There have been a few attempts to methodologize a more "consultative approach" to Sales, notably SPIN Selling, Strategic Selling and Solution Selling.
The last of these has been the most successful, and interestingly it was cooked up by a tech. support guy, Mike Bosworth, who was "persuaded" to try his hand at Sales.
The last of these has been the most successful, and interestingly it was cooked up by a tech. support guy, Mike Bosworth, who was "persuaded" to try his hand at Sales.
I have tried to summarize the essence of Solutions Selling here: http://dailykibitz.blogspot.com/2009/01/distillation-of-solu... and have just released a product, bSelling, intended to support this kind of approach: http://dailykibitz.blogspot.com/2009/03/first-web-based-prod...