Are You Selling at Solution Level?

What is “Selling Solutions?”

If you want to go down a Google rathole, type in “solution selling.” In the first page of results alone we learn that solution selling is:

·??????A thing with its own Wikipedia page

·??????A registered term?

·??????Very popular (28,000,000 search results!)

·??????Potentially dead (if you believe certain alarmists with books to sell)

Note that I certainly don’t agree with the notion that solution-level selling is dead – I know clickbait when I see it! If anything, the offer-level sale is the true endangered species, kept alive by a generation of old-school sales managers who keep teaching sales the way they were taught.

So what is solution-level selling? There are plenty of definitions sprinkled in those 28 million search results.?I’ve read a bunch and thought about this a lot, and thus feel empowered to add my synopsis to the noise…

Solution-Level Selling is:

·??????Helping the customer realize the scope and severity of their problems and opportunities

·??????Challenging the customer’s assumptions and exposing “blind spots”

·??????Partnering with a customer to solve a problem together, not just handing them the tools to solve their own problems

·??????Developing solutions with the customer, not presenting what you think are solutions

·??????Brokering whatever capabilities are needed, not just those you sell

Solution-level selling is NOT:

·??????Bundling products together and calling them “solutions”

·??????Adding training and implementation services to your products and calling them “solutions”

·??????Teaching your salespeople to ask better questions

·??????Giving salespeople new business cards that say “Solutions Consultant”

·??????Rebranding your company and developing the “solutions narrative.”?Many companies are “solution providers” in name only!

The simple definition of solution-level selling – helping customers discover/articulate their needs, then crafting solutions – is not descriptive enough. That’s okay, because even if you fail to understand the key distinctions, focusing on selling “solutions” will still help you get better at selling.?But real solution-level selling requires a fundamental shift in perspective if you want to break free of the constraints of the offer-level sale.

As is my custom, I’ll offer an analogy (Western medicine) to anchor my argument, then spend the rest of this essay torturing it to make my points.?Enjoy!

From Reactive Specialist to Proactive Holisticist

Solution-level selling requires a fundamental shift in paradigm, from specialist to holisticist (yes, I invented that word).?Here’s the distinction, as I see it.

Reactive Specialists:?When you go to see a specialist doctor, you’re there for a reason. You may be clutching a referral and some diagnostic results. Your goal is to solve a problem.?The frame of reference is the need you think you have and the specialist service the doctor provides.?Seeing a specialist is a good idea under certain circumstances – If I have a sinus infection, there are specialists for that.?It’s faster, focused, and I get what I want sooner.

But what about when those aren’t the conditions? Customers don’t always know what they need, or they may be mistaken.?What if I’m wrong, and it’s not a sinus infection? This is where specialists don’t help as much – their frame of reference is typically limited to their specialty.?At best, the reactive specialist knows what they don’t know and I get a referral. At worst, they prescribe through their limited lens and unintentionally harm by trying to help – a term called iatrogenesis (I didn’t invent this word!).

Proactive Holisticists, on the other hand, ventures beyond just treating the symptoms, learns about the system, and partners to diagnose root causes and create protocols. The frame of reference is the customer’s goal or target, and not limited to the scope of services you provide! And the Proactive part means you’re actively advocating for, and trying to spark, a change in the customer’s course of business. ?That’s a much different mission and approach.

Solution-Level Selling Readiness Checklist

Of course, the more of these you can check, the readier you are.

·??????Engage on Higher Levels: ?Offer-level sellers are mostly limited to asking for meetings to “learn about your needs,” “show you what’s new,” or “learn about what your peers/competitors are doing.” ?Solution-level sellers, on the other hand, are able to offer a dialogue that compares notes and lessons learned from solving the problems customers face today.

·??????Engage at New Levels:? Learn more about your customers and expand the scope of your engagement. Understand how issues and opportunities you can't solve for impact your dialogue. Broker capabilities that help customers with things you can't.

·??????Spend more time in the Engage phase.?As a matter of fact, be prepared for perpetual engagement throughout the sales and implementation process. Your job should look a lot like an oncology team’s job – continuous monitoring and evaluation, and lots of mid-course corrections and adjustments.

·??????Engage in a more holistic diagnosis. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs tells us that customers are preoccupied with solving their most pressing needs?

·??????Involve your experts earlier. Bring the full force of your firm to bear on client issues, and let them feel it.

·??????Challenge the customer’s perceptions. This is hard to do, but true solution-level sellers often have to deal with a subset of the customer's problem: The customer's way of thinking about their problem.

·??????Influence decision criteria. Ask the questions that help customers determine what they really need in a solution, versus what they prefer or want. Help them turn these into criteria and specifications they can use to make good decisions.

·??????Separate your story from your products and services.?There’s a ton of focus on “storytelling” in sales today, but that’s a trap. If you’re telling stories about your company or offering, you’re not talking about their needs. Your solution-level story is about customers’ problem-solving journeys, not the awesomeness of your product.

·??????Stop looking just for problems your products can solve.?Now it’s about the priority problems the customer most needs to solve – which may or may not be an opportunity for you right now. That’s okay, because solution-level sellers select their prospects based on long-term opportunity, not whether there’s a known need this minute.?Too much “hammer seeking a nail” thinking leads us into assumptive traps all the time, and it’s particularly deadly in solution-level selling.

·??????Come to a price together.?While offer-level selling is driven by the price points your organization sets, selling solutions is driven by two things:?Targets and Limits.?Targets are what you’d like to realize in terms of revenue and profit, and Limits are how “low” you’ll go or how much you’ll invest to reach an agreement and win the business. ?Your challenge:?To help customers think the same way.?What are their targets for results, and how much should they really be willing to invest to get the ROI they want??This is the basis for interest-based negotiating, and one I recommend you read more on – start with Getting to Yes by Fisher and Ury, my favorite negotiating book of all time.

Summary

Ultimately, your readiness to sell at a solution level is NOT a function of the products and services you sell, (the WHAT), but the process you use to sell (the HOW).?Use these strategies to engage at the solution level, and you’ll add more value to customers’ lives.?