The 4 Inviolable Rules of Solution Selling

To increase sales, talk to customers about solving problems and achieving goals rather than just features and functions. Here are four mental "tricks" to keep you focused on selling solutions rather than just selling products:

• RULE #1. Think about what you sell as a verb, not a noun. This sounds a bit vague, but it's a useful mental exercise. Suppose your company makes glue. If you think of your job as selling "glue" (a noun), you'll tend to talk product features and other technical details. By contrast, if you think of your job as selling "gluing" (a verb), you will naturally tend to talk to customers about the function that your offering will play in the customer's environment and business.
• RULE #2. Consider yourself the customer's ally in achieving a goal. There's a tendency in sales to think in adversarial, that you must "convince" the customer, "overcome" objections, "win" the business or "conquer" the territory. While that way of thinking can be motivating, it throws the focus onto moving product out the door. Rather than viewing yourself as being in a battle with the customer to convince the customer to buy, view yourself as the customer's ally and visualize how your company can help the customer achieve specific business goals. A focus on the solution (rather than just the product) will emerge naturally from that conversation.
• RULE #3. Treat a sales call successful when you disqualify a prospect. It's always a mistake to sell a customer something that the customer doesn't need. Such behavior might make your monthly numbers look good, but it always backfires. Rather than doggedly trying to sell to a prospect, make it clear that you're absolutely not going to sell the customer anything that the customer doesn't really need. If it turns out that the customer really doesn't need what you got, then leave and consider the sales call a major victory, because you've helped that customer avoid an unnecessary expense.
• RULE #4. Communicate with questions rather than statements. As the saying goes, don't confuse telling with selling. Rather than talking to the customer about what your product can do, use questions to lead the customer to the natural conclusion that the customer needs your solution. Ask intelligent questions that the prospect is capable of answering, so that the two of you can discover whether the customer really needs you to solve a problem or achieve a goal. Use questions to help the customer visualize how things would be better if the customer had the solution in hand.