Selling a product is a relatively simple process. Someone has a need and your salesperson has a product or service that solves that problem. In basic transactions such as purchasing office supplies, the problem may be simple.

Lets say you sell paperclips in a variety of sizes and colors. Your prospect needs a way to temporarily bind individual paper items together. Your solution is a paperclip. Easy sale. Sell them two boxes.

If, on the other hand, you can create a new need in your customer’s mind by asking questions related to his business, you could make a bigger sale and forge an ongoing relationship. How many papers does he need to bind? Many of Similar Company’s papers require signatures. Do any of your papers require signatures? How many? Who signs all these papers? May I ask him a few questions?

Is it difficult for you to rifle through all the papers to find the signature line? How much time does that take? Do you ever miss pages that need to be signed? Do the papers then go out incomplete? How much time is wasted getting the papers back and once again rifling through them? Do your clients get annoyed when papers arrive incomplete? Does that cause bad will? Would it save your organization time and aggravation, as well as improve customer good will, if you could mark those signature pages with colored paperclips so that you and your other executives could easily see which pages need signing?

End result: They buy 20 boxes of paperclips in a variety of colors and sizes.

Solution Selling®
By introducing buyers to their latent needs, or “pain,” salespeople can substantially increase sales. Usually a business problem within an account is not isolated to one person, but it usually affects other parts of the organization in one way or another. The pervasiveness of a business problem increases a salesperson’s added value if they can help their customers understand the interdependence of the problem throughout the organization and help them solve it. This is Solution Selling® at its most basic level.

Originally published in 1994 by Michael T. Bosworth in his book, Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets, Solution Selling® is the most widely used, high performance sales execution process in the world. This methodology provides a customer focused sales process, which enables sales professionals to substantively increase win rates and revenue production by:

• focusing upon a total understanding of critical business issues faced by their customers
• developing potential value to be gained by their customers
• creating a strong desire in the customer to buy products and services supplied by the selling organization

This methodology fits particularly well in a variety of industries - above and beyond the paperclip industry - including financial services, engineering services, technology solutions, telecommunications, and educational services, where a more consultative sale approach is needed.

The key is developing and outlining the unique process for your company. These include methods for:

• Prospecting
• Need Development
• Proof Management
• Buying Process Qualification
• Buying Process Control
• Negotiating
• Closing

Once a process is established, it must be integrated with a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system like SalesLogix that has the capability to automate and guide a sales or opportunity process. The sales staff must then be trained to “work the process.” A successful implementation will assist and coach your salespeople throughout the entire sale.

By outlining all the individual steps, you will get faster ramp-up for new employees and an improvement in sales from your more mediocre salespeople. Additionally, your Sales Manager can more accurately monitor progress by salesperson and by opportunity. This leads to better sales forecasting. He can judge the completed steps in the process instead of relying on the “gut feel” of the salesperson.

If you need assistance in defining your sales process, or implementing Solution Selling® in your organization, call CompuData at 800-223-3282.