We’re in love with our products and services. They’re what we live and breath, and the solution to our customer’s problems.
Problem is, the customer doesn’t think that way. They may not know that a solution to their problem exists, and even if you describe it to them, they may still fail to do the value translation on their own from what you’re selling to what it can do for them.
The best way to sell is to take the solution out of the pitch. Effective outcome-based selling today puts the solution as part of the close, not part of the pitch. Here’s why.
Your customer knows two things. One, they know they have a problem or pain or symptom. And two, they know they want to achieve a certain outcome or objective. Sometimes, all they really know is the outcome or objective, and they believe they’re on the right path to achieve that. They may not even be feeling the pain or need, because they don’t know they’re heading down the wrong path.
Your job as a solution provider is to put your products and services to the side, and address the prospect’s issues. Build rapport by demonstrating your understanding of the problem, and paint a picture of what success could (or should) look like. Help them understand the urgency of solving the problem or achieving the outcome, or alternatively help them understand and quantify the problem, and future cost of a problem, they may or may not know that they have.
If you do this well, you will have created a crisp understanding of the problem, a measurable understanding of what it means to solve it and truly achieve the stated/desired outcome, plus a more urgent desire to do something about it.
This process, this path to understanding, is your sales pitch. It’s where 80 percent of your selling time should be spent. Because once you get a prospect to this point, a couple things happen. One, they trust you. You’ve helped them better understand a problem they had without you. Two, they assume this insight you’ve brought is accompanied by a product or service that can address and “bridge” between problem and outcome. And three, they don’t care as much what it is and what it costs.
The solution doesn’t matter. The outcome is all that matters for the prospect. So if you build credibility and confidence that you can solve for that, the solution becomes part of the close and you’re less likely to get pushback for a reasonable price point that fits nicely into their outcome-achieving equation.
