Solution Selling Is Dead: Here’s What Modern Buyers Really Want

In this episode, VP of Sales, Keith Abramson doesn’t hold back: solution selling is over. Today’s buyers are drowning in information, starved for time, and completely done with salespeople who expect them to explain their problems. Keith breaks down why sellers must earn the right to ask questions—by leading with insight, not interrogation.

He exposes the traps sales leaders fall into (including managing deals instead of developing people), the coaching blind spots crippling team performance, and the real reason cutting sales enablement is a massive mistake. We also unpack the huge divide between AI-native sellers and those resisting new tools—and why that gap will determine who succeeds over the next decade.

This conversation reveals exactly what modern buyers expect and how elite sales teams are responding. If you’re still relying on scripts, product pitches, or old-school discovery, this episode is your wake-up call.

Join us weekly as we dig into the real stories behind work culture transformation.

Not theory. Not fluff. Just honest conversations with leaders and innovators who've been in the trenches.

Transcript

Cold Opens And Buyer POV

Speaker 0:00

When you have a salesperson that's pushing too much on one side of it or not pushing enough, just asking questions. So for me as a buyer, either as a real buyer or thinking as a buyer thinks, what value is it to me if a salesperson that I've chosen to allocate time I do not have to says, So what's up? Tell me what you're worried about. My response is, I don't have time for this. I don't have time to teach you how to sell me.

Speaker 1 0:31

At Elements of Culture, we sit down with experts in leadership and team building to explore the DNA that drives a thriving organization. Hey everyone, and welcome to Elements of Culture. My name is Tieryn, and I'm joined with my co-host Julie. And today we have the privilege of speaking with Keith Abramson. He is the VP of sales at Security Scorecard. Welcome to the show, Keith.

Speaker 0:52

Thanks so much for having me.

Keith’s Path Into Sales

Speaker 1 0:53

Of course. We're so glad you're here with us, and thank you for your time just to dive into some hot topics uh leadership, sales culture, coaching, sales enablement, all those good things. And you have such a uh wide background of expertise specifically in these areas. So we're thrilled to dive in. Um but before we go into the topic specifically, give us uh a little bit of background and just kind of what got you started in sales and what's brought you to where you are today, if you don't mind.

Speaker 1:22

Sure. It's funny, like many others, it was unintentional. And uh I think it was it was facilitated by both of my parents being in sales, but I never actually thought it was something I wanted to do. But there was one value they always instilled in me really, really early on as a product of both of them being salespeople was if there's anything you want in life, you can have it. Go earn it. And I always loved that concept. That was deeply resonant for me. And uh sales, I believe, is one of the few professions where presuming tactics are strong and you're doing things well, effort correlates to results. And if you're coin fed, those results are tangible things that you go out and spend money on. And what is the output of results in sales? It's commission. So therefore, I work harder, I get stuff I want, I get stuff I want, I'm happy. And that equation is awesome. And I know that's super reductive, of course, but as I was going through becoming working age and starting to work jobs, I started to work straight commission jobs even when I was 17, and I loved it. And uh it was it facilitated me driving some ridiculous cars at a pretty young age, and I got hooked. And it's amazing. And again, it always comes back to me for if you want something, go out and earn it. And that's amazing. That that's sales.

Founding Young And Loving Leadership

Speaker 1 2:52

Yeah, I agree. I think it's you gotta start young uh in life, I would say, compared to maybe some sales professionals. But since your parents, like you said, had that sales background. But I think once someone gets that taste of sales and that you can make what you, you know, want to go after and reach those personal goals. Um, I think that there's, you know, your appetite for sales just continues to grow. Um, so I would I would guess that uh as someone as motivated as you are with an early start in sales, you're able to really break down that math for your team and just kind of help them understand how they can reach their own personal goals. Tell me a little bit about that, how your journey has been specifically in leadership, starting off with a sales background like that.

Speaker 3:35

So I was fortunate in that my route was circuitous, in that I started very, very early on. So I worked full-time while I was in college. I worked a straight commission job while I was going to school for the sole reason that I wanted money to buy stupid things. And it was awesome and it worked. And uh one of my peers at the company where I worked got recruited for another company in uh call it a more professional job, a real corporate job. Well, that corporate job was a financial services boiler room, and uh he started doing really, really well. So he referred me into the owners of that company, and I hadn't graduated yet, so I didn't really know what I was doing. I had my internship and I I didn't know. I was just starting to think about what I was gonna going to do when I grew up. But he cajoled me into taking this interview, and it was one of the jobs where they say either you make a lot of money or you get fired. And uh I liked that. I thought that was really cool. It's all on me. So if I put in the requisite effort and get good at it, I'm going to achieve what I want to achieve. And cool, sign me up. So I went in and I did it for a couple of years, but I had an idea for this business, and I can't blame the owners of the company. They they didn't want to do things differently. They were doing extraordinarily well. So between myself and a few other people that worked there, we saw another angle and we went out and started our own company. And I was in my early 20s when I did this, and uh I really fell in love with leadership. I I love sales. I think sales leadership is unique in that you have to love both. And this is a whole other topic and foray, of course, but sales leadership really does require expertise in the underlying discipline, but it also requires expertise on people management. It's not actually a job about the discipline. It is, but you're a people leader. And it is one of the truisms is that when you become a sales manager, you're no longer truly managing sales, you're managing salespeople. And uh I got a taste of that. For me, again, Ills, it it all comes down to exponents. You can exponentially increase your earnings by increasing skill, but you can also exponentially increase your reach and impact when you're leading through people. And I absolutely fell in love with that. Fast forward into going into SaaS, I've been at SaaS now for about 15 years or so. And I absolutely fell in love with early stage and or disruptive products because it's this triple exponent where if you sell really well, you have exponential personal impact. If you sell really well and lead people to sell really well, double expone it. Do it in a company that's actually affecting the world. And there's this triple exponent, and it's amazing, and it gets me endlessly motivated. If you're not motivated by that, go work in a spreadsheet.

Speaker 2 6:47

I love that. Um, I love your exponents. Um just like I think when I visualize that, I think about okay, leading people well into sales. Let's talk about that a little bit because I know you have a passion for coaching people and leading. As you started this company at a very young age, talk to me a little bit about some of the leadership and coaching that you realized was super powerful to the success of the company.

Speaker 7:12

All right, we'll pause. We'll we'll cut back in.

Coaching Versus Managing Deals

Speaker 2 7:16

Yeah. So so I know you have a passion for leadership and coaching. And so talk to me a little bit about when you started your company at such a young age, what are some of the things that you learn about how to lead people well to get the results you needed as a company?

Speaker 7:33

I think one of the key lessons of sales leadership for me, and it's one I always try to impart to leaders underneath myself, but also to live by it, is that there's a key and hard difference between sales leadership and sales coaching. And a lot of people fall into this trap of this almost double-layered idea of, okay, uh, I'm not managing people, I'm managing sales. And that's for one. So they forget to lead their teams. They just start leading the sales opportunities. And then, even worse is they stop working through people and enabling their employees, they cut straight to I'll just do it myself. So you have this doubly weak impact, and you can actually achieve this way, but it leads to, of course, personal burnout. And it also leads to significant attrition, even if you're making the numbers, because your people aren't developing. And sure, maybe they're achieving. They know that you're not actually helping them, you're working for the company. And uh, all of those lessons wrapped in are to me, you're working through people. You have to develop your people. And again, you'll get exponential results. I'm not working for one deal. I am, of course, but I'm not working on the one deal. I'm working to enable my team to go do 10 without me in the room. And I think that's the core discipline. I think out in the world, this sometimes bumps up against quarterly quotas and requirements, which is we are often forced to just do. But I think our core requirement and responsibility always has to be enabling our team in Kaizen. It is constant, constant improvement. You can never rest on your laurels for a number of different reasons.

Culture Shift Toward People First

Speaker 1 9:27

Yeah, that's good. It's constant improvement. And I think, you know, Keith, we've been able to talk with so many leaders and we're we do continue to see this as a trend that it comes down to the people. You know, sales is yes, we're we've got quotas, yes, there's numbers that we've got hit. But at the end of the day, if you are not seeing down to the people level and you're not concerned about their own personal success, you really truly can't have the impact like you're talking about that you'd want to have as an as a team and as an organization. And so we've really seen that trend uh of shifting happen within corporate culture where, you know, 10, 15 years ago, that wasn't really the case. It's like you weren't hitting your numbers, you weren't, you weren't really considered um as valuable as an individual. It's just like the numbers were the numbers. And I think that more and more we're seeing that need for just authenticity within leadership and being able to come together as a team. Now, on top of that, there's so many things going on in our world. Um, you know, there's crisis, there's wars, there's um division of all kinds. And I don't want to get into a whole political discussion, but with that comes stress in life. With that comes um, you know, different variables that you have to navigate through as individuals that disrupts your life or might disrupt your home life. So talk to us a little bit about that and your experience, Keith. Um, you know, leading a team well and like you said, managing people well. How do you do that on a personal level for your team members specifically? Or what are you seeing change within the industry?

The Earn The Right Era

Speaker 11:12

There are so many changes. I think we have seen 10 years of sales change compressed into the past six to nine months. And uh it's always cyclical. And if you look at it as a binary spectrum between product features on one side and solution selling on the other, as two rough categories, we're always bouncing between the two on a kind of waveform. But we're entering this realm of a new derivation again. For a while, solution selling was very much in force, which was, of course, a result to the overt rejection of salespeople wielding arcane powers to force you to buy something that you didn't necessarily need or want. And of course, that is a thing. We're all trained in persuasion, we're trained in human relations. We know how to steer. We have to use our powers for good. And there is a always this underlying zeitgeist which magnifies in times of stress and change of are they actually using their powers for good? Or are they going to be able to force me to do something I shouldn't actually do? That is in the back of our minds. Even those of us that are sales professionals have these gut feelings. And uh solutions was the ostensible answer to that, which is I'm not forcing. You tell me. Help me understand. You tell me, what are you thinking about? What's your boss thinking about? What are you worried about? When you go to sleep at night, what's on top of your list? Well, that worked for quite some time, but we're in this new derivation where, especially amidst economic uncertainty in a weird macro right now, we're in the weirdest macro that's ever been. The stock market is reaching all-time highs continually, but yet on Main Street, there's a depth of uncertainty. It's a very, very strange disparity right now. What does that cause? People not being so willing to press the E-side button. There's uncertainty, there's hesitation that compounds when you have a salesperson that's pushing too much on one side of it or not pushing enough, just asking questions. So for me as a buyer, either as a real buyer or thinking as a buyer thinks, what value is it to me if a salesperson that I've chosen to allocate time I do not have to says, So what's up? Tell me what you're worried about. My response is, I don't have time for this. I don't have time to teach you how to sell me. So we're in this new era where solutions no longer work. And uh I liken where we are now to the earn the right era. We don't have a right to ask questions. And I know this is a little controversial, and there are people that disagree with me on this one, but we're in this recombination era of we do have to put up, we have to show value first before we can even ask anything. Otherwise, why am I even worth their time to teach me how to sell to them? So again, sales is constantly changing and evolving. But where are we now? We have to earn the right. And that's what we have to enable our people to do is to have the level of expertise. There are a number of sales thought leaders that have gone really, really deep on this. And Anthony Anarino is one of these, his book, Elite Sales Strategies, it's awesome. But it's all about that. It's earning the right, being what he calls one up, actually being ahead of your prospects and helping and teaching and guiding and showing them something they don't know. And you have to substantiate before they tell you something valuable that's just going to help you achieve your goals. They don't care about my goals. So I think to distill all of that, it's this authenticity in goals. My goal is to facilitate something that's actually valuable for somebody, but I need to start from a stance. I can't start from, I don't know if this is good for you. I don't know who you are, which is the cornerstone of solution selling. No, I know who you are. I know what your peers are doing. I have an idea based on the conversations I've had with other people at your company where you are and where I think you should go. And I'm going to share this with you. And I may be wrong, but I'm coming from a place of imparting value. I'm not just asking for you to help me sell to you. That doesn't work anymore.

Defining Real Value In Sales

Speaker 2 15:44

Yeah, I love the imparting the value because when we're talking to a lot of sales teams, what we're seeing is um, I think there is a gap there in from leadership into what's happening. So as in coaching and leadership, as you are doing both things uh individually and separately as T defense, talk to me a little bit about what you're seeing right now. Skill sets that um you're having to coach frequently. Is there a trend you're seeing amongst your people that you're like, okay, I I see that this is there's this area of weakness. We need to like impart and little teach and coach a little bit more on this side of things. Is there something across the networks that you're seeing?

Speaker 16:25

Yeah, very much so. I think as with many other answers, the answer is it depends. And it really depends what segment of the market you're in, if you're an eight-figure enterprise or if you're in true PLG. But I do believe that PLG thinking has gone too far and wide. And uh what I mean by that is that people aren't just buying your product, and this is, of course, well known, but why are so many sales motions predicated on simply differentiating your product itself versus others? I always liken what we do as closest to what a physician does. They actually come in and diagnose, and they do not prescribe before they diagnose. Yet most salespeople out there have been trained on PLG motions, which is prescribe, prescribe, prescribe, and prescribe whatever is in front of you, which is almost like the old pharma sales motion, which no longer exists. But it is, oh great, it's it's yeah, every everything looks like a nail, right? It's the oldest sales cliche there is. But we're in a further layer of complexity, which is buyers have access, number one, to more information than they've ever had before. So there's no value in a salesperson simply reiterating information. They can figure that information out. More importantly than the information is they can synthesize it because they're actually SMEs in the domain. So now they're one up on me. That's really hard. This complexity is even exponentially greater because now we have AI that not only can it provide answers, it can provide suggestions and context. Now, this is doubly hard for us to substantiate this amorphous concept of value. And uh, it's one of the huge pet peeves out there in sales. Everybody throws that nomenclature around and says value, value, value. What does that actually mean? There's so many people that say the word but can't actually define value. They read in a book somewhere. Sell the value. You're not selling the value. Great. Tell me how. Just sell the value. That's terrible. So I think that one of the endemic problems out there is exactly that. There's no real understanding and definition of what a true value-oriented sale actually looks like when out there in the world, so much of enablement is simply predicated on an in-depth understanding of the product itself.

Enablement, Playbooks, And Ownership

Speaker 1 19:01

That's so good. Sell the value. Yeah, sell the value. I can't tell you how many times over here chuckling. It's like, I I've heard it so many times. It's like, you know, how are you actually breaking that down? So let's talk about sales enablement for a moment. I know this is an area of expertise for you. And I think sometimes, and I've seen it before too, previous uh colleagues that I've had, people get flack for sales enablement. And why are you spending so much time on this? Is this actually driving revenue? Can you talk to me a little bit about that and what you're seeing? Because, you know, I I really believe that there's such a huge impact when you have proper sales enablement in place. And what's happened, what I've seen, Keith, is that companies actually were making cuts in those particular areas because they're like, well, it's not directly impacting revenue. And they were sorely mistaken. So tell me what your thoughts are about that.

Speaker 19:58

I think the lines get blurry. And there is, of course, enablement is near and dear to my heart. And it's something that I feel incredibly strongly on. And there is a place for the division of labor. Sales enablement as a department and as a discipline and as a parallel, call it, line or division within the organization is incredibly important. But the definitions of what sales enablement is gets a little blurry. And I do think that a core responsibility of the sales leader is owning and running the playbook and all of the nuances thereof. And sure, imparting all of it is great, but imagine a head coach that can't explain a game plan to the players. That does not compute to me. So I think it is something that when you look at the core underlying tenets of sales leadership and sales, we are self-contained units. We have to do it all. We uh get the ultimate reward for it in commission. The commensurate responsibility is we have to do it all. Now, part of that is orchestration of people, of course, and the other units that we're coordinating in terms of sales engineers and customer success, marketing, et cetera. However, we're running the playbook. And as a coach, owning that, that means you have to know all of the nuances thereof and react not only in the individual deal, but be able to teach the playbook and the minutia thereof and exactly how you know it needs to be run, both on demand and in a structured way regularly with your team, incorporating both team goals and team level and on the individual level, which may diverge a little bit based on, again, to keep the sports analogy, their particular position. You're not going to train a field goal kicker like you're going to train your quarterback. So there is position level awareness. I do believe that it's not just a function of telling your people what their goals are. And this is one of the unique elements of sales leadership that I mentioned. You do have to have depth on the tactics and techniques as much as you have the people management level skills. That's our responsibility. I'm not going to outsource that in full. It is ultimately our responsibility to get the deal closed. How does it sound if I say, yeah, they they use the wrong script? So enablement needs to give them a better script. Doesn't work like that.

Speaker 1 22:36

No, it definitely does not work that way. You know, someone's gonna take the fall in it.

Speaker 2 22:40

I disagree with you. I I think the script is the playbook for many. And I think uh we've seen it. We've seen leaders coach the script. Um, and and unfortunately, I think it uh creates a gap in understanding not only the value, but how to how to authentically meet the person you're selling to. And I think that aspect of it is always lost as well because they're trying to they're trying so hard, especially the newbies, to stick stick to the script, you know, and it's just such a I think it's a bad model in itself and trying to do that. I have one question for you. Talk to me a little bit about what you think is gonna happen in the next five to ten years with a newer generation coming in and how we can lead them well. What's gonna change? What's not gonna change? And what do you think? Um, because I always feel like um younger generations always uh bring companies to a level of having to change, and I think it's a good thing. So, what are what can we expect to see in the next five to 10 years?

Scripts, Authenticity, And Skills

Next-Gen Sellers And AI

Speaker 23:43

Really interesting dynamics with the next generations coming in the workforce, and there's the memes, right? With the current generation doesn't even say a word when they answer the phone or they sit on the Zoom call. It's super weird. Communications have fundamentally changed with the rise of the digital native generations. So, yes, I think we can bemoan that, but change is certain. So means and methods and norms of communication are going to need to adapt to current generational norms. As much as I reject them or bemoan them, and I will push back on a lot of them to fundamentally, you can't show up on a prospect Zoom call and just look at somebody. It doesn't work, it's not going to. So there are truisms there that they have to abide by regardless of generational norms, and if they never talk on the phone. So that said, I'll I'll go there to the topic that any of these inevitably goes to, which is AI. And uh, we are AI native now, and I'm a huge proponent of it for supporting the narrative in the correct motions when you're not in the room. And as a both facilitation and coaching enabler to enable yourself. Well, one of the things that I've done is basically built an LLM that is me that can do call preparation and call post-mortem coaching and analysis. And that's amazing. This is such a huge enabler for when we can't be in the room, we can't be anywhere. I have eight AEs. I can't be on every single call for every single opportunity. So it is a massive unlock, and we have an AI native generation. So, what's the net of that is we are going to see, look, it's there are a number of call them trite or or hackneyed statements, right? AI is going to take your job, or the person that can use AI is going to take your job. Whatever. It simply does not matter. There is one truism. The truism is those that reject the technology in any form are going to get left behind. That's it. And there will be no place for you. So we do have to lean in, regardless of what you think about it. Me personally, I think it's a huge level up for those of us in leadership, as well as people coming into the workforce that now do have a technological advantage on others. So their nativity with these types of tools is a massive leg up. So I do believe we are going to start to see these tools as omnipresent, which they're not yet. And also usage of them is not omnipresent. So you have a generational split where a lot of people, even when suggested very strongly to adopt some of these new methodologies, are simply rejecting them and not using them. That's the biggest shift, is that on the employer side, there is going to be an expectation that these next generation tools are available and we have to have them available.

Where Leaders Should Start With AI

Speaker 1 26:55

I couldn't agree more. I think that especially as leaders, too, you have to find ways that you can be even more efficient too, to lead your team. And I think there are many leaders, Keith, that are, you know, forward thinking and they're looking at ways to incorporate AI tools into their day-to-day with their teams as well as their self. What would you say, Keith, just from your experience to other leaders that aren't really sure like where to start? Because, like you said, companies are going to get left behind that are taking that, you know, kind of forward approach with how AI is shifting everything. It's really shifting everything. And so, yes, as new employees are coming in, like you said, they're they're growing up, they're already acclimated to these tools and to, you know, the space of digital and how they can leverage AI. And so, what would you say to leaders that are maybe just now in this place, like I don't really know where to start as a leader? How do I help my team become more efficient? How do I uh even learn myself? What would you say to someone that's just trying to navigate that space?

Speaker 28:01

There's a simple answer. Go learn. Because if you don't know how to use it, you're already behind. Now, the real answer that's exploded out beyond that is there are a number of tools that are available that are absolutely amazing. And my favorite one at the moment to recommend to those that are new into it is Dharmesh from HubSpot built a side project called agent.ai. And it is a completely free-to-use agentic build platform that has a no-code interface. It's amazing. It's stellar, huge plug to Darmesh. It's awesome. And it's free and it's really friendly to go use and start building agentic workflows that can synthesize 10, 15, 20-step processes that not only were lengthy, weren't even being done before because they were too laborious to do. You can synthesize really complex multi-step processes, for example, to do research prior to your call. You can do that in one click in two minutes. That's life-changing. And I would say go learn one of the build platforms. And that's one of the easiest ways to do it. And there's a mass proliferation of resources out on the web. This is not a new concept, but it also hasn't been widely adopted yet. So there's a massive amount of free material on the web on how and where to leverage AI and go to market.

Closing Takeaways

Speaker 1 29:26

That's so good, Keith. Um, Darmash needs to sponsor you, HubSpot there. Love that. So such a great resource. And I think sales leaders, you know, maybe they're just overwhelmed and they're not really sure where to start. So thank you for that. Thank you for this conversation, Keith, on um, you know, your thoughts, your experience on sales leadership and also coaching. Um, you know, one of the things that I think taking away from our conversation is that at the end of the day, it comes down to good people management and really seeing the people serving the people well. So That you can do everything within your wheelhouse to really drive the team forward. But also, you know, at the end of the day, go earn it, go learn, get plugged in, find the tools, find the resources, and get connected to the right people that can help show you the way forward. So thank you so much for joining us for this conversation.

Speaker 30:18

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

unknown 30:20

Yeah.

Speaker 2 30:20

Thank you so much.