What's your problem?

Fear and greed...and selling the future!

This article first appeared in the June 2025 edition of Workplace360 magazine

With the past 5 or 6 articles from my TSP colleagues and me focusing on the benefits of diversification in the workplace supplies sector, we looked mostly at the way you as a business could or should embrace the opportunities to diversify and handle the challenges that it presents.

Maybe we should have titled them as simply ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ because being blunt, change had to happen as the customer needs changed, technology changed, the market changed, the supply chain changed, the competitor environment changed (think Amazon business again), and the consumer experience changed.

So, if you have successfully adapted to these changes and your customer proposition has evolved in all or even some of these areas then chapeau to you. My view is that this will now be a constant and that diversification change, be it across multiple categories or within a narrower spread of categories that become your customer-recognised specialism (seeing the latest impressive results from United Group and their success in beverages and food for example), will continue to be a driver of any progressive businesses in our sector.

I’d like to now focus on what we now do with our diversified offering; and I’ll start on an area of the sales solution that hasn’t changed (and probably never will) and that is what is it that we actually sell?

I don’t mean the products, or even the service levels we wrap them in. I mean the solution itself.

I have been fortunate enough to work in several sectors over the years from general office supplies to technical products to furniture to packaging solutions. Regional businesses, national and international.; direct, indirect, corporate customers, SME. You name it. I’ve also trained and coached people in businesses in aviation, the auto industry, software, media, telecoms….and so on.

And there is and always has been one constant, and that is every one of those businesses is solving, or is trying to solve, a customer problem.

That’s what we sell. We sell solutions to problems.

The sales challenge though is not that straightforward. I will try and explain as simply as possible.

Let’s say we have two types of customer – those that know they have a problem, and those that don’t.

Houston – We Have a Problem

The customers that know (or think they know) are easy, aren’t they? ‘I need to save money’ or ‘I need to have a better service experience’ (and so on). Engage with the customer, prove you can do what they need and bingo. Hopefully they haven’t also engaged with a competitor who can do what you can do for them (but cheaper and better!) and you are in business.

What I have seen many, many times over the (many) years is that the problem-solving salesperson, as good as they might be, often falls over at the last hurdle because a pesky competitor will match your solution- not better it - but do it cheaper. ‘We lost it on price’. ‘We are not competitive enough’. If had a pound for every time I’d heard that….

And that’s fair enough isn’t it? That will happen. I’m not going to pretend that there is a silver bullet solution to this because there isn’t.

But sales success is, thankfully, much more nuanced than that. The only thing we can really do as salespeople is to optimise our chances of success, not guarantee them (unless we truly have a unique product or solution).

The Problem-Solver often falls at this last hurdle not because they haven’t successfully dealt with the problem itself - the here and now - it is often because they have only solved the problem. And they haven’t sold the future.

We, as customers ourselves, especially when making the big decisions, are conditioned to in our personal lives to think ‘here and now’ but with one eye on the future. Buying a car, taking out a mortgage (fixed rate or variable?), choosing a school for our kids. So we as salespeople, in a sales situation, should not shy away from ‘selling the future’.

To sell the future you really need to understand your customers circumstances and their view of their future. What changes do they envisage coming down the line, this year, next year, as a business, for them personally in their roles and responsibilities.

If you are a salesperson reading this, please consider making this as a habit. You may already do so, but I have seen soooo many times when there is a kind of fear of selling the future as you don’t want to risk upsetting the customer and their focus on the here and now. The customer may even be a little dismissive of any attempt to discuss it, but the seed will be planted and it WILL be registered in their view of you and your business.

A good yet simple example of this is when discussing or presenting your newly acquired diversified range of products and solutions to a potential customer. Maybe it’s a first meeting. The customer only wants to look at A and B products so you can’t talk about X, Y and Z can you? X, Y and Z already has a solution in place, they aren’t a problem. Not yet maybe, but if you are solving a problem for A and B does that problem nor exist for X? Not yet maybe but if it does exist, or potentially will, isn’t it comforting, as a customer, that they can call on your problem-solving solution IF it occurs?

Turning to the problem itself, there are so many ways to interpret a problem I like to, as always, simplify things.

My preference is to view a customer problem as determining their motivation for wanting to solve that problem. And I would try and categories their motivation to me solving that problem, to begin with at least, in only two ways – fear and greed.

Fear is a stronger motivator than greed. What are they scared will happen if this problem is not solved? What disruption will it have for their business? For them personally? Their reputation? Career? Bonus? For their team? How big is the problem (the here and now)? How long can the problem go unsolved before it is a bigger problem (the future)?

By understanding these areas, or some of these areas, this becomes what I am selling. I am selling a solution to the fear of the impact of the problem. It doesn’t matter if it is paper clips, packaging solutions or jet engines. My ‘here and now’ product and service solution has to address the ‘here and now’ fear, but always ALWAYS demonstrate any solution back to the impact of the problem itself.

My ‘future’ solution has less importance to the fear of the ‘here and now’ problem of A and B. But wouldn’t it be great if I could take away that immediate fear and provide comfort that should this fear present itself in X, Y and Z?

Identifying the ‘greed’ motivator has the same context. Does my solution not only address the here and now problem but also create opportunity for enhancement in less obvious areas? If I can deliver cost or process efficiencies/improvements (money and time) and solve their immediate problem with my solution, what is the (potential) added benefit in doing so? Business and personal. Reputation, bonus, etc.

One of my favourite questions to ask is what I call the ‘sell through’ of any proposed ‘problem solving’ solution. It is traditionally known as benefits selling but I think sell through takes it beyond the traditional view of benefits selling.

‘What will you do with money and/or time this solution will deliver?’

Cheeky I know, but isn’t that what we are really selling with our diversified solution? If I save that business money, will they spend it on creating more sales for their business? Will this improve profits and allow them to invest in areas that will help their business grow? Will this extra time I’ve realised allow you to focus on other areas of your business that will have a positive impact?

This simple question (however you deliver it) gets straight to the heart of how to sell the future AND, potentially, allows for ‘greed’ to be introduced to the conversation.

No Problem

The ones that don’t know they have a problem are harder. Much harder. Trying to get their attention takes more effort, maybe even luck, because they don’t know they need you, or will benefit from you.

For me this is where the combined efforts and sales and marketing come together. But the sales/marketing messaging and tone will likely need to focus more on ‘greed’; how can you improve on their current experience.

To be clear, the combined efforts of sales and marketing always need to be aligned, but a sales/marketing message that seeks to get you noticed as a potential problem solver (fear) are different from the ones that present you as a solution enhancer (greed).

I recall for example, many moons ago, when at the Irongate Group in Derby, we ran several successful marketing campaigns that focused on greed. Incentives for the customer to engage with us for the initial step, and then a sales solution that delivered, you guessed it, financial and process benefits. The same at Anglo Office Group - the most successful lead generation campaign we ever ran was an incentive to get a free iPad with every audit. The business incentive was financial and process benefits. I’m not sure that has really changed that much in our sector, any sector. Greed is still a powerful motivator and will continue to be, but this kind of message is a popular message in a crowded market and getting noticed is ever harder.

Does it matter how you get noticed? Greed or fear? Problem of potential? No it doesn’t. What matters is what you do when you do engage. Leading with greed is fine, but don’t ignore the potential to identify a problem the customer probably doesn’t know exists.

Remember, with greed-inspired messaging we are not reacting to a customer problem as the Problem Solver; the problem solution (fear) gives us a more access and customer transparency than greed as, well, it’s a problem. A greed-inspired solution is more suited to selling the future. They don’t need what you’ve got right now. They are likely to be less transparent as they don’t need to be. So, your job is to inspire them to deliver the benefits sooner and, where possible, create a fear of a problem they don’t know exists or, possibly more likely, simply FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

Leading with ‘greed’ in both those examples created more leads and opportunities than we hope for. But successfully converting that lead into actual business allowed, and still allows, when done right, the potential to highlight a problem the customer didn’t know existed - that could be exposure to fluctuating product pricing, needless administrative processes, inconsistent service levels, availability of products (back orders!), ordering experience, advice and guidance, customer service experience, response times, account management, sustainability impact, and so on. Combining fear and greed (‘here and now ‘and ‘selling the future’) by understanding and demonstrating the problems they didn’t know they had and the impact that not having your solution NOW is having on them and probably their business will more likely negate the potential for them to take your greed-only offering to their existing supplier to match or slightly improve. Don’t you just that hate that!

With a diversified offering we are now seeing the potential for fear-inspired problem solving and greed-inspired potential getting ever broader. The more diversified the solution the more points-of-entry you have as a service provider to that customer. And that is just great. Your first challenge is to get them to notice you. That’s hard enough. When they do, make sure you don’t pass up the opportunity to demonstrate how your solution addresses the here and now AND makes you the best bet for the future too.

No problem.

Gary Naphtali has enjoyed a 30-year career in sales and sales leadership roles and led businesses and teams from start-up to mutli-channel organisaitons. Gary has advised businesses and organisations at a regional, national and international level, and coached, mentored and trained individuals - from trainee to board level - in more than a 100 businesses.