Many salespeople seem to believe that consultative selling and solution selling are the same thing. They’re right––to a point. But there’s a lot more to it than that. Here’s why. What is solution selling? Solution selling is, as its name suggests, focused on finding out what a customer’s needs are, then selling them a solution, in the form of a product or service (or a combination of both), to meet those needs. It came into existence in the 1980s and was fuelled to fame thanks to the success of Xerox, who used this approach. Since then, it has gone through several reincarnations, including SPIN selling, RAIN selling and Customer Centric Selling, but at their core, these strategies all share the same solution selling methodology. Like many other modern sales strategies, solution selling avoids talking about ‘features and benefits’ in its pitch. Instead, its conversation remains [...]

Is it time for value-based selling to bow its head to consultative? For the third round of our sales strategy showdown, we’re examining the merits of value-based selling and how it compares to the consultative approach. What is value-based selling? Value-based selling focuses on highlighting the measurable business values a product or service will bring to a customer. The values include expenditure, cost savings, production and productivity – all the measurable factors that affect a business’s profitability. In layman’s terms, it’s about explaining (in-depth) how a product or service can help a customer address a problem. Salespeople often use this strategy to explain product pricing; products that offer greater value to the customer can justify a greater price tag. Value selling is the most effective in B2B sales environments where companies want to use value to differentiate themselves from the competition. The [...]