SOLUTIONS SALES TODAY

When solution selling emerged decades ago, it was very straightforward. The product or service being sold was the solution. The client had a problem and buying the product or service resolved the issue. But solution selling has changed dramatically in the past decade. Simply explaining how the benefits of a product address a problem has little value to a buyer who can read that information on their smartphone. Solution selling today requires the expertise and insight of the seller to create value in the sales process itself. In many cases today, the solution emerges through the course of the sales process, in part due to the knowledge and proficiency of sales professionals who provide that added value. It’s important to understand why this critical sales approach is so different today than when 60-70% of sales people (depending on what statistics you believe), received their first training on the concept of selling solutions. After the Global Financial Crisis of 2009, two important factors fundamentally and permanently shifted the landscape for sales professionals:

First, companies experienced a major reduction in solution buyers. Because of cost cutting efforts during the Great Recession, the authority to authorize spending moved higher and higher up the chain of command. In some cases, the COO or CEO of a company was the only one authorized to approve expenses over $1,000, when just a few years earlier a front-line manager could do so. And while post-recession recovery and prosperity brought some of those solution buyers back, many budget standards remained in lock-down. Ask anyone in sales today. There is no question that fewer managers have the budgets or discretionary spending of years past. Solution buyers aren’t quite an endangered species in corporations. But close.

Second, the solution buyers who were left—mostly C-level execs or very senior managers—developed a higher level of expectations. If these buyers were going to pay a premium, they upped the ante on the value they expected. That meant the seller needed to produce solutions beyond the basics of the product or service combination they were selling. They needed to provide insight, value, and demonstrate how they could help the client’s business grow. Sales professionals needed to have a deeper understanding of the impact their solutions had on the client’s business to demonstrate ROI, highlight opportunities the client missed, and illustrate the unintended consequences of issues the client hadn’t considered.

If you want to sell solutions in today’s environment, you need to go beyond the original idea behind solution selling and the consultative approach. Today, solution selling requires a different mindset that allows you to develop peer level relationships. It requires new skills and competencies that enable you to identify and create value during the sales process. And of course, a radical departure from the cheesy closing techniques of the past in favor of joint agreements and mutual commitments that advance sales cycles.