Consultative Selling for Coaches, Consultants & People-Development Pros
Consultative Selling for Coaches, Consultants & People-Development Pros
By popular demand: Created as a direct follow-up topic requested by past attendees of my last two workshops.
You get on a call with a potential client. They say they need a workshop, a leadership program, a coaching package, or just “some training.”
Instantly, you’re trying to do five things at once: figure out what they actually need, explain what you do, prove your value, avoid sounding salesy, and decide whether this should be a custom project or something you’ve already built.
This is where a lot of independent trainers, consultants, coaches, and fractional HR leaders get stuck. It’s not because you aren’t great at your job. It’s just that you're moving too quickly from “What’s going on here?” to “Here’s what I can offer.”
When you rush that moment, you end up giving away free consulting on the call, over-complicating your proposals, or building entirely new programs from scratch just to win the business.
Consultative selling simply slows that moment down. It helps you listen for the real problem underneath the initial request, ask better questions, and identify the right kind of support, so you can recommend a solution that is incredibly valuable for the client, but highly sustainable for you.
In this 90-minute masterclass, we'll cover:
Structuring the conversation: How to guide a discovery call so it feels natural and strategic, not scripted or awkward.
Reading between the lines: What to listen for underneath the client’s initial request to find the real team or business need.
Setting boundaries: How to be helpful without jumping into advice, diagnosis, or free consulting too soon.
Choosing the right bucket: How to quickly decide whether the client actually needs coaching, training, facilitation, consulting, or a blended approach.
Smart customization: How to tweak parts of your existing programs without reinventing the wheel every single time.
The handoff: How to move smoothly from the discovery conversation to a clear proposal that reflects what the client actually asked for.
You’ll walk away with:
A discovery call flow you can use right away
Sample questions to uncover needs without interrogating the client
A simple framework for deciding what kind of solution to recommend
Ideas for customizing your work without overbuilding or burning yourself out
Sample proposal language you can adapt and use
This is for:
This is for coaches, consultants, external trainers, facilitators, and fractional HR leaders who sell learning, leadership, or people-development services.
It is especially useful if you already have solid workshops or frameworks, but want to get better at closing the gap between that first conversation and a signed contract.
One last thing: This isn’t aggressive sales training. Consultative selling actually uses your natural skills as a practitioner: listening, problem-framing, and strategic partnering, to let your value sell itself.
The best proposals do not start with: “Here’s what I offer.” They start with: “Here’s what I heard you need.”
Stephanie Licata, M.A., ACC is a Leadership and Learning Consultant who has used consultative selling to sell 5 and 6-figure training, coaching and consulting projects. She has over two decades of experience in the people development space and has served a wide variety of industries including but not limited to: Technology | Marketing | E-Learning | Human Resources | Training & Development | Media | Sales | Hospitality | SaaS | Finance | Healthcare | M&A | Pharmaceutical Consulting | Education | Automotive Retail | Nonprofit | Public Relations | Event Management | Tribal Government & Tribal Gaming