Solutions Selling Skills Programme Introduction
Solutions selling demands a clear plan and a robust set of processes to create the best chances of winning.
Sales teams must also win the politics of the sale, as this is key to closing the business.
Solutions Selling
Our mantra is ...
Selling is a process. Only when it’s not a process it is a problem.
This is particularly relevant when it comes to solutions selling. Selling solutions is typically an expensive process in terms of the selling resource. It needs careful planning and rigorous ongoing qualification to ensure that precious sales and support resources are not wasted.
Regardless of the fact that businesses and their products and services differ dramatically, selling solutions in more complex business to business environments does not differ much in process terms. Most of these sales follow a predictable process – a pattern that can be predefined to a great extent and planned for with confidence.
Commitments are Key
Key to this planning is the definition of some key commitments that are always required from the prospect or customer. We define a commitment as an action that the customer takes for you, the salesperson, to move the sale forward. If these commitments are not achieved it is unlikely that a sale will be successful. And the chances of success are usually detectable early in the process.
Given the cost of selling involved with this kind of business, the ability to quit – “lose quickly” – and know that it is the right thing to do is very important indeed. More sales resource is wasted through inadequate qualification than for most if not all other reasons – and not only in solutions selling.
So successful solutions selling demands focus on commitments:
- What they are
- How well they are being achieved
- What this means to the progress of the sale.
Remember, pulling out early because you have little if any chance of winning is a successful outcome. You’ve saved considerable cost and resource which can be redirected to potential business that you are much more likely to win.
Our Solutions Selling Skills Programme
Our Solutions Selling Skills Programme focuses on far more than commitments, important though they are. It covers all the planning and verbal skills needed to win the solutions sale.
The three day programme trains salespeople how to create needs for their solution in the minds of all the stakeholders – how to obtain a “hunting licence”, how to make a compelling business case – and how to unravel the politics of the sale en route. They learn how to package the sales process into a series of objectives, meetings and commitments (often agreed timetables). They learn how to bring all their professional selling skills together to win the solutions sale.
All our programmes are customised to meet specific client requirements.
Follow Up
We often follow up this type of programme by working with our clients to help them create, document and implement their own best practice processes. This leads to further improvements, including more effective use of salesforce time and resource, greater forecasting accuracy, improved hit rates and getting new people up to speed quickly by learning best practice from day one.
The business benefits include reduced costs of selling, higher win rates, higher sales, higher profits and greater profitability.
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To discuss your Solutions Selling Skills Programme requirements:
Call us on 0845 125 9098