https://hbr.org/2012/07/the-end-of-solution-sales

Why Solution Selling No Longer Works

The Old World: Sales reps successfully diagnosed customers’ needs, aligned their products to those needs, and sold them solutions that are better than their competitors. The New World: Companies readily define solutions for themselves – courtesy of more sophisticated procurement teams and purchasing consultants armed with troves of data. The Proof: A CEB study of more than 1,400 B2B customers across industries revealed that 57% of a typical purchase decision is made before a customer even talks to a supplier. Score Your Pre-Sales Activities in Creating Customer Demand Customers don't need salespeople - so sales leaders need a new playbook.

The New Sales Playbook

To understand how high performers are navigating this new environment, CEB launched a series of studies across 6,000 reps, 600 companies and 700 customer stakeholders. The research found that top performers don't sell more effectively – they sell completely differently.

Top performers have abandoned the traditional playbook and devised a novel, radical, sales approach built on three specific strategies.