Solution Selling

General concepts
1. Solution selling involves:
  1. 1. Finding a buyer with pain
  2. 2. Getting the buyer to admit their need/pain to you
  3. 3. Mutually developing a satisfactory vision of a solution biased towards your product or service
2. People love to buy, but hate to feel sold
  1. Feeling sold means feeling like you have lost control
  2. Buyers are naturally suspicious
  3. Buyers will seek to satisfy recognised, active needs
  4. Don't tell buyers "you need" ...
  5. Selling is helping people buy
    1. Be a 'buying facilitator'
  6. Expert selling is in the eye of the buyer
3. Sellers need situational fluency
  1. Requires
    1. Situation knowledge
      1. How the buyer operates and what they need
    2. Capability knowledge
      1. What products or services match the buyer's situation
    3. People skills
    4. Selling skills
  2. A situation is when a specific person, in a specific function, needs a specific capability at a specific point in time
  3. A solution is a match between the capabilities of your product or service and this need
4. A solution is equivalent to the buyer's vision
  1. Sales is the process of moving the buyer to visualise future satisfaction with the bias of our product or service
5. People buy from people
  1. Who they like
  2. Who are sincere and competent
  3. Who empower them to see themselves in control of their problem
  4. Who validate them
  5. Who understand their business
  6. Who see the world through their eyes
  7. Who share their vision
  8. Who they trust
6. Power buys from power
  1. Buyer will not buy from a subservient seller
  2. Avoid power reducing words or actions
7. Make yourself equal before you make yourself different
8. Prospecting
  1. A buyer looking for a solution has probably already been influenced by another seller
    1. You become 'column fodder'
  2. Need to prospect to find the buyers who aren't yet looking for a solution
9. Selling is a 'hurt and rescue' mission
  1. Bring pain to the foreground
  2. Then offer hope
10. Always seek a meeting to discuss an RFP - if you don't get one, save your energy
11. Don't leave proposals with prospects who then owe decisions
Diagnose before you prescribe
1. Leading with solutions and features loses the opportunity to build trust
  1. Diagnosis is key to gaining buyer loyalty
  2. Always take the buyer back to the original pain and reengineer their vision
2. "Premature elaboration" loses sales
  1. "Feature creature"
  2. "Spray and pray"
Three levels of buyer need
1. Latent pain
  1. Unadmitted pain with no vision
  2. 2 primary reasons:
    1. Ignorance that a solution exists
    2. Rationalisation - previous unsuccessful attempts to solve the problem
2. Pain
  1. Personally admitted pain that occupies mindshare
    1. One of the 7+-2 mental slots
  2. The difference between latent pain and pain is hope
3. Vision
  1. Action Vision: Who is taking What action, When, Via what capabilities
  2. Buyer recognises their need or pain
  3. Buyer can describe need requirements
  4. Buyer accepts responsibility for solving the problem
  5. Buyer can "see" the problem being acted on
Three phases of the buying cycle
1. Phase 1: Define Needs
  1. Step 1: Establish rapport
    1. The buyer must see the seller as sincere and competent
      1. Leads to trust
  2. Step 2: Get buyer to admit pain
    1. Call introduction
      1. Reference story
  3. Step 3: Lead the buyer to a vision of a solution
    1. Diagnose the buyer's pain with bias
    2. Explore interdependence of the organisation
      1. Who else is involved in the buying process?
      2. Who is the power sponsor?
    3. Create an Action Vision
      1. Who will take
      2. What action
      3. When
      4. Via what capabilities
2. Phase 2: Evaluate alternatives
  1. Buyer will ask 'is there really a match for my vision?'
  2. Buyer compares available products and services to their vision to see which is best
  3. Buyer must justify cost to confirm it is affordable
  4. Seller must 'prove' and help cost justify
3. Phase 3: Risk evaluation and action
  1. Buyer is concerned with the consequences
  2. Risks of buying versus not buying
  3. Buyer must justify price to confirm they're getting the best deal
    1. A good sign, because the buyer is down to one alternative
  4. Seller must deal with risk questions through benefit statements
    1. Remind the buyer of his pain, his vision, and the proof provided
4. Notes
  1. The seller must stay aligned to the buyer throughout the process
  2. Buyer panic is usually good news
  3. Watch out for 'happy ears' and false price negotiation (buyers playing off sellers)
    1. If the buyer isn't worried, there is a problem
  4. The longer you can keep back your product and get your buyer to admit problems, diagnose reasons and create visions, the greater the chance of closing the sale
  5. If you lose alignment, go back to where you last had it and pick up from there
Features, Advantages and Benefits
1. Distinction
  1. Feature: this coffee cup has a handle ...
  2. Advantage: that will prevent your fingers from burning ...
  3. Benefit: which you said you wanted to avoid
2. Buyers with latent needs are not motivated by features
  1. The role of features is PROOF, not to arouse interest, educate or develop need
  2. Features are used to prove that a product or service can match a buyer's vision
3. Advantage statements are in the mind of the seller
  1. "because of" ... "you can" ...
  2. Advantages are assumed needs
  3. It doesn't matter how "right" these assumptions are if the buyer doesn't see it that way
4. An Advantage becomes a Benefit only when the buyer has expressed a need for it
5. Don't give presentations (keep your product in your pocket); do have conversations
9-Block Vision Processing Model
9 Block Vision Processing Model
1. Open Questions
  1. Cannot be answered with "yes" or "no"
  2. Begin with who, what, when, why or how
  3. Allows the buyer to feel in control
2. Control Questions
  1. Allow the seller to bias the diagnosis and vision
  2. May be answered "yes" or "no"
3. Confirm Questions
  1. Summarise the seller's understanding of the buyer's situation
  2. Confirm understanding and content, and reflect feelings and emotions
  3. Allows the seller to demonstrate empathic listening
  4. Ensure the buyer owns responsibility for solving his own problem
4. Diagnose Reasons Questions
  1. Open
    1. What are the reasons for ... [pain]?
    2. Aim is to establish comfort and trust
  2. Control
    1. Is it because ... [bias]?
    2. Aim is to 'set up the bowling pins'
  3. Confirm
    1. So, the reasons you have told me for [pain] are ...?
    2. Aim is to establish mutual understanding
5. Explore Impact Questions
  1. Open
    1. Besides yourself, who in the organisation is impacted by [pain]?
    2. Aim is to earn the right to ask more control questions
  2. Control
    1. Is this [pain] impacting earnings? Then is the CEO concerned? What is the $ impact of that?
    2. Aim is to create anxiety and understand the organisational impact
  3. Confirm
    1. From what I've heard, this affects you and the CEO, so its a companywide problem. Is that right?
    2. Aim is to confirm the 'size of the prize' and who is involved
6. Visualise Capabilities Questions
  1. Open
    1. What is it going to take for you to solve your [pain]?
    2. Aim is to put responsibility for solving the pain on the buyer's shoulders
  2. Control
    1. What if there was a way you could [capabilities]? Would that help?
    2. Aim is to create a vision - where the buyer can see himself in control, in action, solving his problem
  3. Confirm
    1. From what I just heard, if you could [capabilities] you could [resolve pain]?
    2. Aim is to confirm the buyer is enabled and believes a solution is possible
Solution Selling Tools
1. Reference Story
  1. Structure
    1. Situation
    2. Critical Issue
    3. Reasons
    4. Vision
    5. We provided ...
    6. Result
  2. Really an advantage statement
  3. Once the buyer admits pain, do not continue 'fishing' with advantage statements
    1. Move to benefits
2. The Pain Sheet
  1. Builds situational fluency
  2. Structure
    1. Reasons
    2. Impact
    3. Capabilities
3. Telephone Script
  1. 20 seconds to alleviate tension and create interest
  2. Don't bore, or ask for pain or an appointment
  3. Just create curiosity about how someone in a similar situation solved a common problem
  4. Use the situation and critical issues sections only
  5. Call high and get delegated down
  6. Seek to open the latent needs area of your market
  7. Always Be Prospecting
4. Sponsor Letter
  1. To negotiate access to a power person
5. Plan Letter
  1. To document a successful call with a power sponsor
  2. To negotiate a sell/buy cycle
Sale steps
1. The Multiple Call Sale
  1. First Call
    1. 1. Establish rapport
    2. 2. Make the call introduction
    3. 3. Need development and vision processing
    4. 4. State benefits
    5. 5. Close for agreement to explore further
    6. 6. Qualify the buying process
    7. 7. Find power
    8. 8. Bargin proof for access to power
2. The Single Call Sale
  1. 1. Establish rapport
  2. 2. Call introduction
  3. 3. Need development and vision processing
  4. 4. State benefits and offer proof
  5. 5. Ask buyer if he wants you to return with a decision vehicle
  6. 6. Ask buyer what he wants to see in the decision vehicle
  7. 7. Sketch out a draft of the decision vehicle
  8. 8. Ask buyer to confirm he is satisfied with the content of the decision vehicle
  9. 9. Ask for commitment to begin today
Value justification
1. 5 Elements
  1. What will be measured?
    1. Revenues
    2. Costs
      1. Displaced costs
      2. Avoided costs
      3. Intangible costs
  2. Who is responsible?
    1. Ownership is key
  3. How much is possible?
  4. What capabilities will be needed?
  5. When will this investment pay for itself?
2. Allows the seller to advance the buyer's vision
3. The stronger the justification, the easier the price negotiation
Closing
1. Don't close before it is closeable
  1. Never ask for business until you can't think of a single reason why the buyer cannot or will not buy today
2. Let the buyer volunteer to buy
  1. If you have completed the buying process, there is no reason for him not to
  2. Win-win or no deal
3. The unexpected time is the perfect time to close
  1. Proposal avoidance
    1. Preproposal review
  2. Separate when a buyer thinks he is going to be closed from when it's closeable
Price Negotiations
1. At price negotiations, let the seller beware!
  1. The seller is a washcloth that the buyer will squeeze if you allow it
  2. Price negotiation is different to cost justification
2. The buyer's emotional hurdle is "Am I getting the best deal?"
3. The seller's emotional hurdle is "Can I branch to door if necessary?"
4. Smart buyers:
  1. Never sole source
  2. Assign a sponsor to each alternative
  3. Never let you know you're winning
  4. Never let you know you're losing
  5. Price negotiate in reverse preference order
  6. Take it away from you at least once
  7. Are aware of your deadlines
5. Smart sellers:
  1. Protect their price
    1. Concede something other than price
  2. Don't give without getting
    1. "The only way I can do something for you is if you do something for me first."
  3. Give reluctantly and slowly, and draw the line first
  4. Take at least three good "squeezes" before negotiating price
Implementing Solution Selling
1. Focus on:
  1. The number of qualified prospects in your sales pipeline
  2. Their status in the sales process
2. Managers should edit and audit follow-up sales letters
3. Four sales tools:
  1. First call debriefing log
  2. Prospect qualification form (PQW)
  3. A Call Log
  4. A pipeline summary