When selling to other companies, we often forget that what we are selling are solutions to problems. It is easy to fall back onto the feature sheet and comparative checklists, but a good salesperson intuitively understands her customers’ pains and asks questions to understand their requirements and underlying needs.

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Michael Levy
Product Marketing Manager, OneSource

When selling to other companies, we often forget that what we are selling are solutions to problems. It is easy to fall back onto the feature sheet and comparative checklists, but a good salesperson intuitively understands her customers’ pains and asks questions to understand their requirements and underlying needs.

A case in point. I bought a High Efficiency washer and dryer last weekend and the salesman at Sears understood feature/value messaging. Yes, energy and water savings were important, but what sold me were the solutions to my problems:

• Larger capacity units (feature) combined with a shorter cycle allow you to complete your laundry faster (benefit).
• The new design and insulation (features) are much quieter than older units allowing you to run the laundry while working from home (benefit).
• A dryer rack (feature) allows you to dry sneakers without the constant banging (I have an 11 year old boy so this was not a trivial benefit).
• They could offer me a two hour window for installation and removal of my old units (service feature). Here the benefit was implied: I wouldn’t have to stay home all day waiting for delivery.

The rep also provided me with some useful tips to ensure performance:

• Don’t use dryer sheets as they damage the sensors.
• Only use the amount of soap indicated by the manufacturer. Too much soap is hard on your clothes (and wasteful).

It was classic solution selling. He tied features to benefits and pains to solutions. He then wrapped in some tips to create goodwill.

Best of all, he didn’t over promise and compromise his company’s reputation for a quick sale. The units arrived at 8 AM as promised (take that cable companies!) and I was running my first load before 9. And yes, the laundry is quieter and faster.