Why Prescriptive Sales Wins: From Solution Selling to Strategic Outcomes
Clients don’t buy solutions—they buy results. A sales approach that positions your product or service as “the solution” assumes the client understands their problem. It also assumes that you fully understand the problem. Today, top performers lead the conversation by redefining the client’s problem, based on what you and the client learned from your discovery diagnosis.
If you are lucky enough that your industry has not been commoditized, then you must explain what you can offer to deliver your client’s strategic goals. You will need to explain how they should approach the decision. If your industry has been commoditized, then your solution is one of dozens or hundreds.
Having sat through onboarding sessions for salespeople, I’ve noticed that the solution is often presented as being better than the alternatives. I want you to love your solution, but if you believe that it will ensure you win your prospective client, you are setting yourself up for failure. You may find that your clients are not particularly impressed by features and benefits, so you must offer them something they value more. Let’s explore the changes salespeople must make to compete at a strategic level. Most salespeople haven’t yet recognized this shift, so you can get ahead of the curve by changing your approach now.
The Shift from Selling Solutions to Driving Strategic Outcomes
Move from “solution” to “strategic outcome.” I sold light industry temporary labor to very large clients. Over time, the industry was commoditized. At some point, I recognized that no one really wanted light industrial labor. To get a better understanding of my clients’ perspectives and priorities, I had a number of conversations about what they really wanted—and it sure wasn’t temps. Instead, the clients told me that they wanted flexibility and lower labor costs; some wanted to hire the employees who showed up every day.
Over time, we decided to lead conversations by talking about the strategic outcomes our clients wanted. Our competitors kept talking about their solutions, in this case, their temps. This meant their only play was claiming that they had better temps than we did, which was a lie. Even so, they weren’t able to capture the clients’ attention or prove that they understood the big picture. We were playing chess, and my competitors were playing checkers.
Why Features and Benefits No Longer Win Deals
Shift from features and benefits to transformation. Your clients and mine are not impressed by features and benefits. They want a transformation from poor results to the better results they need. After discovery, you are better off talking about the client’s desired outcomes and how what you sell can deliver them. This pushes the conversation from a transactional level to a strategic level. You can be certain that your decision-makers and their stakeholders expect you to ensure they get the better results they need, and some part of that includes your solution. The sales conversation is the variable that wins or loses the client. When you focus your conversation on context, root causes, and strategic outcomes, you set yourself up for success.
Reactive versus Prescriptive Sales: What Top Performers Do Differently
Transition from reactive to prescriptive: In the past, many salespeople reacted to their prospects, clients, and contacts. They waited for the contact to express a need, ask a question, or identify a problem. This is too passive for the 21st century, when salespeople must drive the conversation if they want to be effective.
The legacy approach places the burden on the client to diagnose their problem. This is unlikely to happen because companies often fail to understand how trends and threats affect them. They also struggle to see the root causes of their problems. Waiting for clients to identify what they need also undercuts a key part of your value proposition. Top performers know that their advice, guidance, insights, and questions create a collaborative process for diagnosing the problem. This fits perfectly with a conversation about the client’s strategic outcomes.
To differentiate yourself in competitive, high-stakes B2B environments, put your experience and knowledge to work. Take the lead and educate your clients about things they might not be able to see.
What This Sounds Like in Practice
I like to use an executive briefing to begin the sales conversation. This approach allows you to frame the conversation around strategic outcomes. It also helps you present yourself like an authority and expert.
Your executive briefing should include the main opportunities and challenges in the client’s industry. Outline these using bullet points and include data to support your position. Then, you lead the sales conversation by walking your contacts through the briefing.
Here are the three steps in this process.
- Open by introducing your briefing and asking to share it. Say, “Can I share a few key trends and insights we have noticed in your industry? Here is what we are seeing.” As you explain the trends, say, “We are helping our clients to maintain or improve their profitability.”
- Now that you’ve established the context, say, “The current strategies are not working in their environment. Can I share what is working now?”
- Then, take a strategic outlook by saying something like, “A lot of your industry is just over a year behind the top competitors. But you can overtake them if it is important for you.”
Why This Works:
- Focusing on strategic outcomes makes you a trusted authority—not a vendor.
- Grounding your solution in context and outlining the risks of the status quo create urgency.
- Your knowledge and experience builds a preference for you based on your insight instead of price.
Why This Is a Critical Evolution
This change mirrors the broader movement from:
- Discovery → Diagnosis
- Solution → Strategy
- Problem → Future Outcomes
Today’s buyers need someone who can tell them what they should do next, not do just what they asked for.
