How many times does a sales person start a sales presentation with a demonstration of their product? How many times have you heard a sales person declare the immortal phrase Have I got a solution for you? How many advertisements out there claim to have the solution to everything?
Question: With all the solutions out there, I must have quite a few problems, so why havent any of mine been solved?
This is going to touch on very basic sales management principles but then it is quite possible that the problem with many sales practices is that there is an over complication of the sales process and an over exuberance on the part of the sales person to presume on the customers buying habits. However, let us get back to a very basic premise and that is that a product only becomes a solution unless it solves a problem. This is not rocket science yet you will not believe the sales pitches that ignore this very basic premise, and why do many of them fail? Not because they dont know this pearl of wisdom, but because they have misread or presumed on a solution that isnt there.
Question: Who defines what a solution is?
Supposing you are a vendor of quality meat and you are pitching a sales transaction to someone who is hungry, you would assume that you have a solution to a problem, ie. being hungry, but what if that person was vegetarian? Your product is no longer a solution. Who defines what the solution is? - The customer.
This gets to be more complicated as the stakes of a sale become higher and the sale and product becomes more complex. In selling complicated systems like CRM and Sales Force Automation the tendency is to transpose the words system and solution because the sales persons psyche is geared towards selling a complicated overall system that solves many problems. It is quite possible that a sales person may think that because so many problems are solved by one piece of software that a system can be presented as a solution because it is bound to solve a problem that a prospect faces. Luck can play a part in making a sale; however, can never be relied upon and never trusted. Not only this but in the situation where you present your myriad of solutions and realise that the problem the prospect has is not solved, the sales persons credibility plummets.
One of the greatest fears many sales people have, is that they fear asking questions, especially so early on in a prospective sale. Many sales people need to appear as though they have all the knowledge at hand which restricts the very simple process of asking questions. This, together with the pressure to make an impact, makes it very difficult to ask those all important questions that find out the problems that the prospect might be having. Being forewarned is being forearmed is a popular saying and is most apt for this sales situation. Asking the prospect what areas of business they need to focus on is one of those pieces of information that could mean the difference between a sales pitch that covers everything but the problem to a detailed pitch that solves the prospects problem and gets you the sale.
Remember the vegetarian who is hungry. He will not eat a hamburger and yet it is food.
George Petri is Managing Director of Nomis Limited which created SalesVision, one of the UK's leading IT systems providers in effective Sales Performance Management.
http://www.salesvisiononline.com
http://www.nomislimited.com
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