Twenty five Steps to Business Success
Creating Your Own Clients
Solution Selling
Solution selling is where you don't sell to your clients and customers; instead you are buying on their behalf a solution to their problems and needs.
For example, a client needs a new PC. You are in the business of buying them a system that will perform at the level that they require. You offer to find the right system to meet their needs at the right price from your suppliers. Essentially, you have place yourself on the same side of the table as your clients-- your suppliers are on the other side of the table. If the system is too expensive for the client, you can agree with them and say you'll find another supplier that can meet their requirements.
1. You are fulfilling your client's needs.
2. You first pinpoint what their needs are.
3. You are buying not selling.
4. You are making your client aware of their problem.
5. You refer to your solution in the third person placing yourself on the same side of the table as your client.
6. You are the expert 'consultant' acting as a gateway for them so they buy the right solution.
You need to be creative to take this approach to selling but this is an incredibly important change in paradigm. If a client says 'no', they are not saying no to you but to the solution you are buying on their behalf-- it is easier on your ego and it gives you a chance to agree with the client and find another solution/supplier.
Example of Solution Selling: You are in the promotional items business. You try to sell promotional items to a car dealer-- he says 'no'. You then ask him, how much are you spending on local newspaper ads? He says $140,000. You say: give me 20% of that budget, let me buy promotional items for you and prove to you that when we buy $28,000 of promotional items on your behalf you'll get a ton more out of it than a newspaper ad that lasts about five seconds in a reader's hands.
In fact, you tell him: we'll do better than this. We will buy promotional products like say car fresheners with your name, logo, address, web site, email and a call to action (like ) 0% financing until January 20__ .... THEN WE'LL HIRE THREE STUDENTS AND GET THESE IN THE HANDS OF EVERY AUTOBODY SHOP AND CAR DETAILER IN THE CITY. So when their clunker breaks down for the third time this month and they decide to buy a new car, heck, they'll only have to look at their rear view mirrors to see the right solution.
This is solution selling and the last part is crucial-- you have tackled the 'last mile' of the solution for them and out the promotional items in the hands of people who have NOT YET BOUGHT NEW CARS.
Creativity and initiative count in solution selling.
Copyright. Dr. Bruce M. Firestone, Ottawa, Canada. 2002.
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