Solution Selling

"Solution Selling" is not about "Selling Solutions" (specific comprehensive sets of products/services/capabilities), but is about how you business consult with the customer management at all levels including CEO.   Solution Selling is the definition of a sales process whereby the sales professional calls high up in the customer organization and discusses the customer's business needs (that may be solvable by applying the sales professional's company's capabilities).  The purpose of these discussions is to identify customer business problems that have undiscovered "latent" needs for the sales professional's company's capabilities.  The sales professional's craft is in developing the perception of these business problems and the fact that they are solvable given the track record of the sales professionals company's historical successes (the specifics of how this is accomplished is not discussed with the senior executives but with his/her staff at a later date).   The sale professional's role is perceived as an integral part of the customer's internal planning/operations staff and he/she develops a vision in the mind of the customer to enhance the customer's business through the application of the sales professional company's capabilities.

Below is an example of a sales model identifying both typical "Transaction" steps as well as the more comprehensive "Solution Sale" steps.

Transaction & Solution Sales Models

Where ** - Refers to Sales Performance International's - Solution Selling™

In reality the "transaction oriented" sales model is a subset of the "solution oriented" model because once the vision is created the normal procurement process happens and the sales professional needs to be able provide information, confirm (need/fit, budget, timing and comfort in buying from us), propose and close.  Please note that the "solution oriented" sales model therefore is an expansion of the "transaction oriented" model to include activities to "create the market" and after the sale to see that the "customer derives the promised business/personal benefits".  Oftentimes the "solution oriented" sales professional is referred to as a "eagle" sales professional.

Another factor to keep in mind is that in general 80% of the opportunities are "latent" where the prospective customers have not perceived they have a solvable business/personal problem and therefore are not "looking" for the sales professional company's capabilities.  Therefore, merely responding to customer inquiries ("transaction oriented" Steps 4-6) means that you are only addressing the 20% (low hanging fruit) share of the market and missing 80% of the market potential requiring a "solution oriented" (Steps 1-7) sales model.  In addition, you are not solving business problems and missing the opportunity of being perceived as delivering high-customer-value. 

Leads that come in from marketing promotion efforts typically solicit responses from prospects that are already "looking" or "considering" a specific solution.  This implies that the prospect is already at Step 4 in their decision making process.  Quite often this means that a competitor has performed Steps 1 - 3 and the prospective customer already has a solution vision in mind that that specifies the competitor's unique/advantage capabilities.  If this is the case the sales professional must re-engineer the solution vision (direct the discussion to back up to Step 2) or consider not investing time in the opportunity.  If you adopt the "solution oriented" model you are in effect helping the prospective customer write a Request For Proposals (RFP) that has requirements specifying your unique/advanced capabilities.

A solution oriented sales professional must have a higher degree of business acumen and a high degree of creativity to perceive how to make use of capabilities to positively impact customer business operations.  There are specific activities the "solution oriented" sales professional must engage in order to create a "buying vision" in the eyes of the prospective customer.  Left to their own devices the "solution oriented or eagle" sales professional will research customer management critical business issues, develop business cases, value propositions/value analysis, competitive analysis and sales team evaluation plans etc. If we expand marketing's role to include sales channel enablement we can avoid a great deal of duplication of sales professional efforts by providing this information for targeted industries.  In addition, marketing can provide targeted customer industry information, prospective customer information and prospective customer competitor information from industry sources like D&B/Hoovers etc. 

By adopting a "solution oriented" sales model and extending marketing's responsibility to provide the necessary solution oriented sales tools, in effect streamlines operations, speeds time to market, increases deal size/margins and reduces cost of sales.  In addition, you shift from a product/service oriented company to a company servicing a targeted industry/community by delivering the highest customer value... and position to become the industry leader.

If you are a new business you must articulate your business model and sales model to the new sales professional and sales management team to get them all on the same page and using the same yardsticks for territory planning, accounting planning, opportunity management, pipeline management, and sales model execution.

Last but not least, if you employ a "solution oriented" sales model early in the product/service offering life cycle it will allow you to validate markets, get strategic customer alliances and obtain a deep appreciation as to customer business/personal value prior to investing in the program.  In addition, your business model will be validated as it relates to customer preferred packaging, pricing and sales/support/service channels.  The result will be a highly focused organization that is capable of forecasting more accurately and garnering the major share of the market.

Please note that in the customer's mind the value of the business relationship with your company shifts from focus on state of the art products/services to having a "trusted advisor" and actual strategic business planning partnership with your sales professional.

Prism Business Development provides facilitation to develop your optimum:

• Sales Model
• Sales process training (Refer to Solution Selling™ of Sales Performance International)
• Sales Channel Product and/or Service Enablement Training with sales aids and tools
• Transition adoption via change management facilitation

Prism Business Development provides consulting services to optimize its client's play in the marketplace. 

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