Probably the most popular approach to complex B2B sales, solution selling has been around for decades.

It is still being taught to many sales reps around the world, and there are compelling reasons to do so.

However, since its founding, a lot has changed.

Read this article to discover how the solution-selling methodology fares now, how top performers adapt it to modern times, and where to learn more about this approach.

What is solution selling?

Simply put, solution selling means analyzing the customer’s pain points and offering products or services that will address those points.

Unlike traditional sales methods that focus solely on product features, this approach prioritizes your customers’ challenges directly so they get exactly what they need.

This methodology can work both for prospects that aren’t yet aware of their problems and for those who know what they want.

Examples of solution selling

Solution selling implies that the salesperson focuses not on technical characteristics, but on how a product or service will alleviate the customer’s pain or allow them to exploit an opportunity.

Here are some other examples:

  • A company selling a software development kit (SDK) – Rather than harping on technical specs, a salesperson might stress that the SDK will save you a certain percentage of development time and decrease the amount of money you risk.
  • Cybersecurity – To sell cybersecurity services effectively, focus less on the features and more on the value proposition: protecting customer data and avoiding costly lawsuits and fines.

LinkedIn – This platform’s advertising allows precise targeting, particularly for B2B companies, meaning you can contact the decision-makers directly and lower the costs of customer acquisition.

This is especially valuable for industries like SaaS, tech, and consulting, where complex solutions need touchpoints for multiple stakeholders.

Steps in the solution-selling process

  1. The typical process usually goes like this:
  2. Identify potential prospects: Find prospects whose problems align with the solution that the company is selling.
  3. Qualify leads: Select those who are aware of the problem and are actively looking to solve it (read: buy).
  4. Develop relationships: Nurture a contact within the prospect’s organization who can give details about their specific situation and promote the solution internally.
  5. Figure out the problem: Learn the specific customer’s problems by asking open-ended questions.
  6. Present a customized solution: Offer a tailored product or service that directly addresses the identified problem. 
  7. Close the deal.
  8. Solution selling vs. product selling
  9. While selling a product and selling a solution might seem like the same thing, they’re actually two different things.
  10. Let’s break it down.
  11. Product selling is all about features, specs, and benefits of what you’re offering. Solution selling, on the other hand, is about understanding the unique challenges of your customer and adjusting your product to solve them. 
  12. Here’s another comparison:
  13. Product selling: As in the name, this approach focuses on the product itself—what it does, how it works, and why it’s better than the competition. Think of items that customers already know they need. 
  14. Solution selling: This approach is all about taking the customer’s pain points and tailoring a solution to address them. It’s a particularly good approach for situations where the customer doesn’t already know what the best solution is yet. 
  15. Think of it this way: If you sell a laptop using a product selling approach, you’d focus on its features, like processing speed, battery life, display quality, etc. to help close the sale.
  16. If you were to use solution selling, however, you might ask the customer what they need first—are they a remote worker in need of a long-lasting battery? Maybe they travel often for work, so instead of just listing the specs, you’d highlight how your laptop is the perfect option for frequent flyers. Shifting the focus from what you’re selling to why the customer needs it is the key difference when you talk about product versus solution selling. Remember, the name is as it sounds: you’re selling them a solution. The best solution.
  17. Solution selling vs. consultative selling
  18. Let’s talk about the differences between consultative selling and solution selling—both focus on the customer and both aim to build long-term relationships instead of simply pushing a product. 
  19. But here’s the key difference: 
  20. Solution selling is about figuring out what a customer’s problem is and providing a tailored product or service as the solution. It’s an approach that helps customers understand why your product is the best fit.
  21. Consultative selling takes this a step further—it’s less about selling a specific solution and more about guiding the customer through the entire process of making a decision about what will solve their problem, even if yours is not the best solution. In this approach, salespeople take on an advisory role for their customers. 
  22. Consider this analogy: solution selling is like the doctor prescribing you medicine based on a diagnosis. Consultative selling is the health coach guiding you through all your options to improve your well-being and address your problems.
  23. Want to dive deeper into consultative selling? Check out our guide here.

Pros and cons of solution selling

Like any other methodology, this approach has its advantages and disadvantages. These are the things going for it.

1. Personalization

The entire premise of solution selling is to address the issues of a specific customer instead of pushing a one-size-fits-all product.

Personalization has a strong effect on sales effectiveness.

The fastest-growing companies get 40% more revenue out of it than their slower counterparts.

Solution selling stats

2. Simplification

This allows for selling complex products and services in a way that doesn’t burden customers with technical mumbo-jumbo and focuses on tangible benefits instead.

That’s why it is especially effective in software development, the chemicals industry, medtech, and other business niches.

3. Long-term efficiency

Solution selling appeared in the 1960s and is still common today. This speaks to its reliability.

However, there are also disadvantages.

1. Higher requirements

This approach demands more from the salespeople.

Not only must they know their product or service well, but they also have to be good at analyzing customers and empathizing with their issues.

2. Customers are better prepared

Procurement departments are better at determining the company’s needs.

This results in very detailed RFPs, which cause salespeople to compete on price alone instead of offering solutions.

3. Longer research

Studying customers and their needs by definition requires a lot of time and effort.

This implies a longer sales cycle, higher risk in case the deal falls through, and higher acquisition costs.

The new solution selling

Recently, solution selling has changed.

While the core idea of offering tailored goods and services remains, the market is different, and it forces the sales teams to adapt.

The classic methodology goes like this:

  1. Determine the pain points of the niche. Finding the issues common to many or most companies in the industry is a good start.
  2. Determine the pain points of the specific customer. Use the information gained through the previous step to prepare a questionnaire. It will help you learn the problems that the specific customer is facing. The initial questions should be open-ended and direct both you and the client toward the existing issues in their business.
  3. Nurture a contact. Get a person from the client’s company, preferably a stakeholder, who will help you promote your service/product within.
  4. Ask and qualify. Use a call or a meeting to discuss your offer and see whether you are a good fit for a specific company (and vice versa).
  5. Address the issue. Demonstrate how your solution can help the client and show the results it could bring.
  6. Close the deal. Address any objections and stress how the customer can benefit from your solution.

However, many customers now know their problems, as well as the likely solutions to rectify them.

Many typical questionnaires have become cliched and often cause clients to feel pushed towards a specific solution, which is contradictory to the idea of a tailored approach.

Still, solution selling remains viable and effective, as long as it evolves to modern standards. This is what the top-performing salespeople do now.

1. Refocusing away from the old criteria

Traditionally, salespeople were taught to target clients that knew what their goals were, knew that they needed to change something, and had a clear procurement process.

This helped gauge the probability of the deal, as such criteria are relatively easy to check.

No wonder leads fitting them end up at the top of the scoring charts.

However, the top 20% tend to focus on different issues.

First, they prefer the leads and prospects that are undergoing some sort of change: a buyout, a restructuring, or a change in management.

This condition in itself is an opportunity, as the overall drive toward reinvention makes the organization more receptive to accepting something new.

Targeting such customers allows star performers to throw in disruptive ideas and lead the conversation instead of simply reacting to RFPs.

Second, they look for companies that are agile and can make procurement decisions quickly when presented with a compelling case.

Following any procedure that results in detriment of the performance is harmful both to the organization and the salesperson’s quota.

Overall, this sales approach focuses on taking charge and showing the customers something different from what they expected.

It helps avoid the “RFP trap” (replying to an RFP only to have the contract awarded to another, more favored vendor), and allows to present both the salesperson and their company as insightful experts in their field.

2. Forming relationships with different kinds of people

The traditional solution-selling approach suggests that the salesperson finds an “advocate” within the customer company.

That advocate should be someone who fits a number of criteria (accessible, willing to share information, can influence other people, etc.), and who will help close the deal by pushing for it internally.

However, many sales professionals go for the more accessible ones and ignore those who critically pick their offers apart, ask tough questions, and turn a sales call into an interrogation.

This can be a mistake because thorough questioning is a sign of engagement, rather than hostility.

Contacts that go deep with their inquiries often want to understand the offer and learn what value it can bring to their organization.

Explaining everything in detail and proving that value is a way to bring the person over to your side and gaining an important ally.

3. Teaching customers

A sales team usually has way more experience in selling a solution than a prospective customer has in buying it.

This experience is both positive and negative.

On the one hand, it allows them to anticipate potential problems and objections and address them before they appear.

On the other, it often leads to cases of the “curse of knowledge,” or passiveness, when a salesperson expects the other side to walk them through a deal.

The top reps arrive as experts and aim to provide insights about the customer’s company, to the company.

They don’t ask how the buying or decision-making process for these solutions usually goes — they describe how they envision it and let the interested stakeholders champion it internally.

Often, this is the first time the company even buys a solution like that, so coaching it along and guiding it through the buying process already means providing value.

Again, this comes to taking charge and offering more than the client expected, though it is rarely seen as such.

How to implement a solution selling strategy

Have you realized yet that solution selling is the way to go? If so, next is to learn how to do it.

Here’s how to implement a winning strategy for your business.

1. Train your sales team to think like consultants

Remember, solution selling is about finding a problem and providing the best solution rather than simply pitching a product.

Your sales team should be able to:

  • Listen actively – Reps should be asking thoughtful, open-ended questions that get prospects talking about their real pain points.
  • Understand customer needs – Make sure your teams can identify underlying business challenges instead of jumping straight into a sales pitch.
  • Reframe their approach – Instead of operating from a “Here’s what our product does,” reps need to shift to “Here’s how we can solve your specific problem.”

2. Research and personalize every interaction

Here’s what your team needs to do before talking to a prospect to avoid giving another generic sales pitch:

  • Understand the customer’s industry – What are your prospect’s pain points, and what challenges do similar companies face? This allows you to get hyper-specific and competitive about your solution being the best to give them the competitive edge. 
  • Use data and insights – Bring your relevant case studies, testimonials, and analytics to show how impactful your solution can be. For example, see one of our customer success stories here, where we share how our document generation and eSignature solutions save time and effort for our customers.
  • Customize presentations and demos – Personalization is everything. Highlighting the features that directly address the prospect’s problems is way more effective than giving a one-size-fits-all demo.

3. Position your product as a solution, not just a purchase

We’ll say it again: focus on the real problem instead of the features your product offers. To do this, have your reps:

  • Connect features to outcomes – Don’t just say, “Our software has automated reporting.” Instead, explain, “Our automated reporting will save your team 10+ hours per week and reduce errors by 30%.”
  • Use storytelling – People relate to stories more than stats. Real-world examples of how your solution helped similar customers succeed will have a stronger impact on the prospect.
  • Highlight long-term value – Make sure your reps stress the benefits your solution will have in the long run, so it’s clear that this is an investment rather than a purchase. 

4. Guide, don’t push

Solution selling is all about building trust. Make sure your approach is:

  • Consultative, not aggressive – While solution selling is different from consultative selling, it remains true that customers don’t want to feel pressured. Your teams should support them by asking questions, listening, and providing thoughtful recommendations.
  • Focused on education – If your prospects don’t fully understand what their challenges are, it gives your team the chance to prove themselves as trusted experts. 

5. Refine and optimize over time

Solution selling is an approach that requires a little trial and error. Here’s how your teams can keep the method working:

  • Gather feedback – No better way to figure out what worked and what didn’t than by asking your customers directly. This will help your sales team continue to refine their tactics. 
  • Analyze lost deals – Did your team not close a deal? Figure out the why so you can improve for next time. 
  • Stay informed – Staying up-to-date on market trends and insights will keep your solution and selling methodology relevant and effective. 

Books on solution selling

What to read up on and learn more about this sales methodology?

All these books have been highly rated by those who bought them, so it is reasonable to assume they contain a considerable value.

1. “Solution selling: Creating buyers in difficult selling markets” by M. Bosworth.

Written by Michael Bosworth, an accomplished sales manager, and published in 1995, this book is one of the most popular works on solution selling.

It contains a step-by-step program that is supposed to increase the rep’s chances of closing the deal.

Instead of pushing a sale, Bosworth recommends helping customers make a buying decision — an important difference.

It also contains advice on processing common objections, ways to make conversations clearer, and other nuggets of wisdom.

It is almost 30 years old, so you should adjust what you read to fit the modern era.

However, the core principles are still valid, and the book is still a worthy read.

2. “The challenger customer” by B. Adamson, M. Dixon, P. Spenner, and N. Toman.

“The Challenger Customer” was written by a collective of authors who held leadership positions at CEB (Corporate Executive Board) — a high-profile consulting company later acquired by Gartner.

It focuses on the more modern version of the solution-selling process, especially the part where the rep is advised to look for potential allies who will challenge their ideas.

The book also describes many sales techniques proven by real salespeople with real customers, as well as research data.

It contains a lot of valuable insights, though it suffers from redundant information — a consequence of having many people working on one manuscript.

3. “The new solution selling” by K. Eades.

This is a sequel to the previous book on the subject by the same author — Keith Eades, CEO of Sales Performance International, a prominent consulting company.

It reiterates many of the points of its predecessor, so some buyers complain about not getting as much value from it as they expected.

However, it is great for people new to the concept, as it is informative and clear.

The ideas are explained well, and there are actionable insights that readers can use in their work right away.

It also includes a workbook to help apply its contents in real life.

4. “Solution selling: The strongman process” by E. Wal.

Ed Wal is another accomplished sales leader who decided to share his expertise through a book.

This one was published in 2016, so it is relatively modern and doesn’t require much adjustment to current conditions.

“The Strongman Process” presents a detailed and effective program that fits any product.

It is especially recommended for complex B2B deals and is characterized as “no-nonsense” and “to the point” by its readers.

The book includes specific methods on pretty much all aspects of a sales rep’s work, from researching the buyer’s needs to organizing meetings and negotiating.

It’s a valuable read for the modern B2B professional.

Conclusion

Despite some claims that solution selling is outdated or even dead, the fact is it has evolved to something more in step with the current way of doing business.

The core ideas (determine the prospect’s needs by asking the right questions, offer a fitting solution, show case studies, and close deals) are as relevant as ever.

If you follow the example of the top performers who target companies embracing change, act customer-centric by coaching their leads, and aim to ally with stakeholders who ask tough questions, you can attain your quota and hone your sales skills.

Originally published November 25, 2022, updated May 1, 2025

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