Want to Sell Solutions, But at the Velocity of Transactions: What is Your “Yellow-Brick Road?” (Part 3 of a Series)
In last week’s post we talked about Two Key Changes to your marketing and sales process that allow you Sell Solutions, But at the Velocity of Transactions:
- Use “Vision-Quest Marketing” – to generate awareness and inbound inquires – to generate awareness and inbound inquires (Series Part 1)
- Use “Destination-Based Selling” – to enable sales to create transactional sales within a Solution family (Series Part 2)
- Element 1: Position a destination that can be achieved by leveraging your products broadly (Series Part 2)
We talked specifically about what we mean by “Destination-Based Selling” and talked in detail about setting a “Destination” for customers to accelerate sales of your products. But a Destination is not very helpful if customers don’t know HOW to get there. This week we will talk about the element 2 of “Destination-Based Selling” – “Providing a Path”
3 Key Elements of “Destination-Based Selling”
- Position a “Destination” – that can be achieved by leveraging your products broadly, as a platform
- Provide a “Path” – to the destination with specific sales plays
- Provide Marketing and Sales Tools that define the “Destination” and the “Path” (= the Solution and Sales Plays) – to enable generalist sales and your channel to qualify and position opportunities for complex solutions
Want to Sell Solutions, but at the Velocity of Transactions? Try “Destination-Based Selling” (Part 2 of a Series)
A common concern among sales executives is the “velocity” of their sales approach. In other words, how rapidly can the sales team engage with customers and close opportunities? The way many Tech vendors approach this problem is to focus on selling “transactions”, and they generally try to steer clear of adding complexity to the sales process. Why? Because it could slow “velocity” and reduce the Rep’s ability to control the sales outcome and timing.
For many Tech organizations, complexity is often equated to selling “Solutions” that often include products from other vendors and professional services (which they may not get sales credit for, take a long time to “deliver” and equal more complexity). But as we’ve talked about in many posts, selling solutions is often what is needed to be successful selling a particular product. Particularly if it falls to the right of the diagram shown in Figure 1 below. I shared these 3 indicators in my post, “What 3 Questions Indicate Whether You Need to Sell “Solutions”? (and when does selling “Product” work better?…)”
Figure 1: The 3 Indicators for “Solution Selling”
You can find more information on how and when to sell solutions in the “Solutions” section of the “GTM Best Practices page” on my blog.
What I am finding is that fewer and fewer products fit on the left side of the diagram. In today’s world, software and services drive customer value, and hardware is often not the lead message in the solution. But this situation leaves the organizations with a difficult choice –which one of these paths should they follow?
- Market and sell products as part of a “Solution”, to connect with customers and create more long-term revenue
OR
- Sell “Transactions” at a higher velocity, to meet their sales goals (and keep their job)
These two choices seem incompatible – or are they? (more…)
“Climbing Out of the Box”™ 