Sales solution

Sales people give so much lip service to being solution minded. They can recount all the verbiage. Me? I love seeing it in action! Yesterday, I had an appointment to meet a sales person at Panera Bread in the late afternoon. It's warm, it's sunny....I want something cold to drink. A young lady asked if she could help and I quickly said, "how about a decaf iced tea?" Sorry, iced tea here has caffeine. Yikes! I can't drink caffeine this late! I turned away and thought I'd just get a glass of water....lost sale for Panera! But, no! Manager Erick turned to me and said "I've got an idea. Let's brew a decaf hot tea and I'll give you a cup for ice and you've got what you want and it will be freshly brewed." Can you imagine? He didn't try selling me on a bottle of water or a soft drink, he listened to what I wanted and then found a solution using his product and with an additional benefit. Now that $2 sale didn't make or break Panera yesterday, but for me it was a tremendous testament to the power of solution selling. Think about your day today. Are you helping your clients to find solutions?