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Seven Greatest Ideas for Helping a Business Customer to Buy Wisely • 71

are, of course, selling your products and services as being easy to use, right? 'Well, if
they are easy to use, why do I need training as well?' says your customer. But it does
not much matter what type of business you are in; ask yourself'What ideally would
the customer pay for in terms of training?' Then plan to offer just that. The point is
that customer satisfaction depends on their ability to achieve the benefits they are
expecting. Look at it as an chance to sell services and, if you have your people
involved in doing the training, for the courses to give the delegates good feelings,
build your reputation and give you feedback on future repeat opportunities.

So, try to ensure that your customer does not take any short cuts in what can be
a crucial phase in a complex project. The lack of adequate training can be a major
source of customer dissatisfaction.

Idea 46 - Gain a reputation as a solution seller

Finally in this business-to-business selling section, let us draw some conclusions. A
good job title for the person doing solution selling or looking after a major customer
is 'account manager'. The account manager may be the managing director in point
of fact, but it is in the role of account manager that they will benefit from the sensible
customer's guide to capital investment

If the account manager is to be truly customer facing, he or she will be with the
customer as he undertakes each stage in the process. That could be the definition of
the difference between being a solution seller or just a seller.

A seller will become involved with the project only when invited by the prospect
at the step 'select functionality' or even worse at the step 'select the necessary prod-
ucts and services and the suppliers of them.' This leads to bickering about the fea-
tures of you product against theirs.

The solution seller will involve himself from start to finish and may even insti-
gate the whole idea by being the first person to identify the opportunity. This is