There are many B2B organizations that are constantly daunted with the problem of facing bitter competition that increases with every passing day, and they try to transform their operations from product-led sales to a solution-driven profits. Such companies invest a lot by training their employees to make sales by providing solutions to the consumers. And despite their exceptional efforts, they end up facing disappointment. The reason they have to struggle is because solution selling can’t be simply mastered with training. Whether you employ Target Account Selling (TAS) or Miller-Heimann, your employees will not be able to familiarize to these methodologies unless you incorporate them into the culture of the organization. In order to ensure that your selling tactics are truly solution-driven, you have to make sure that the strategy you are using is obvious in all your sales and marketing activities or else your initiative is doomed to fail.
Training companies admit themselves that 80-90% of teachings done through training is forgotten, if there isn’t enough reinforcement. It only takes about 2-4 weeks of forgetting things, if not reiterated again and again. Utilizing e-learning methods can somewhat be helpful in maintaining the momentum temporarily, however, that too isn't the best solution.
You cannot simply provide a solution, if you are not familiar with the problem. Therefore, in order to successfully execute solution selling, you need to first find out the core issue and then provide solution to your customers that can help them in overcoming the problem. You must be able to handle the issue adeptly so that your customers are unable to find a better solution elsewhere.
Before you consider adopting a solution-selling sales approach, it is very important to perform these fundamental steps. To start with the process, you need to clearly identify your ideal customer profiles. Fully familiarize yourself with their likes, dislikes and trigger events.
Then devise a strategy, aligning their problems with your core strengths, and then exhibit this alignment across your marketing and sales tools. When providing sales training, you need to focus on this same strategy, converting it into customized guides that will allow your sales team to ponder upon different problems and their subsequent consequences, helping them deal with these problems without much difficulty.
Before you get excited about the idea of training your sales staff, it is best to train your managers first. And while you give this idea a serious thought, make sure that they are supporters of the strategy. If your managers are not acknowledging the concept, then expecting favorable outcomes is foolish. You can begin by devising a methodology that embeds in their day-in-day-out with the chosen principles of the strategy.
Your CRM system should clearly resonate with the methodology that you have implemented. Are the sale stages and terminology used in the CRM in-line with your strategy. Have you incorporated milestones and key qualification system into the tool? And is your CRM capable of giving sales information, asking questions that will help managers train their employees better?
Most of the sales methodologies now come equipped with plug-in applications. If you really want your methodology to be used, ensure that you will be getting the help that you want. While choosing a sales-training methodology, you can consider getting a CRM plug-in that is prevalent to your sales strategy.
You need to make sure that your marketing personnel is aware of your chosen sales strategy which would affect the sales process. All marketing functions should be reflective of your technique – from attracting the potential customers to asserting that every sales tool and each marketing activity has a well-defined part in making the prospect finalize his decision.
The methodologies mentioned above are capable of bringing about quite encouraging results. Most of these are based on similar approaches. So, the key lies in successfully implementing “solution selling”, not the methodology that you are using. What counts in the end is how you implement these methods.