Case Study
This difference between product-focused and customer-focused sales was driven home to me at a training seminar. I was teaching a room full of veteran product specialists how to upgrade their probing and problem-solving skills. The average age of the group was 50 and the average tenure with the company was more than 15 years. They knew their product forwards and backwards. They were experts on features and benefits. That level of expertise is helpful as long as the salesperson is doing all the talking. Trouble is when the sales conversation model shifted from actor to detective, these product specialists were completely lost. Let me explain.
Most product-oriented sales pitches are constructed feature – advantage – benefit. Example: “The product comes in a special airtight package the advantage of which is a fresher product and the benefit to you is that it tastes better.” But the solutions-based sale takes a completely different path, beginning with the problem to the be solved. The sequence looks like this: problem or need – advantage – feature – benefit. Example: “So, you’re getting complaints from your customer’s about the taste (problem). You need the advantage of a better tasting product. Our product comes in airtight packages (feature) that preserve freshness and deliver to you the benefit of better taste.”
Back to my experiment: I asked the room full of veteran product-specialists to write feature-advantage-benefit statements. They did a terrific job. Then I used their advantage statements to pose scenarios of customers having problems. “What feature matches this problem?” I asked. The veteran salespeople shrugged their shoulders. They couldn’t connect features to customer problems. The training director sitting at the back of the room went wide-eyed in amazement and disbelief.
Summary
Solutions-based selling isn’t always the best way to sell. However, if salespeople are expected to grow incremental sales and not just turn every customer into a one off, solutions-based selling is critical. If salespeople can’t, don’t or won’t compete around price, solutions-based selling can refocus the conversation to value. If your target market is business decision-makers, solutions-based selling helps differentiate you from the competition.
The transition from product sale to solution selling is one many sales organizations want to make, but few realize how difficult it is to accomplish. It’s a completely different way of doing sales. Without careful planning and guidance from someone experienced in the transition, sales could actually plummet as confused product salespeople either flounder in a new sales process or take the easy way out and become little more than professional visitors. Imagine being an actor without a script or a detective without a clue.