When I was doing research for this posting I found out something really interesting about solution selling. Before the 70’s the term did not exist. Without going into the entire history, the methodology of “solution selling” was a term dubbed by Frank Watts who was working for a technology company in the mid 1970’s. He later became a sales consultant and made the methodology popular in business circles. What I thought was interesting was that the term quickly became a cliché (as most popular terms do) and became popular as a product or business name, like “advertising solutions” or “IT solutions”… you get the point.

Over the past 35 plus years most companies have recognized that their prospects have problems and they are looking for solutions. It’s odd that such an obvious and successful concept is so young and yet many companies have still not fully adopted the principals of solution selling. For example, I recently called a popular phone company because I was thinking about switching to a less expensive VOIP service. Instead of answering my direct questions I got a sales pitch. The person on the other end responded to my questions by stating a benefit that was loosely related to my area of concern. It was an awful experience. They were not presenting solutions to my problems and they lost the chance to sell me anything after about 5 minutes. With my son beginning to scream in the background, I was able to convince the person on the phone that I really needed to go.

I have always wondered what is said during the sales meetings for these companies with high-pressure sales tactics. I am sure they talk about how to counter every objection, keep someone on the phone, get the commitment, close the deal! Do you think they ever discuss how to keep a customer, make someone feel important, solve someone’s problem? I doubt it.

I have been attending our sales meetings here at Structural Graphics for about eight years and we have always talked about solution selling. I think when you’re selling marketing products you have to be a solution seller. We could talk about all of the benefits of working with us, our great people, fast turnaround times, experienced design team, but what do our customers really care about? They want us to help them reach more customers. They want to engage more prospects and increase response rates. If we can’t do that, the benefits of working with us don’t matter. A large percentage of our clients are returning customers and that is because we are a solutions provider. All of the benefits are great too, but they come back for our marketing solutions.