Consumers and prospects these days are less interested in sales pitches, maybe more than ever before. These days, your prospects are too busy for sales pitches, too strapped for cash, and are juggling lots of responsibilities.

They’re no longer interested in the proverbial sales guy ready to walk through their door and show them the next, best vacuum cleaner on the market.

These days, people want, and need, advice. So, read on to discover how you can stop selling, and start advising.

1. Understand Your Client

The worst thing you could do, for yourself and for your prospect, is to start a business-related discussion and be completely disinterested in their business, their needs, and their goals. Showing a lack of interest and only a desire to sell is an immediate turnoff for any potential client.

Instead, ask questions. Lots of questions. Learn about them. What do they like? Dislike? Why?

Bottom line? Care about your client, their business, their life, and their goals for the future. Take a stake in their livelihood and their goals for the future.

2. Put Yourself in Their Shoes

Stop thinking about making a sale. Stop viewing prospects in terms of dollar signs, sales quotas, and other items or statistics that scream “Me, Me, Me.”

It’s time you start thinking about “Them, them, them.”

Take into account all the information you learned by previously asking questions. Start thinking about what you would do and what you would need if you were in their position.

• How do their particular challenges and goals make them feel?
• What particular problems do they face?
• What would you do to handle those problems?

3. Give Solid Advice

Now that you’ve started to understand your potential client, and you’ve thought about what it might be like to be in their shoes, it’s time to assess that information and formulate a strategy on how to proceed from here.

Even though you’ve laid the foundation of a great relationship between yourself and your prospect up to this point, now is when it really begins to surface.

This is the time where you can demonstrate to your potential client that you’ve listened to their needs, put yourself in their position, and now you are able to offer a solution to their problems. Suggestions. Recommendations.

It’s no longer about dollars, statistics, sales, or anything else numeric.

Now, it’s human. Now, it’s about connection. It’s about developing a relationship.

Offer solid suggestions that YOU would have no problem doing yourself, if you were truly in their situation.

Truly understanding your clients and their unique needs is a key step in building a longstanding, mutually beneficial partnership.

Think about what’s best for them and, in time, what’s best for you will come.

So, stop selling! Start advising and watch your relationships, partners, clients, customers, and ultimately, your business, prosper.