of weeks, although making two sales calls on an account seems to take longer, you'll find that you'll not only close more sales, but the sales will be closer to what you hoped for in terms of ad size, frequency, and long-term maintenance of the account.