Article “The End of Solution Sales” by Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon, and Nicholas Toman aimed to explore issues that surround Business 2 Business selling. One of the main ideas authors presented at the beginning of the article is that the environment of B2B sales shifted in a completely opposite direction. In the past, it was easy to sell services to customers because they had no idea about how a specific problem could be solved. Although, nowadays, a number of services, complex procurement teams, and purchasing consultants equipped clients with tremendous volumes of data, so it is hard for both emerging and experienced companies to attract attention to their services or find effective solutions for their problems. It is also important to mention that modern customers have departed from the traditional “hook” selling strategies and prefer making their buying decisions predominantly on the basis of reasonable price.
After discussing issues associated with B2B selling, the article outlined three strategies that can help companies improve their efficiency and increase revenue. The first strategy, “Avoiding the Trap of “Established Demand,” implies placing an emphasis on the potential of customers to change something in their lives rather than just buy something. As to the second strategy, “Targeting Mobilizers and Advocates”, authors gave a list of customer stakeholders profiles, identified in the course of their research. The strategy advised finding the right allies that will help companies in driving the deal. The article gave useful advice on how to conduct research for developing a practical guide for involving key stakeholders in the process of making a sale. The last strategy, “Coaching Customers on How to Buy”, was developed on the basis of the fact that the more complex a solution is, the harder it is for the customer to buy it. Therefore, authors offered a solution of coaching customers about the solution instead of waiting for customers to coach sales representatives.
The article concluded that the traditional approaches towards Business 2 Business selling have come to an end. Because nowadays customers can analyze their needs and employ purchasing consultants to help them with decision-making, companies need to change their selling strategies to increase revenue. Sales representatives that ignore the changes in the environment usually risk being rebuffed by their clients while adaptive salespeople that challenge customers with innovative insights and coach them how to buy will become driving forces in the modern B2B sales sphere.