What is Solution Selling?
Over many years, I have had a recurring conversation about the definition of "Solution Selling." Note that I put it in title case. Yes, I mean a very specific term that was coined, I believe, by Mike Bosworth. All credit to Bosworth, I have not studied Solution Selling all that much, but what I did take away from it was the concept of finding out what was bothering (my terminology) the customer and then figuring out how to help them solve the problem. Very much a diagnosis and prescription process. The conflict that comes up, however, is when salespeople (or anyone, for that matter) feels that solution selling is the act of selling the whole damned enchilada to the customer. People have this impression that solution selling is figuring out a way to make sure that the customer has one of everything, whether they need it or not, and two of most things on the price list. In my books, this is not Solution Selling, this is flogging product. It sounds like it is a good thing ...