Business Solution Series: Great Selling Skills (Business Solutions)

Solution selling

---

You must keep the lights on and meet payroll obligations, so a sales migration plan must be planned over time. This can often take years to accomplish. Pick a good Sherpa as you prepare to climb that mountain!

1.1 Program Introduction

We were recently engaged to help a client train its global sales team to transition from a traditional technical product, speed-and-feeds sales approach to one based on selling business solutions to create pull-through demand with end users into its channel. While the situation was challenging in addressing different cultures, we arrived together at a conclusion after two days of intense classroom work.

Selling business solutions is very different; it can pay some big dividends for channel partners and sales goals, and for those who use their products.

Similar authors to follow

It is a skillset that can be learned and honed over time. Status quo is great in business when everything stays the same.

So the real question is, when do you initiate a more strategic plan, invest in the right training, and aggressively coach expectations? I suggest sooner than later if you want your business to keep pace with the realities of our industry. The sales dialogue will need to shift to sell the business value of these services.

Bob Apollo

A principal of Matterhorn Consulting, he has more than 30 years of diverse security and safety industry experience including UL central station operations, risk-vulnerability assessments, strategic security program design and management of industry convergence challenges. Boucherle has successfully guided top-tier companies in achieving enhanced ROI resulting from improved sales and operational management techniques. He is a charismatic speaker and educator on a wide range of critical topics relating to the security industry of today and an accomplished corporate strategist and marketer whose vision and expertise in business performance have driven notable enterprise growth in the security industry sector.

A free subscription to the 1 resource for the residential and commercial security industry will prove to be invaluable. Your email address will not be published.

October 09, Paul Boucherle Jump to Comments. Do your homework and dig into the sales data to understand whom the sales team is working with and what they are selling. Something to think about — are they selling security products, lowest price or business solutions?

47 Top Sales Experts Share their Best Enterprise Selling Tips

Look at both the quantity and quality of the customers they sell to every day. Do they have more than one contact name at an opportunity? Do they work with one or multiple departments? What is the most senior title they work with selling to customers? Well, actually take a ride. Go along with different salespeople to validate your homework on the raw data.

Solution selling is a sales methodology. Rather than just promoting an existing product, the salesperson focuses on the customer's problems and addresses the issue with appropriate offerings product and services. The problem resolution is what constitutes a "solution".

Navigation menu

Solution selling is usually used in sales situations where products are just one of the elements that lead to a solution. Often the real solution develops after the sales process —as with software or large plant engineering and construction projects. It is typical for solution selling situations that the buyer only rarely purchases such a solution and instead needs the knowledge of the solution partner.

So what is the definition of the word solution? The typical response is, "An answer to a problem. Not only does the problem need to be acknowledged by the buyer, but both the buyer and salesperson must also agree on the answer.

So a solution is a mutually agreed-upon answer to a recognized problem. In addition, a solution must also provide some measurable improvement. By measurable improvement, I mean there is a before and an after. Now we have a more complete definition of a solution; It's a mutually shared answer to a recognized problem, and the answer provides measurable improvement. Frank Watts developed the sales process dubbed "solution selling" in He began teaching solution selling as an independent consultant in He presented his sales process as a one-day workshop to Xerox Corporation in By Electronics magazine would portray solution selling as "an unmistakable trend in the distribution of systems-related products".

Mike Bosworth founded a sales training organization named Solution Selling in , [4] based on his experiences at Xerox Corporation the Huthwaite International SPIN Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff selling pilot project [5] and began licensing affiliates in With intellectual-property contributions from his affiliate network , Bosworth's methodology continued to evolve through the years.

He sold the intellectual property in to one of his original affiliates, Keith M. While the term "solution selling" has become somewhat generic in the marketplace, the core brand of solution selling still carries distinct characteristics.

47 Top Sales Experts Share their Best Enterprise Selling Tips | HuffPost

Followers of "solution-selling" [7] generally apply a consultative sales approach to all aspects of their sales process or cycle including:. The solution selling methodology has evolved as key components of professional selling evolve. The advent of solution selling may have an impact on business models and on organization practices.

• MARK: A Love Story
• Lauren: Riding Off Trail (Dare to Decide)
• Ecosystem Ecology
• Make Ebooks Free, Start An Ebook Enterprise: Guaranteed to Save You Hundreds or Thousands of Dollars (Kindle Version)
• Encounters with Alphonso Lingis
• Look No More
• A little bit of BLACK MAGIC