Not all products or services are created equal in terms of
how you sell them. And, not all customers are created equal, in terms of how
sophisticated or needing they are for a product or service. And, selling into different levels of an
organization, often requires different types of selling techniques, in order to
get their attention. This post
summarizes the three most typical selling techniques used today.
Product Selling
Product selling is exactly what it sounds like: selling the
advantages or features of a specific product or service. With product selling, the questions are
predictable from customers, products are used in similar ways by customers,
prices are typically set, marketing materials are standardized and salespeople
typically require a lot of formal training.
Product selling is typically sold to low-to-mid level employees of the
customer’s organization.
Solution Selling
Solution selling goes beyond simply selling products or
services. Instead, you are trying to
focus on a customer’s pain point, and address how your product or service is
the best solution to that pain point. And, the bigger the pain point (e.g., can
dramatically reduce cost, improve customer service, or open up new revenues
streams), the more needed your solution will be.
With solution selling, customer questions are unpredictable
and typically need a lot of research, the solutions vary from customer to
customer, prices can vary substantially based on the level of services
provided, sales reps customize marketing materials to the specific customer
needs and the salesperson typically trains themselves in order to get a deep
understanding of a situation. Solution
selling is typically sold to mid-to-high level employees within a customer’s
organization.
In 1998, Neil Rackham published the popular book “SPIN Selling”, to help
create a process for solution selling.
SPIN stands for the four sequential steps of the process, and the right
types of questions to ask in each step: (i) Situation questions where you
collect facts (e.g., simply learn where the customer is today); (ii) Problem
questions to identify problems (e.g., what is not working in the current
situation); (iii) Implication questions to learn consequences of problems
(e.g., quantifying the scope of the problems); and (iv) Need-Payoff questions
to identify the value payoff of a solution
(e.g., quantifying the economic lift from the solution to the
problem—new revenues, lower expenses, better customer service benefit). This process gives your salesperson a
playbook to work from in selling your solution.
Insight Selling
Solution selling is not to be confused with insight selling,
which has become more broadly used in today’s era of big data and big analytics. With insight selling, the pain point is
unknown to the customer. You are helping
your customer to identify a problem that they did not know even existed,
opening a white space for you to easily sell your product or service. With insight selling, your salesperson is
actually playing the role of business coach or strategy consultant to the
client, holding their hand through the process of buying and implementing your
solution. Insights are typically sold to the high-to-executive levels of a customer’s organization, the people who care
the most about taking their business to the next level of success.
The Common Mistake
Startups Make
So, as you can see, sales is not a “one size fits all”
solution. You need to employ the right
tactics and hire the right type of salespeople, to fulfill whichever of the
above techniques is most relevant for your business. And, the biggest mistake most entrepreneurs
make: they are so focused on selling their
product, that they often forget to think about the solutions and insights their
product offers its customers (which could make it a much easier sale). So, do a critical assessment of your needs,
and more importantly your customer’s needs, and plan accordingly.
Be sure to read my companion piece, The
1,024 Types of Salespersons—Hire the Right Ones, to make sure you recruit
the best sales team for your specific needs.
As you will learn, not all salespersons are created equal, and hiring
the right person can make or break your success.
For future posts, please follow me on Twitter at: @georgedeeb.