Selling The Bucket
- Dan Greenberg
- Sep 11, 2024
- 5 min read
“You have to sell the bucket before you fill the bucket” — Lou Paskalis, former SVP Marketing at Bank of America — He was referring to the idea that you have to sell the need for something before you sell the solution to the need. The idea is a simple one, but it reminds us that no matter how good we are at talking about solutions, the solution to a client problem is irrelevant unless the client has already come to terms with the idea that they have a problem, that the problem has a solution, and the the solution is potentially valuable enough to evaluate.
Even if a client does recognize the above, the mindset of the client is very important. The framing of the conversation must focus on the problem and the desired outcome, otherwise the debate becomes about specifics of the solution, not the need for a solution. If you are talking about solutions without framing them in the context of the problem and outcome, your buyer will focus on what’s wrong with your solutions, rather than the need for a solution.
Not only does solution selling in the absence of problems and desired outcomes focus the buyer on the wrong things, it also disengages the buyer from any form of collaboration with you, the seller. It disempowers them and leaves them two choices because the assumption is that there is nothing to figure out. A solution seller has already decided on the problem and the outcome for the buyer and is just trying to convince them of the superior qualities of their solution. So buyers are left with two choices; they can disengage completely, since the seller has already figured everything out, or they can engage in a power struggle with the seller, where they attempt to frame themselves as the judge and the seller as a vendor, like all the others. That is a power struggle that a seller is not likely to win.
It is very important to think about how straight line solution selling disempowers and disengages buyers, so that we, as sellers, can start to think about how we can empower buyers and collaboration, while keeping control. Understanding problems and outcomes and deemphasizing solutions goes a long way towards accomplishing this goal.
A focus on problems and desired outcomes helps to empower your clients and their desire to collaborate with you. Just as importantly, it helps tremendously when it comes to driving urgency. A focus on your solutions means that clients are not thinking about their business critically which means that there is no client problem linked to the conversation that would be driving any need to change at any particular time. A focus on problems and desired outcomes, however, illustrates for the buyer that the current problems are costing them money, which means that the longer they don’t make a change the more money they are losing.
In order to use the “problem” / “outcome” rubric to drive urgency, one of the most important behaviors to master is that of quantifying pain. If you can’t quantify pain, good luck securing budget and good luck driving urgency. Quantifying pain won’t close deals on its own, but it allows you to construct a picture of the loss that the client is experiencing so that you can build a real “loss aversion” story, based on problems and outcomes, as opposed to a “benefit” story, based on solutions. Think about asking questions like: “What metric is suffering most because of this challenge?”, or “How much is this lack of efficiency costing your business per year?”
These types of questions help get you on the right track in terms of quantifying pain.
There is a tricky line to walk here, because if you only remind buyers of their problems, and do nothing else, they will start to develop negative sentiment around their interactions with you, which will lead to a subconscious bias that will cause them to want to spend less time with you. So, you must balance out all of the “problem” talk with something that is more positive. And what is that positive balance? It is the “desired outcome”. The buyer gets to talk about exactly what they want and exactly how the future state should look having nothing whatsoever to do with your solutions, or anyone else’s, for that matter.
Building urgency and quantifying pain takes discipline. Most people answer questions about their problems with answers that illustrate a solution that they want, and although it is good to have your client talk about their desired solutions, be sure that solutions and outcomes are not conflated. Push them to talk about their desired end state, not the quick fix solutions for their problems. More importantly, push them to talk about the problem and the root causes of the problem rather than just the solution they want.
Product people that I have worked with in my career tend to be very well disciplined in this conversational tactic, and one person in particular comes to mind for me, so a special shout out to Julie Pifer, now Sr. product lead at Strategus. When internal stakeholders ask product people to prioritize a product or to build something, the reaction is often, “Don’t tell me what you want, tell me the problem you are trying to solve”. Sellers can learn a lesson from this conversational strategy and use it in sales interactions. Make sure that you don’t let the buyer off the hook. It is important for them to talk about the problem, the root causes of the problem, and the quantitative value of the problem for their business. You won’t understand the problem unless they explain it to you, you won’t be able to talk about solutions until you have agreed on the root cause of the problem, and you won’t be able to drive urgency until the problem is quantified.
If you lose discipline and allow the buyer to get away with not answering your questions, you will lose the ability to keep control, and you will lose the ability to empower your buyer and work collaboratively with them. Of course, you will lose the ability to drive urgency, but that will become a secondary problem because if you lose the ability to influence the deal itself, the urgency becomes a moot point.
“Selling the bucket” means framing the solution in the context of the problem and the desired outcome, and constantly reframing so that the client is in the right mindset. What we are talking about here is the blueprint for that strategy. Encourage the client to talk about their problem, the root cause of their problem, and to quantify it. Then summarize and discuss the impact of the problem and the desired outcome. Be targeted in your questions so that the client does not feel like they are doing all the conversation work, but don’t let them off the hook if they try to remain in the shallow end and only discuss solutions.
The only caveat is, remember to balance. You don’t want to be the person that constantly reminds the buyer of all of their problems and how terrible their business is. If you are always, and only, that person, they will associate you with pain, and start to create justifications in their mind for why it does not make sense to interact with you. Remember the dichotomy that we have been discussing. Make sure to balance conversations about problems, with hopeful conversations about desired outcomes.
Without being framed around problems, your solutions will be evaluated in a vacuum that is not beneficial to you, or your clients. However, too much “problem” talk is detrimental to the relationship. It must be balanced with discussions of desired outcomes, and a future state that is emotionally, and intellectually hopeful, and demonstrably better than the status quo.
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