When you sell software, the buyer considers whether or not they need more software. When you sell solutions, the buyer considers whether or not this solves their burning problem. It’s more effective to sell a solution (even if it’s packaged as software) so the buyer can see exactly how it addresses their pain and how it compares to their current way of solving the problem.
See also:
- Figure out what’s wrong with a step in a funnel by looking at the previous step, it could be that you are not talking about a solution or you don’t know the burning problem they need to solve.
- Founder-led sales helps identify product problems
- A challenge with compliance products is selling non-compliance
- Consumers buy products, enterprises buy platforms
Links to this note
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How to Write a Sales Narrative
A sales narrative is a cohesive story that explains why customers need your product.
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Describe the Solution in Terms the Buyer Uses to Evaluate It
When you sell solutions not software, you need to be as concrete as possible about the buyer’s use case so you can describe your solutions in the same terms they use to evaluate it. For example, if their burning problem is too much manual work—dig into what the manual work is and how they decided this was a big problem, then describe the solution in terms that match (e.g. how many reports, hours, mistakes, etc. does the solution save).