If your company has a sales force, maybe you’ve said this to yourself: “Our salespeople aren’t solution selling, they tend to make everything a product pitch.”
It always seems that salespeople get blamed for pitching products, which at first glance makes sense. After all, they’re the people in front of the customer. But should all of the blame be placed on salespeople?
Think about your organization. Are you equipping your salespeople to solution sell or are you actually sending them into the market to pitch products?
Before you answer that question grab a copy of the sales ‘deck’ your sales force is trained to present. Now before you open it, let’s define what a solution is:
Now go ahead and open your company’s sales deck. Does it open with your customer’s problem followed by a means of how your organization can solve it? If it does, then you are equipping the sales force to solution sell.
However, if you open your company’s sales deck and it talks about your company (pictures of your buildings and maps of your locations) and the products you offer, then you’re actually directing your salespeople to pitch products.
Perhaps the question isn’t whether your salespeople are solution selling or not. Perhaps the question is “What is your organization equipping your salespeople to do?”