I was having a round table discussion with a bunch of sales people. They started by saying, “We sell solutions…..”
“That’s interesting, tell me more. What do your solutions do?” I responded.
They started to describe their solutions and products. They talked about the features and functions, they talked about the user interface and ease of use, they compared their solutions to competition, they even offered to give me a demo.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I meant, what problems do your solutions solve?”
“They help improve our customers’ productivity and efficiency…..” one of the sellers said.
“What does that mean,” I asked.
“Well they get more work done in a shorter period of time….” replied another.
“What work are you referring to?” I asked.
“Well, it’s a lot of administrative work, research, other things that take a lot of their time during the day. We’ve helped some customers improve productivity by over 20%,” a seller stated.
“What’s that mean to the customer? Why does the customer need to improve their productivity and efficiency in this area?” I asked.
At this point, people were starting to get impatient, they didn’t know where I was going with the conversation. There was a lot of shuffling in their seats. A few were covertly looking at their devices hoping to be rescued from this meeting.
“Well they are more efficient and productive, they get more work done,” replied a seller.
“But they seem to be getting it done now, why do they need to change? What work aren’t they getting done?” I asked.
“Well, we enable them to do more of that work in the same amount of time,” responded a frustrated seller.
“Is the workload increasing so they don’t have enough time to get it all done?” I asked.
The answers were coming slower, people didn’t understand how to respond.
“What work aren’t they getting done because they are spending so much time doing this stuff?” I repeated.
One seller jumped in to answer, I think he was just trying to get this painful conversation over with. “That’s it, the workload is increasing….”
“How much is it increasing? Why is it increasing? What happens if they can’t get it done in a certain period of time? Why do they need to get it done so quickly?” I asked.
They started looking at each other, not knowing how to respond. “We don’t really know, we just know we increase productivity and efficiency, we don’t know if or why their workload is increasing….”
“Is it that increasing workload that drives the need, or is there some other reason they need to improve productivity and save time? How will they use the time you are freeing up?” I asked.
“Well,” said one seller quietly,”Their real work is this….. But they are spending so much time in the areas we help them with, that they don’t have the time to devote to those really important parts of their job. I think they are buying our solution to free up time to focus on those areas.”
“That’s fascinating,” I replied, “What is the impact of their not being able to do those things? How much is it costing them–lost revenue, lost customers, lost opportunity, excessive costs? How much more of that work will they be able to do, if your solution helps them reduce the time they need to spend in those other areas?”
“If your solutions can help improve their productivity and efficiency, freeing them up to work on more important things, that creates huge value to them!” I continued.
“Other than improving efficiency and productivity, what other things do you free up your customer to do?” I asked.
They looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders.
Do you understand what problems your solutions address?
Do you understand how to find out if your customers have those problems?
Do you understand the impact of those problems to your customers?
Sometimes what our offerings “do,” is different from the problems they solve. And understanding this, helping your customer understand this, can provide the greatest differentiation and leverage.
What’s the real problem you help your customers solve?
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