Solution Selling
What is solution selling? Does it work? Is it what every customer is dreaming of? Is it going to change the way we sell products in the 21st century and beyond? Let’s review this story and we can then decide on the answers together.
This is a story of a former account manager that once worked for a big transportation company. A company with name recognition, great reputation and reliable services.
Selling for that company was a breeze; the services sold itself and the brand name made it easy to get through the gate keepers to sell over and over again.
One day, the gurus of the upper sales management of that transportation company, out of boredom or to impress their superiors, decided that penetrating accounts and networking within the account to sell more services was a thing of the past. They came up with an idea; Account managers will now be sales consultants. They insisted that everyone in sales must embrace the new and revolutionary way of selling.
So, what was that new way of selling that will revolutionize the world of selling? The answer was Solution Selling. The company tried to sell the idea as the newest way of selling that would differentiate between the company and its competition. Well, let’s see what is solution selling really is in the eyes of those gurus?
Solution selling is convincing the customers that they have a problem or multiple problems that, the sales consultants, have the solution or solutions for.
So, what is wrong with that concept? Let’s look at it from the customer’s point of view and decide if there is a problem or multiple problems with it:
A corporate Level contact receives a call from that sales consultant requesting a visit to consult with him/her on their business. The meeting starts with the customary greeting and the sales consultant proceeds to advise the customer of his findings about their company, information that he collected from the customer’s income tax statement, their 10K, their P&L margin analysis and how he discovered many problems in the customer’s supply chain.
Imagine yourself being the corporate level of that company listening to that sales representative, or the sales consultant as the transportation company would love to call him. What comes to your mind at that moment to say? No one would be surprised if you ask: why did you have to dig in my company’s financials? You may even add: I thought you’re here to sell your products to me and not to provide me with my company’s financial reports. You may even add: I have people in my company that I hired to provide me with financial reports and to my knowledge; you’re not one of them.
That scenario that I just described is not the most devastating one for a sales representative, the situation can get uglier, when the topic moves on to the problems with the supply chain practice at the customer’s operation, that is when the corporate level person can start thinking that this sales representative is trying to show me problems with my company despite the company’s long history of success and prosperity. The outcome can be very ugly.
However, the transportation company would still leads its sales force to believe that the concept of solution selling was introduced to accomplish the following:
• Getting to know your customer
• Finding the shortfalls in the company’s financials to help them with it.
• Finding the right product/products that can fix the shortfalls.
• Better connect with the customer by being a consultant and not a sales representative.
What the transportation company did not tell the sales force is; telling a customer that they have problems when in fact the customer does not, is a very dangerous tactic that can backfire. In addition, the word “solution” in English means “something that solves a problem or achieves a goal” the concept of solution selling would still be stillborn because a “solution” is only a THING. The B2B customer doesn’t want a THING. The B2B customer wants RESULTS.
Furthermore, digging in the customer’s financials without his consent can be illegal in many states.
So what is wrong with solution selling? Here is what you and I can see wrong with it:
• Solution is another name for Product. The Decision-Makers knows it and so do you.
. The idea of assuming that the customer has problems sets the wrong tone and leads to a negative conversation.
• If someone is giving you the time to discuss problems with their supply chain and is listening to your “Solutions”, he/she is not a decision-maker. He or She is a speed-bump.
• Decision-Makers are not looking for solutions, they’re looking for results.
• Your “Solutions “are basically products and your competition has similar or the same products.
• How long does it take today’s sales professionals to close a sale based on “solution selling “?
So, what is the solution to that new concept/problem selling?
- Do Not Sell Solutions Unless the Decision-Makers present you with problems.
- Just sell results that can help set you apart from your competition.
- Result Selling – Not Solution Selling
And always remember, People Buy from People. So don’t lose a sale by searching for problems in your customers' world.
