11 Don’t Sell Stuff, Sell Solutions

If there is a better way to do it, find it.

—Thomas Edison

“Solutions” has become a silly word in the high-tech age, in

danger of losing any meaning whatsoever. Every company that

sells anything related to computers calls itself a “solution

provider.” The word “solutions” appears so many times in

these businesses’ self-descriptions that it’s often impossible to

figure out what in the world the company actually makes or

does.

Annoying as this may be, the computer industry has the

right basic idea. The problem is just that it has mistaken an action

imperative for a labeling issue. If you want to sell solutions

to important customer needs instead of just selling

stuff—and regardless of your industry, believe us, you do—it

isn’t merely a question of hanging a “solutions” label on your

company or your products. It’s a question of how you sell.

A friend of ours was in the trade show business. Her company

organized and sold “mini-trade shows”—essentially

tabletop displays on six-foot tables. Her company would rent a

ballroom in a big hotel, set up thirty or forty six-foot tables, sell

table space to vendors, send out about 5,000 invitations to targeted

buyers, and act as the conduit between buyers and sellers.

Great concept. Just one problem: Try to sell a six-foot

table to the vice president of marketing at a $500 million hightech

company. Why would he or she care about a six-foot table

at a five-hour show at some hotel in Newton, Massachusetts?

When her sales team tried to sell tables to marketing vice

presidents, their calls rarely got through. When they did connect,

and they started selling the value of the table and the

value of the buyers coming to the show, they made slow and

painstaking headway.

Then her sales team got smart. They stopped selling sixfoot

tables. They started asking the vice presidents (VPs) about

their marketing and customer strategies, and what they were

trying to accomplish. After they covered those issues, the next

questions they asked were: “What are you doing at the local

level?” and specifically: “What are you doing to follow up

your major trade show activity at the local level?”

The sales team thereby made their six-foot tables part of

the VP’s larger strategy. If VPs wanted to get all the benefit of

the millions they were spending on major trade shows, it

made sense that they also needed a low-end, local strategy. If

a company plans to invest $2.2 million in trade shows next

year in the hope of making more millions, wouldn’t it be wise

to earmark $50,000 for a local follow-up effort?

The overall solution VPs were looking for was an answer

to the question: What is the smartest way we can invest a few

million to earn more millions? By making themselves part of

that solution, our friend’s sales team found it a whole lot easier

to sell six-foot tables.

Now, certainly the VP can unplug our friend’s low-end

solution at any time and replace her with another local trade

show company. But that would involve time and risk. This

small a piece of a $2.2 million investment isn’t worth the time

and certainly isn’t worth the risk.

The upshot: Our friend’s company sold more six-foot tables

and held onto their customers longer when they stopped

selling tables and started selling part of a larger solution.

That’s the trick. And that’s the mind-set with which a Knock

Your Socks Off prospector approaches every cold call.

TIP: If you can’t sell the whole solution to a customer’s

problem, sell a piece of it. But never sell a

six-foot table.

Solution Box

Salespeople love to prospect for a need. They believe that if

they can find a need and meet that need, they will make a sale.

True enough, as far as it goes. But knock your socks off

prospecting asks you to cast a bigger net to increase your

chances of gaining the prospect’s interest. With a bigger net

you can catch more fish. The idea is to create some leverage.

Instead of asking if they have a need for your product or

service, ask prospects what they are working on today. What

are some of the current issues they’re struggling with, and

what are they doing about these problems?

Don’t Sell Stuff, Sell Solutions 61

If you want to be the entire solution to a customer’s need,

you must understand the need. But even if you can offer only

a piece of the solution—which is far more common—you have

to understand what the entire solution would look like. What

is the whole of which you’d like to be a part?

By questioning the prospect, you build a solution box.

The solution box allows both you and the prospect to envision

what the entire solution would look like, and what role you

could play in bringing it about. It also helps you communicate

your honest desire to help the prospect solve an important

problem. For a major or complex sale, you would rarely be

able to build an entire solution box with a prospect during an

initial cold call. Some or most of this work likely will take

place during one or more follow-up calls. But the original cold

call will be more effective if you know to begin with:

1. You’re not selling a six-foot table.

2. Your objective during the cold call is to gain the

prospect’s permission to let you help build a solution

box, probably during future calls.

There are three things to remember about building a solution

box:

1. Be inquisitive. Remember, it’s the customer’s solution,

not yours. Ask open-ended questions that encourage the

prospect to talk and talk and talk.

2. Be quantifiable. The more facts and figures you get, the

better. “Good,” “soon,” and “more” add no clarity for the salesperson

or the customer. “Ninety-five percent,” “two weeks,”

and “500 more” are quantifiable terms that have value.

3. Be top down. Discuss the whole solution, not just your

piece of it. And look at things from the prospect’s perspective.

What is the overall problem? How will it be solved? Only

when that is clear will your individual piece of the puzzle fall

into place.

TIP: Don’t start selling while you are building a solution

box with the prospect. If you’re really trying to

identify a solution that will create value for them,

why would you start hawking your piece of the puzzle

before you know what the whole puzzle looks

like? This is a sure way to shoot yourself in the foot.

The rule is, the less you say at this stage about what

you can do, the better.

Finally, try to strike certain words and phrases from your

vocabulary when building a solution box with the prospect.

Here are some common phrases that undermine a salesperson’s claim to be working with the prospect on a solution to

his problem and not just trying to sell him something:

_ We can help you.

_ We have a unique . . . .

_ We now can offer . . . .

_ That is one thing my company . . . .

_ I am sure you will see . . . .

_ I know this is a perfect fit.

_ I need to tell you . . . .

_ I have an exceptional . . . .

_ We are better.

_ My company . . . .

_ I . . . .

_ My . . . .

_ Me . . . .

Words that put the focus of the conversation on the salesperson

rather than the customer need to be drop-kicked from

our sales vocabulary. Better words and phrases are:

_ What you . . . .

_ You said . . . .

_ Yes, you can, and have you . . . .

_ Have you ever thought about . . . .

_ Have you considered . . . .

_ What would it be worth to you?

_ How would you . . . .

_ Where would you put . . . .

_ When would you like to implement . . . .

_ Why would you want to . . . .

The more questions you can ask, the more you keep the

focus on the prospect. And the more you concentrate on the

overall solution before getting down to your piece of it, the

more value will be created in the prospect’s mind. Is this because

you have woven a diabolically clever mirage? No. The

reason the prospect perceives more value is because if you do

all this, the value is really there.

Don’t Sell Stuff, Sell Solutions 63

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If there is a better way to do it, find it.

—Thomas Edison

“Solutions” has become a silly word in the high-tech age, in

danger of losing any meaning whatsoever. Every company that

sells anything related to computers calls itself a “solution

provider.” The word “solutions” appears so many times in

these businesses’ self-descriptions that it’s often impossible to

figure out what in the world the company actually makes or

does.

Annoying as this may be, the computer industry has the

right basic idea. The problem is just that it has mistaken an action

imperative for a labeling issue. If you want to sell solutions

to important customer needs instead of just selling

stuff—and regardless of your industry, believe us, you do—it

isn’t merely a question of hanging a “solutions” label on your

company or your products. It’s a question of how you sell.

A friend of ours was in the trade show business. Her company

organized and sold “mini-trade shows”—essentially

tabletop displays on six-foot tables. Her company would rent a

ballroom in a big hotel, set up thirty or forty six-foot tables, sell

table space to vendors, send out about 5,000 invitations to targeted

buyers, and act as the conduit between buyers and sellers.

Great concept. Just one problem: Try to sell a six-foot

table to the vice president of marketing at a $500 million hightech

company. Why would he or she care about a six-foot table

at a five-hour show at some hotel in Newton, Massachusetts?

When her sales team tried to sell tables to marketing vice

presidents, their calls rarely got through. When they did connect,

and they started selling the value of the table and the

value of the buyers coming to the show, they made slow and

painstaking headway.

Then her sales team got smart. They stopped selling sixfoot

tables. They started asking the vice presidents (VPs) about

their marketing and customer strategies, and what they were

trying to accomplish. After they covered those issues, the next

questions they asked were: “What are you doing at the local

level?” and specifically: “What are you doing to follow up

your major trade show activity at the local level?”

The sales team thereby made their six-foot tables part of

the VP’s larger strategy. If VPs wanted to get all the benefit of

the millions they were spending on major trade shows, it

made sense that they also needed a low-end, local strategy. If

a company plans to invest $2.2 million in trade shows next

year in the hope of making more millions, wouldn’t it be wise

to earmark $50,000 for a local follow-up effort?

The overall solution VPs were looking for was an answer

to the question: What is the smartest way we can invest a few

million to earn more millions? By making themselves part of

that solution, our friend’s sales team found it a whole lot easier

to sell six-foot tables.

Now, certainly the VP can unplug our friend’s low-end

solution at any time and replace her with another local trade

show company. But that would involve time and risk. This

small a piece of a $2.2 million investment isn’t worth the time

and certainly isn’t worth the risk.

The upshot: Our friend’s company sold more six-foot tables

and held onto their customers longer when they stopped

selling tables and started selling part of a larger solution.

That’s the trick. And that’s the mind-set with which a Knock

Your Socks Off prospector approaches every cold call.

TIP: If you can’t sell the whole solution to a customer’s

problem, sell a piece of it. But never sell a

six-foot table.

Solution Box

Salespeople love to prospect for a need. They believe that if

they can find a need and meet that need, they will make a sale.

True enough, as far as it goes. But knock your socks off

prospecting asks you to cast a bigger net to increase your

chances of gaining the prospect’s interest. With a bigger net

you can catch more fish. The idea is to create some leverage.

Instead of asking if they have a need for your product or

service, ask prospects what they are working on today. What

are some of the current issues they’re struggling with, and

what are they doing about these problems?

Don’t Sell Stuff, Sell Solutions 61

If you want to be the entire solution to a customer’s need,

you must understand the need. But even if you can offer only

a piece of the solution—which is far more common—you have

to understand what the entire solution would look like. What

is the whole of which you’d like to be a part?

By questioning the prospect, you build a solution box.

The solution box allows both you and the prospect to envision

what the entire solution would look like, and what role you

could play in bringing it about. It also helps you communicate

your honest desire to help the prospect solve an important

problem. For a major or complex sale, you would rarely be

able to build an entire solution box with a prospect during an

initial cold call. Some or most of this work likely will take

place during one or more follow-up calls. But the original cold

call will be more effective if you know to begin with:

1. You’re not selling a six-foot table.

2. Your objective during the cold call is to gain the

prospect’s permission to let you help build a solution

box, probably during future calls.

There are three things to remember about building a solution

box:

1. Be inquisitive. Remember, it’s the customer’s solution,

not yours. Ask open-ended questions that encourage the

prospect to talk and talk and talk.

2. Be quantifiable. The more facts and figures you get, the

better. “Good,” “soon,” and “more” add no clarity for the salesperson

or the customer. “Ninety-five percent,” “two weeks,”

and “500 more” are quantifiable terms that have value.

3. Be top down. Discuss the whole solution, not just your

piece of it. And look at things from the prospect’s perspective.

What is the overall problem? How will it be solved? Only

when that is clear will your individual piece of the puzzle fall

into place.

TIP: Don’t start selling while you are building a solution

box with the prospect. If you’re really trying to

identify a solution that will create value for them,

why would you start hawking your piece of the puzzle

before you know what the whole puzzle looks

like? This is a sure way to shoot yourself in the foot.

The rule is, the less you say at this stage about what

you can do, the better.

Finally, try to strike certain words and phrases from your

vocabulary when building a solution box with the prospect.

Here are some common phrases that undermine a salesperson’s claim to be working with the prospect on a solution to

his problem and not just trying to sell him something:

_ We can help you.

_ We have a unique . . . .

_ We now can offer . . . .

_ That is one thing my company . . . .

_ I am sure you will see . . . .

_ I know this is a perfect fit.

_ I need to tell you . . . .

_ I have an exceptional . . . .

_ We are better.

_ My company . . . .

_ I . . . .

_ My . . . .

_ Me . . . .

Words that put the focus of the conversation on the salesperson

rather than the customer need to be drop-kicked from

our sales vocabulary. Better words and phrases are:

_ What you . . . .

_ You said . . . .

_ Yes, you can, and have you . . . .

_ Have you ever thought about . . . .

_ Have you considered . . . .

_ What would it be worth to you?

_ How would you . . . .

_ Where would you put . . . .

_ When would you like to implement . . . .

_ Why would you want to . . . .

The more questions you can ask, the more you keep the

focus on the prospect. And the more you concentrate on the

overall solution before getting down to your piece of it, the

more value will be created in the prospect’s mind. Is this because

you have woven a diabolically clever mirage? No. The

reason the prospect perceives more value is because if you do

all this, the value is really there.

Don’t Sell Stuff, Sell Solutions 63

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