What Is Not The Problem?
The problem is not the problem.
— Alsek dreams (@alsekdreams) October 5, 2022
The challenge is finding a way to position yourself/rearrange your environment so that the problem vanishes.
When you do it right it’s like a magic trick.
Here's 'Twisdom' that might well relate to us in solution sales.
It's seemingly from a Swiss, who firmly believes in working smarter above harder.
Certainly not a proponent of 'pounding the rock'.
Definitely from the Chandler school of cultivating an 'integrated learning base'. Where success comes from a style of doing. And if (as feels inevitable first time) making a mess, then applying what you learnt to "refine, improve, and think laterally" on your approach and make progress next time.
Beyond this though, there's the core framing itself.
Whilst given from a more introspective viewpoint to resolve a situation you are up against, it has resonance for how those we seek to help can best be so.
I've blogged before on the perils of salespeople asking questions specifically referencing the very word 'problem' with prospects.
Most recently, I recounted how psychologists use the label, 'issue of concern'.
Couple this train with the solution sell classic of 'change'.
Anything we pitch will require a change.
Yet it is not the change in its broadest, headline sense that is what we ought be focused on.
It is the reaction to what that change might mean for our prospect in their personal perception that is paramount.
Everyone may well agree that some 'problem' or other needs addressing.
Yet claiming we can make it "vanish" is not enough alone to sway the deal our way.
This idea as tweeted above gives us twin options;
Where resides an alternative position that we can carry them to so that the problem vanishes?
How can their environment be re-arranged by us so that the problem vanishes?
Crack at least one of these and your prospect may well think you're magic.