Merchants who sell drills are in fact selling pieces of mechanized metal, but the actual reason for the drill’s existence is to make holes. What the merchant is really selling is the hole. The person buying the drill either wants to make a hole or drive a screw. That’s it. If they didn’t need one of those two things, they wouldn’t need the drill.
So how can we relate that to our customers? Are we trying to sell our customers “the drill”? Are we helping our customers sell the drill or sell the hole? Why are our customers customers buying their product? Is it because of the product or the result they get from the product? Of course it is the latter. We help customers identify what the “holes” are, what the end results of their products are and sell the solution, not the tool.