Customer Focused Selling: The Top 6 Tips

Customer Focused Selling Is Here to Stay
Every top-performing sales leader understands that their success is directly tied to their clients’ success. This is the essence of customer focused selling.

But translating a customer-first mindset into concrete sales behaviors is where many teams struggle. What must a salesperson actually do differently to prioritize client needs over quotas or internal agendas?

Our sales rep assessment simulation data reveals that for many teams, the practical application of customer-focused selling remains surprisingly unclear. It’s not enough to say “put the customer first” — salespeople need actionable skills to:

• identify client priorities
• ask the right questions
• align solutions with real business outcomes

An Example of Missing the Client Focus
Consider this scenario: a prospective client reached out for help. Their goal was to strengthen the internal consulting and partnering skills of their HR, IT, and Finance teams to deliver greater value to their stakeholders.

During sales discovery, we learned:

• They had partnered with another training firm for the past two years.

• The previous firm consistently delivered high-quality programs, earning strong participant satisfaction scores.

• The facilitator was deeply familiar with their industry, attuned to the company’s culture, and well-liked by participants.

Despite this, the prior approach wasn’t fully aligned with what the client truly needed — highlighting how even strong execution can miss the mark when customer focus is lacking.

So Why Did the Client Reach Out To Us?
The salesperson, focused on hitting their end-of-year quota, pressured the client to sign next year’s contract immediately — warning that delaying would trigger a 25% price increase. This approach is the opposite of customer-focused selling. The client had every intention of signing, but not until the new year due to end-of-year obligations and personal commitments.

Rather than understanding the client’s situation and guiding them toward success, the salesperson prioritized their own targets. Our sales experts call this being “other centered” — focused on oneself rather than the customer.

When salespeople are not truly customer-centric, they reinforce the adversarial dynamic that makes solution selling unnecessarily difficult. The result? The client reached out to us instead. A win for our team — and a cautionary tale for the self-focused salesperson.

Six Customer Focused Selling Tips

Based upon 25+ years of consultative sales training, here are some tips on what it really means throughout your sales process to live and breathe customer focused selling best practices:

1. Really Listen
   Watch the best interviewers in action. They are fully present, giving their complete attention to each response. Instead of planning their next question while the interviewee speaks, they actively connect pieces of the answer to guide what comes next. This allows them to “unpack” responses, uncover deeper insights, and gain a thorough understanding of their subject.
2. Be Authentically Curious
   The more genuine your desire to understand your customer, the more open and honest their responses will be. Authentic curiosity builds trust — and the deeper the trust, the richer and more reliable the insights you gain.
3. Know Your Stuff
   Never waste a customer’s time by showing up unprepared. Understand your offerings inside and out so you can provide solutions that truly address their priorities. Be ready to clearly differentiate your solutions from competitors and to articulate the business value in terms that matter to your customer.
4. Be Truthful
   Why do we mistrust the stereotypical used car salesman? Because they bend the truth to move a product. In sales, your goal is the opposite: to build a trusting relationship with a customer whose loyalty you want to earn. Provide all the information they need to make an informed decision that genuinely serves their best interests.
5. Don’t Get Emotional
   Nearly every sales process encounters objections — those “buts” that can easily frustrate a salesperson. The key is to respond with calm and understanding. You may be fully convinced of your solution’s value, but your customer may need time to process and appreciate it. Ask yourself: do you truly understand the perspective behind your client’s sales objections?
6. Treat This as a Beginning
   Closing a deal is not the finish line — it’s the start of a relationship that can create lasting value for both you and your customer. Sales is, at its core, the profession of building and sustaining relationships.

   Keep in touch. Ensure your customer is satisfied with your solution. Be ready to support them the next time a need arises, reinforcing trust and positioning yourself as a reliable partner for the long term.

The Bottom Line
Sales management research shows that customers who engage with solution sellers who genuinely practice these six customer-focused selling principles are far more likely to return — again and again — building lasting loyalty and value for both parties.

If you want to learn more about how to win business with ideal target clients, download 4 Steps to Identify and Target Your Best Clients to Accelerate Growth

by Tristam Brown: CEO

Tristam Brown is an executive business consultant and organizational development expert with more than three decades of experience helping organizations accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and turn strategy into execution. As CEO of LSA Global, he works with leaders to get and stay aligned™ through research-backed strategy, culture, and talent solutions that produce measurable, business-critical results. See full bio.