Solution selling focuses on identifying a customer’s needs and problems, adapting and promoting products as solutions. It was developed by Frank Watts in the 1970s and has been used by companies since the mid-1980s. The process involves investigating customer needs, prospecting, customer service, and follow-up. However, it has been criticized for being an umbrella term for product placement.
Solution selling is a sales theory. Rather than direct product promotions, solution selling advocates focusing resources on a customer’s needs and problems. Once the problem is identified, the product can be adapted and advertised as a solution to the problem. The theory is based on the idea of products solving solutions, rather than just being desired. The overall sales objective, to make a profit, is unchanged.
The idea of solution selling was first developed by Frank Watts in the 1970’s. He didn’t test it in a corporate setting until the early 1980’s when he worked with Xerox. In 1983, a former Xerox employee, Mike Bosworth, created a company to promote the idea. Like many sales and business management theories, it is promoted and sold in various ways, such as books and training courses.
In addition to being sold in this format, solution selling has been used by several companies since the mid-1980s to adjust their sales strategies. Prior to this, products were advertised for their functions in hopes that the customer would identify the problem the product would solve. Instead, solution selling advocated a variety of newer methods for providing both the problem and the solution.
The first state of solution selling is to investigate the customer’s needs. That means surveys and feedback from existing customers. By understanding what customers want, the company can better tailor its products to provide true solutions that drive direct results.
While need diagnosis works for individual or family products, prospecting is used to generate more sales with high powered companies and individuals. The idea of prospecting works together with the idea of prospecting for precious minerals. The prospector makes contact with well-targeted contacts, just as a prospector would target specific rivers and mountains.
Customer service and follow-up, in addition to establishing product value, are important parts of building long-term brand equity and customer loyalty. This is the aftermarket version of the troubleshooter. The company looks not only at changing problems, but also at how to change its product to provide an even better solution.
Solution selling has been criticized for being an umbrella term for product placement. These criticisms occurred because several companies advertise their products as solutions without going through the numerous phases of good customer service and relationship. Bosworth also stated that the training regimens he developed with the program primarily improved a company’s sales force and had a negligible effect on poor performers. This has led him and others to conclude that good sales are mostly intuition.
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