One of the biggest obstacles to selling high value solutions, is when the customer feels like their current way of managing the problem is "Good Enough".
How do you beat a good enough solution?
- Show more value
- Help them avoid the risks presented by making a change
- Find out who introduced the good enough solution.
How to show more value?
This is about ensuring they feel and understand the gaps in their current solution. Where does it fall down? What is its expected useful lifespan? Do that deeper feature based comparison, so that you show at the detailed level, you offer more value on the individual items.
Then find the additional things your solution does that they don't actually solve today. These items offer unique ROI for them, and if you find and introduce the stakeholders of any additional problems, you should be able to broaden support for the change.
Also sometime these additional problems may be enough to introduce your product on its own, and then you can slowly take over the other areas later on to reduce their costs.
Quantify the value, agree with the customer that it is meaningful to them, and ask them how quickly they are ready to make this change.
Avoiding Risks
Introducing a replacement or new solution always brings its own risks. One argument the customer team will have is not rocking the boat by introducing an untested new solution. Your job as a seller is to make sure they feel the new solution is lower risk than staying on their current solution. Mitigating these risks will remove barriers to get started.
This could also be done financially, by offering a gradual ramp up or pilot period, depending on how your business works. You can also show your solution is lower risk by understanding the risks in their current approach.
Whose solution is it?
I always try to avoid killing people's babies. Some stakeholders are very bought into their existing solutions, because their blood, sweat and tears have been spent in the making of it. My strategy here is to help them realize they want to let go of it themselves. Do they want to be stuck with the job of maintaining their past work? Are they ambitious and looking forward to solving new problems or stepping into another role? Help them say goodbye to the old solution so that they will welcome the new one.
In summary, there are lots of ways to convince people of the value of a new soluiton, but you also have to help them see the extra value, understand and mitigate the risks, and to say goodbye to their old solution.
Tell me your stories of success (or things to avoid)!