Solution Selling Skills Training Course
Private, in-person B2B sales training for teams that need to move beyond selling individual products and learn how to diagnose business problems, design integrated solutions, align stakeholders and build the value case for change.
What is solution selling skills training?
Solution selling skills training teaches salespeople how to diagnose a customer’s business problem before proposing an answer, then bring together the products, services, expertise and commercial structure needed to solve it. In complex B2B sales this can mean working across several customer departments, aligning different stakeholders and establishing a value case that may need funding from more than one budget.
Solution selling is different from selling a product
A product sale starts with a defined offer. The seller establishes fit, demonstrates why the product is relevant and progresses the customer towards a purchase decision.
A solution sale can be structurally different. The answer may not exist as a single product. The seller may have to combine several products and services, involve technical or delivery specialists, understand the impact on different customer departments and help the buying group establish how the investment will be funded.
The customer is rarely one person or one department
Forrester’s Buyers’ Journey Survey 2025 found that 73% of B2B purchases involve three or more departments, with an average of 13 people inside the buyer organisation involved in the decision. This research covers B2B buying generally rather than solution selling specifically, but it demonstrates why complex sellers cannot treat one contact’s requirements as the whole customer problem.
When a proposed solution changes how several departments work, each group can experience the problem, cost and benefit differently. Salespeople therefore need to identify the people affected, understand their priorities and build an overall case that connects those perspectives.
From customer problem to a solution the organisation can support
McKinsey describes solution selling as developing individually tailored combinations of products and services around customer needs. Its research also found that the complexity of solution selling requires greater selling skills than more transactional selling. This course turns that distinction into four practical capabilities.
Understand the business problem across the departments affected. Establish the current position, required position, root causes and consequences before designing the answer.
Bring together the products, services, technical resources and implementation elements required to close the customer’s gap.
Connect the value created for different stakeholders to one coherent commercial case, including where investment may need to be justified across budgets.
Coordinate the customer’s buying group and the internal specialists needed to design, validate, price and deliver the proposed solution.
Discover first. Develop second. Deliver third.
The Klozers Gap to Value framework separates diagnosis from solution design. Do not start configuring the answer before the customer has established the gap.
Discover means understanding the problem, its causes, consequences, stakeholders and value across the business. Develop means designing the combination of products, services and expertise that can close the agreed gap. Deliver means gaining agreement across the buying group, securing the required commercial commitment and making sure the promised value can be achieved.
Complex B2B sales teams
Teams whose opportunities involve several stakeholders, departments or locations and where the customer cannot make a good decision from a product demonstration alone.
Portfolio and service businesses
Organisations where the right answer may combine products, software, professional services, implementation, support or other expertise.
Sales teams moving upstream
Product-led sellers who need broader business conversations and must build value around customer outcomes rather than product features.
Sales leaders and L&D
Leaders who need a repeatable way for sellers to diagnose, design and progress complex opportunities without imposing an off-the-shelf methodology.
What the solution selling workshop covers
McKinsey describes solution selling as developing individually tailored combinations of products and services around customer needs. Its research also found that the complexity of solution selling requires greater selling skills than more transactional selling. This course turns that distinction into four practical capabilities.
Questioning, listening and evidence gathering to distinguish symptoms from root causes and establish the gap between the customer’s current and required position.
Identify who experiences the problem, who benefits from solving it, who owns the economic decision, who controls relevant budgets and who will be involved in implementation.
Translate operational and commercial consequences into a value case. Separate customer value from the features and components of the proposed solution.
Select and combine the products, services and resources that address the agreed problem. Test dependencies, implementation requirements and delivery feasibility.
Bring sales, technical, product, commercial and delivery colleagues into the opportunity at the right time without allowing internal complexity to become the customer’s problem.
Help stakeholders agree the problem, value, solution and next steps. Where funding crosses budgets, make the commercial case visible to the people who need to support it.
The programme starts with what already works inside your sales team. We identify existing good practice, then strengthen the gaps that prevent sellers from diagnosing, designing and progressing complex solutions consistently. Exercises use live or representative customer situations so the learning can be applied to current work.
How is the solution selling workshop delivered?
The course is designed for a private client team and delivered in person. The exact agenda is built around the sales environment, products and services, buying complexity and capability gaps identified before delivery.
Rather than replacing the team’s existing approach with another named methodology, Klozers captures the practices that already produce good results and adds the skills, tools and standards required for the opportunities the team needs to win.
Turn workshop learning into observable sales behaviour
Completion of the workshop is the start of the certification process, not the end. Participants receive Candidate status and then demonstrate the agreed behaviours on live sales activity over 90 days.
Ten observable requirements
Certification uses ten requirements. Four execution topics are selected with the sales leadership team, with two requirements for each topic, plus two requirements common to every Klozers certification. Requirements are observable, tied to a checkpoint and evidenced on a live account.
Verified at Day 90
Managers assess the evidence, with checkpoints at Day 30 and Day 60. Candidates who meet the agreed requirements become Certified at Day 90. Certification is valid for 12 months and can be verified online.
Why solution selling requires different commercial capability
McKinsey analysed 175 commercial organisations and almost 23,000 sales representatives. Its work distinguished integrated solution providers from organisations selling separate products or services. It concluded that even when sellers are well prepared, the complexity of selling solutions requires greater selling skills, and that top solution sellers are particularly strong at understanding customer needs, delivering the value proposition, negotiating and closing.
The same research notes that solution sellers can become occupied with orchestrating internal activity and that value propositions are often difficult to tailor or quantify. Those are the problems this programme addresses: better diagnosis, disciplined solution design, internal coordination and a value case that the buying group can evaluate.
Evidence source: McKinsey & Company, “What’s wrong with solutions selling and how to put it right”, 3 December 2019. These are external research findings, not Klozers client outcomes.
What does solution selling training cost?
Solution selling programmes are scoped around the team, required capability, delivery design and certification requirements. Klozers provides the investment as part of the proposal after the initial consultation.
What is the difference between product selling and solution selling?
Product selling begins with a defined offer. Solution selling begins with a business problem and may require several products, services and internal specialists to create the appropriate answer.
Is solution selling the same as consultative selling?
No. Consultative selling focuses strongly on the quality of diagnosis and customer conversation. Solution selling uses that diagnosis to design, align and progress an integrated commercial solution.
Does solution selling require multiple stakeholders?
Not in every opportunity, but complex B2B solutions frequently affect several stakeholders and departments. The programme teaches sellers to map and align the people who influence the problem, value, funding, decision and implementation.
Can the course use our existing sales process?
Yes. The programme is designed around the client’s existing best practice and sales environment. Klozers adds capability where there are gaps rather than imposing a replacement methodology.
Is certification included?
Certification can be built into the programme using observable requirements, live-account evidence and 30, 60 and 90-day checkpoints.
Is this an open course for individuals?
No. This page is for private B2B team training. The programme is configured around the client team’s sales environment and opportunities.
explains where the approaches overlap and where they differ.
explains how Klozers designs private team programmes around existing best practice and capability gaps.
Start with a consultation to discuss the team, sales environment and capability gaps.