With both the public and commercial sectors facing an ongoing shortage of confidence and large cuts in spending budgets, and competition getting more intense every day, B2B salespeople are operating in a climate that is more challenging than ever before.

As a consequence of these external challenges, senior clients are making the sales process a lot more difficult and much longer for B2B sales executives.

Buying decisions are being commoditised and purchased based on price…or they are being considered as strategic decisions and are being made at a far more senior level, regardless of the size of business.

If sales professionals are to gain strategic and lucrative business, they need to sell more proactively and at more senior levels. But senior people hate being sold products. They prefer a proactive consultative sale that delivers real business value, ROI and quick benefits in terms of profit.

Consequently, conventional selling techniques, such as Feature Advantage Benefit (FAB) sales, are dead. Traditional sales professionals need to adapt their selling techniques and evolve their selling skills in the process. Consultative selling is the only way forward, even when dealing with small companies.

But senior decision-makers are even less attainable in today's environment because they are hoping to do well in a far more complex world and there’s a lot of sales professionals out there trying to take up their time to ask them useless questions or let them know about the latest great product.

Individuals in a B2B sales position in today's climate will need to be much more intelligent if they’re going to succeed. If they can’t be smarter, they will need to work smarter. They have to build practical and repeatable sales tools and consultative selling skills – whether they are selling products, services or a complex combination of the two.