Sell Your Solution, Not Your Product
5 SECOND SUMMARY
- Show people how your product makes their life better rather than just listing the product’s features
- The true value of your product lies in how it makes your customer’s life easier or helps save them either money or time.
- Dig in to customer feedback to pinpoint how you’re actually adding this value.
- Paint a picture of what life looks like with your product throughout your marketing so your customer can envisage how it actually fits into their life.
Solution selling is different from the traditional sales process. It focuses on resolving a specific problem or issue that a customer has and proposes related products or services to address the issue.
Most businesses use product-based strategies that highlight how their products are cheaper or different from competitors’. The assumption is that customers are already aware of the benefits of these products. However, customers now prefer value-added products that provide a particular experience.
Selling a solution requires creating and nurturing genuine customer relationships to develop new ways to offer assistance.
What exactly is solution selling?
Solution selling is a strategy that considers all the customer’s needs. It recommends particular products or services that best address the customer’s specific concerns or issues.
Selling a solution integrates sales and empathy. You need to understand your specific industry, the unique challenges, the issues customers face and how to diagnose and offer solutions to these problems.
Selling solutions requires you to consider the bigger picture. Although the features and specs of your products or services are essential, they should not be your primary focus.
Solution selling vs product selling
The difference between products and solutions is not always apparent since most products get developed to solve problems. However, most products are a one-size-fits-all kind of solution. They have a design that aims to be good enough for as many people as possible.
On the other hand, solutions are a combination of products and services. They assist customers in every step to ensure that every customer’s particular problems get resolved by the end of the process.
Selling solutions involves alternative methods of generating sales. The focus is not on demonstrating what your products or services are capable of. It’s more about pinpointing the real issues customers face and explaining how your products or services resolve them in the best possible way.
How to start selling solutions instead of products
1. Identify customer pain points
One essential aspect of selling solutions is identifying the customers’ common pain points. This information helps you determine your target prospects and how to present your resolution in the best way. As you gain a better understanding, you’ll be in a better position to service your customers’ needs.
Start by analyzing the issues that prompted the customers to consider your product or service in the first place.
2. Create appropriate questions
Once you understand the common issues your solution should solve, you need to come up with questions to assist you in determining your prospects.
The sales conversation will focus on the customer and their needs with the right questions instead of your product and its specs.
You can start with general open-ended questions involving relevant parts of your customer’s issues. Then, narrow down the conversation to particular facts that will assist you in presenting your solution in a way that targets the specific issues.
Your questions should focus on three goals:
Identifying causes
Which specific factors lead to the customers’ pain? How do these pain points rank based on their effects and importance?
Calculating magnitude
How do the pain points affect your customer and their business or organisation? Is this a ‘bleeding neck’ problem? How many of their team members can enjoy the benefits of using your solution?
Gaining buy-in
Determine your customer’s interest in your solution. What’s their level of excitement?
3. Sell the value
Selling solutions succeed because the focus is not on the specs, features or price but on the Return on Investment (ROI). It’s essential to understand your product’s actual value and how to highlight this value.
Some essential questions to consider include:
- How does your product make life easier?
- Which tasks does it simplify or which challenges does it reduce or eliminate?
- Does your product lead to time savings, and how much are they? ]
- What would the customer achieve with the extra time?
- Does your product cut costs, and how much will customers save?
- What can they achieve with the extra amount?
- How will your product enhance how others view your customers?
- Will they appear more successful, effective or efficient?
- How will your product affect your customers’ bottom line after a certain period, like a month or year?
The 6 essential steps in selling solutions
1. Prepare
Instead of researching the type of potential customers, find out the significant or historical issues they might be facing.
2. Diagnose
Use the information from your research to develop open-ended questions. These questions should prompt customers to inform you of the weaknesses in their current products or processes. It helps you identify how your product fits into their lives or business.
3. Qualify
Ask questions that determine whether the potential customer has interest and if they are in a position to decide on the purchase.
4. Educate
Offer the customer actual reasons and ways your product will benefit them. You can focus on aspects such as:
- Lower operational costs
- ROI
- Annual or monthly savings percentage
5. Solve
Use the customer’s communication style or language to offer your product as a solution to their pain points. You can use existing clients as examples to show the similarities with the current customer’s issues.
6. Close
If there are outstanding objections, address them using benefit-driven answers and close the sale. The conversation will determine if it’s a soft, direct close or challenging sale. Be sure to remind them why they need your product.
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