The first person who came up with the idea of selling solutions hit on a great idea. Rather than sell their products they would sell what their clients needed.
Selling Solutions Can Be A Bit Of A Meaningless Term
Unfortunately, it may now be a cliche. Selling solutions is a bit too generic.
What was once a meaningful buyer-defined term that meant “the answer to my specific problem” is now generic jargon that sellers have co-opted to mean “the bundle of products and services that I want to sell”
Grove, Sellers, Ettenson, Knowles 2018, page 1
A collaboration of B2B business leaders, academics, and consultants argue that a better approach is needed. They outline major changes in the B2B (business to business) environment. They note:
- technological changes (new ways of creating products and better information),
- rising quality making it hard to differentiate on reliability, and
- a change in buyer’s focus from cost (cheap) to providing value.
This last one makes sense for buyers: one wants something that works well for your specific firm. If things don’t fit together well in a firm then this can be a lot more costly than any savings from a slightly cheaper component.
Organize Around Customer Outcomes
To embrace the changing environment the authors argue that B2B firms need to organize around customer outcomes. The end of the process isn’t shipping the “solution” and asking for payment. Instead, it is about ensuring that customers gain the benefits promised. The idea is for suppliers to change their processes. This should ensure that the customer outcomes occur.
The most fascinating element for me is the implications for metrics. In a traditional reporting system, one would check if sales had been made, check revenue against costs, and make sure the invoices had been paid etc… The new approach envisaged is quite different.
Under an outcomes-based approach, suppliers need to rethink their metrics of success and help customers assess the value their products and services generate. In some settings, quality will no longer be internally defined (measured, say, in manufacturing error rates) but instead gauged by how well a product meets the customer’s expectations for quantitative and qualitative business impact.
Grove, Sellers, Ettenson, Knowles 2018, page 6
It is a significant change in thinking but a very interesting one.
For more on marketing language see here.
Read: Hannah Grove, Kevin Sellers, Richard Ettenson, Jonathan Knowles (2018) Selling Solutions Isn’t Enough: B2B companies need to focus on helping each customer achieve better outcomes, MIT Sloan Management Review, August