What B2B Sales Approach Drives Explosive Growth with Today’s Buyers?

 

I often have leaders share what they believe to be the best sales methodology for B2B sales. They aim to enhance sales effectiveness, address common sales challenges, and profitably expand revenue and market share. So they ask, “What is the best sales methodology for B2B sales today?”

My response often surprises clients and prospects coming to me for help. I believe that all the various sales methods have some value, and if used in the right sales environments, circumstances, and applied to your industry, they will add value. In my experience, I have found that effective training design is crucial in ensuring retention and application. The training design I have experienced the best client results with is referred to as spaced, stacked learning. You can learn more about training best practices in my eBook, Sales Training Reimagined.

I am sales method agnostic when I train sales teams. I do, for example, favor SPIN over The Machine. Yes. I believe the key is that the sales skills and process you use to train your sales team should be designed to address the skills gaps you have identified through a formal sales skills assessment. As I share in my book, Driving Explosive Growth, I have achieved the most profitable growth outcomes by prescribing sales skills and coaching training that fills skills gaps and incorporates scenario-based practice tailored to your industry and processes. If you are training a team of new salespeople who have never sold before, you will need sales foundations skills training. I recommend that the training you choose focuses on human-to-human sales, rather than sales manipulation techniques or tricks that may quickly win orders but ultimately harm long-term relationships and your brand. I refer to this type of sales training as sales porn.

What are the common questions that clients and prospects want to ask me to improve sales?

If we were to find the most effective B2B sales method based on current buyer needs and behaviors, what would it be?

What are the top sales approaches salespeople use, and is there one that improves close rates more than others?

What sales motions and behaviors do decision makers value today based on their buying process and desired outcomes?

What is my opinion on video-based sales training without application?

If we remove our personal biases, what does the data show is the best sales training?

I agree with Gartner’s research and related articles that identify three core approaches that B2B salespeople use to engage customers with information:

The Three Seller Approaches

• Giving: The “more is better” model—sharing lots of collateral, data, specs, features, and benefits upon customer request (information‑heavy). Before the internet and buyers researching solutions online, this was a widespread approach. As salespeople, we were the keepers of the information keys, so to speak. Decision-makers met with salespeople to become educated and guided toward a solution. If a customer wants to explore new products and services but has not yet done their research, a salesperson should conduct a discovery and educate them.
• Telling: An expert‑led approach where the rep relies on personal authority or experience to guide decisions (trusted voice). Here, we have salespeople understanding common, unresolved market challenges by industry and persona, and sharing how we help decision-makers solve their problems. More focused than Giving, but now attempting to verify the customer has problems, challenges, and constraints we have seen others like them experience. We often find that these decision-makers have conducted online research and may have met with competitors, as well as asked for referrals within their network. A salesperson must quickly understand where the decision maker is and what they have done so far, and ask questions that demonstrate competency and build trust.
• Consultative “Sense Making”: A consultative sales model ( that I train teams to use by the way) where the salespeople assess, sense, if you will, with discovery questions where the decision maker is in their buying journey, then coach them and collaborate to make the best solution. This model helps the buyer make sense of existing, often conflicting information, prioritizing sources, clarifying trade-offs, and guiding customers to their understanding. This method requires a great deal more sales skills, empathy, collaboration, and facilitation skills, as well as emotional intelligence and market, industry, and competitive intelligence, than other approaches. Here, the salesperson evolves from another ep to an industry expert masquerading as a salesperson. They must possess strong skills to understand where the customer is, what the desired outcome is, and develop solutions tailored to the customer.

According to Gartner’s survey:

• While 89% of B2B buyers find most of the information they encounter to be high quality, too much of it—especially contradictory—makes decision‑making harder and leads to downgraded deals.
• Customers overwhelmed by high‑quality information are 153% more likely to settle for smaller or less disruptive options.
• Notably, 80% of sellers who employed the consultative Sense-Making approach closed high-quality, low-regret deals, significantly outperforming those who used the Giving or Telling approaches.

What Is the Consultative Sense-Making Method?

At its core, Consultative “Sense Making” is about being a trusted guide (trusted advisor) through the information overload. We guide our customers through all the necessary information, address their questions, and assist them with design applications until they achieve their desired outcome, tailored to their specific circumstances. Instead of inundating or directing, the salesperson actively helps the buyer make the best decision that drives their desired outcomes.

Research shows that buyers today are self-serving, seeking a faster and better sales experience than what they have experienced with salespeople. We should not be surprised that decision makers have had bad experiences with untrained salespeople. Although most salespeople have received product training, less than 50% have received formal sales skills training. Decision-makers have completed over 70% of the sales process before speaking with someone today, and the number of people choosing to self-serve is increasing.

What does the Consultative Sense-Making process look like fundamentally? ( break it down)

• Connect: Quickly build rapport, build trust, and demonstrate competence. Diagnose what information the customer needs, then curate and deliver relevant tools or sources to fill gaps.
• Clarify: Simplify complexity by filtering and reframing information, reconciling conflicting data, and highlighting key insights.
• Collaborate: Work alongside the customer to evaluate quality, weigh trade-offs, and help them construct their understanding and draw their conclusions.
• Propose Collaborative Solution: Develop a proposal with a strong business case and ROI tied to the customers’ desired outcomes. By working with decision-makers who become internal client champions, we co-create a solution.
• Close and Serve: Ask for the order, develop, and manage the service process. Here, you also need skills in handling objections and negotiations.

It’s a mindset and continuous customer-facing behavior, not just a one-off tactic, and it builds confidence while reducing skepticism.

What Are the Steps / Behaviors in a Consultative Sense-Making Approach? ( break it down even more into steps we need to follow ) 

Drawing on Gartner’s guidance for sales leaders and my experience helping sales teams for 40 years, the operational steps are:

1. Diagnose:
   • Understand the customer’s “buying job”—what they’re trying to accomplish, problem to solve.
   • Anticipate information dysfunctions: overwhelm, contradictions, missing context.
   • Identify the type of intervention best suited to the customer’s needs.
   • Where are they in the buying process
   • What steps have they already taken
   • Who have they already spoken to
   • What have they already tried

2. Connect:
   • Provide only the most relevant, curated information based on their diagnosed needs.
   • Avoid overwhelming customers by filtering and prioritizing content.
   • Build trust and competence by the nature of your relevant questions.
   • Strategically build business relationships with all decision-makers and influencers
3. Clarify:
   • Help the customer reconcile conflicting or complex information.
   • Break down complexity and coordinate disparate insights into coherent structures.
   • Confirm desired outcomes.
4. Collaborate:
   • Engage with the customer in evaluating the information’s credibility and relevance.
   • Guide them toward forming an informed perspective and decision.
   • Facilitate creative thinking and strategic planning with decision-makers and influencers.
   • Develop an internal champion.

What Sales Skills Are Required for Effective Consultative Sense Making?

To successfully employ the Sense Making approach, Gartner identifies a set of skills—centered on mentalizing—plus broader competencies in modern selling.

According to their 2024 seller competency framework, top-performing sellers combine:

Mentalizing Skills (to understand and adapt to the buyer’s perspective)  

• Active listening: Being fully present, using probing follow‑ups, seeking missing context.
• Perspective taking: Seeing issues from the buyer’s viewpoint—cognitively walking in their shoes.
• Empathy: Reading emotional cues, anticipating hesitations or fears, and responding adaptively.
• Cognitive decoding: Synthesizing insights, inferring unspoken motivations, and adjusting engagement strategies.

Related Competencies

• Tactical flexibility: Ability to adapt sales approaches dynamically to different buyer situations (increases quota attainment by 3.4 times)  .
• AI partnership: Leveraging technology to help curate, analyze, and surface insights efficiently (boosts quota attainment by 3.7 times) .
• Critical Thinking, Problem Solving Strong Figure it out Factor: Skills at assessing the situation, all the information, often with conflicting views and shaping it into the right solution for their customers.

 

A few Questions to help you self-diagnose your sales team’s Consultative Sense-Making skills are below.

Do your salespeople have strong consultative sales skills?

Do your salespeople understand the strengths and weaknesses of your top three competitors?

Are your salespeople able to ask strong discovery questions to determine where decision-makers are in their sales process?

Have your salespeople received training in designing and presenting a business case?

Does your sales team have a strong understanding of industry trends and challenges, as well as the skills to address them effectively?

How skilled are your salespeople at storytelling?

Do your salespeople understand business acumen?

Have your salespeople demonstrated critical thinking and problem-solving skills?

Do your salespeople possess the skills to facilitate meetings with decision-makers and influencers and develop consensus on a specific solution?

 

In practice, sellers using a Consultative “sense-making” approach act as an information guide, a sales sherpa, if you will, detecting the right customer needs, delivering curated insights, simplifying complex data, and working alongside buyers to co-create clarity. This approach fosters confidence, minimizes skepticism, and is strongly linked to higher-quality deals.

Let’s schedule a call to discuss how we can shorten your sales cycle and improve your close rates in B2B sales with a Consultative, sense-making approach.