Solutions Selling And Online Sales

Solutions selling is something that we do online- or should be striving to do. The idea of this article came from McKinsley, where they discussed solutions selling- the need for it, but in reality we are not doing it.

There is a difference between selling a product and selling something the customer requires. This, in a round about way, is content marketing:

Offer information, specialised that you know.
That information matches what someone is looking for
You offer them a solution to that specific problem.

As Salesforce.com puts it:

"Solution selling focuses on the customer and the problems they’re experiencing. Like box pushing, product selling focuses on the product and selling as many of them as possible — regardless of whether or not the customer needs the product. This shift in perspective means that solution selling is a more consultative and relationship-focused process than product selling."

The importance of solution selling:

Solution selling builds trust-based relationships by focusing on the Return on Investment (ROI) for the customer. It goes beyond product features, considering the customer's goals, pain points, and desired outcomes.

Again, Salesforce:

At its heart, solution selling is all about the ROI that your prospect can get out of your recommendations, not pushing features on them in hopes of making a sale. This builds trust-based relationships and meets the prospect’s need to work with someone who puts their best interest at heart.

Rather than focusing on your product’s features and benefits, solution selling is centered around your prospects’ needs:

What are their goals and pain points?
What problems and challenges are they facing?
What is the outcome that can solve their needs?

The seller should go beyond the surface-level handshake and really understand the buyer’s industry, challenges, and goals. When you walk in your customer’s shoes and understand their pain points from the inside out, you are much more qualified to tailor the right solution to them. The solution seller’s role is to provide insight that helps customers see a vision of a better future.

Steps of Solution Selling:

Understand Your Customer: Begin by exploring buyer personas, researching the industry, and engaging in discovery calls to understand the customer's priorities, challenges, and goals.
Understand Your Products: While solution selling is not about selling product features, a solid understanding of product features is essential to map them to customer challenges effectively.
Show Clients What They're Missing: Tailor your solution by mapping product features to specific customer problems, demonstrating how your product can holistically address their needs.
Close the Deal and Maintain the Relationship: The relationship-focused approach continues beyond the sale, with an emphasis on maintaining customer relationships and addressing post-sale metrics.

Solutions selling and online

Online we are trying to sell something. We have a product and build around it articles and video that would get people to sell the product.

For example, how many people go down this route:

You find an affiliate product that you like. Say an ebook about selling on Amazon. It has good stats, converts well and it has some awesome commissions?
You build a website promoting that product. You do Pay Per Click, you do keywords. You name it
Sure people might buy...but

We are in a sales mentality

This is not what solutions selling is all about.

What you need to do is look at the landscape of Amazon. Maybe:

they are selling in a really competitive field with a poor product with a poor landing page
they haven't a clue of where to start- if even an Amazon product is right for them. Maybe Etsy is, maybe Clickbank if they wanted to sell an ebook training system

So now your website would be able to funnel and discuss certain avenues that might not have been open initially- maybe even a flow chart. So instead of:

Everything you need to know about Amazon FBA

It would be:

before you start Amazon FBA lets go through a few important building blocks first before you spend a dime

Time and time again businesses that interact heavily with customers, finding out their needs, discussing products etc (especially within an industry that they know) is hugely beneficial.

This works very well when there is rapport between the sales rep and the customer- which can easily be achieved through social media comments feedback.

But where this goes down is the training. What McKinsley found was 3 issues:

product management- tailoring the product to suit the customer
understanding customer needs and delivering on value
understanding the value of customers including their lifetime value- also focusing in on customer focused innovation.

It is also a very time consuming technique. To spend time writing articles of need and also responding to individual comments takes time. Sure AI can help in this department especially "how can I help you" AI on websites- has shown to increase interaction.

Some websites state that you should only do solution selling with certain accounts- like higher payment ones. However this again is going slowly into normal selling practices. Why? When we owned a medical website we responded to questions from our visitors from the comments on the blog. Sure these were questions with the ending: "its best to check it out with your Dr anyway" but how do we know who is and isnt going to buy? Most of the time directing to another place, another part of the blog was all what was required to start them in their journey. Sometimes people are just overwhelmed with options and content. That first touch interaction is time consuming, but effective (and rewarding at the same time). Those same people commented on our Facebook pages. They were the "champions" of the brand and site. Guess who bought product when we released it?

So remember- customer first then which products are going to help which customers.

Find this article helpful? Theres more on the Jasonera blog.