If value comes from solving problems… why do buyers struggle to explain the problems they actually have?
In Episode 4 of the Buyer Decision Series, Mark Stiving and Rebecca Kalogeris explore why buyers often jump straight to solutions instead of clearly articulating their problems.
But the real value conversation doesn’t start with features or products — it starts with understanding the problem behind the purchase.
Discover why the sellers who understand a buyer’s problems best are the ones buyers trust most… and why that trust increases the confidence needed to say yes.
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Why you have to check out today’s podcast:
- Understand why value only exists when a real problem is being solved—and why no problem means no value.
- Learn why buyers often jump to solutions and features instead of articulating their real problems.
- See why the best sales conversations focus less on products and more on diagnosing the buyer’s situation.
Catch Up on the #BuyerDecisionSeries:
- Episode 1: Buying Is a Prediction of the Future
- Episode 2: Buyers Buy Futures, Not Features
- Episode 3: What Buyers Actually Pay For
“If there’s no problem, there’s no value.”
– Mark Stiving
Topics Covered:
00:00 – The Question Most Buyers Never Stop to Ask. Mark opens with a simple but powerful question: what problem are we actually trying to solve? The starting point behind value — and why most buyers skip it.
02:00 – The Rule That Explains Why Value Only Exists When Problems Exist. Mark introduces the second half of the Second Law of Value: value is the result of solving problems. If there’s no meaningful problem, there’s no reason to pay.
02:28 – The “Drill Aisle” Mistake Buyers Make. Why buyers walk into a store asking for a drill instead of understanding what they actually need — and how jumping straight to solutions leads to bad decisions.
05:12 – Why Feature-Focused Buyers Often Choose the Wrong Solution. From cars to CRM systems, buyers instinctively compare features instead of identifying the deeper problems they’re trying to solve.
08:09 – The Question That Instantly Builds Buyer Trust. Why great sellers ask deeper questions about context and behavior — revealing problems the buyer hasn’t fully articulated.
09:55 – The Confidence Equation Behind Every Buying Decision. Mark revisits the confidence framework — payoff, probability, and anticipated regret — and explains why understanding problems increases the probability a buyer believes your solution will work.
11:04 – The “Doctor Test” for Great Selling. Rebecca compares great sellers to doctors: when someone clearly diagnoses your problem, you immediately trust their solution.
12:48 – The Next Puzzle: Turning Problems Into Measurable Value. Mark previews the next episode: how companies can help buyers quantify value once the real problems are understood.
Key Takeaways:
“Buyers typically are horrible at articulating their own problems.” — Mark Stiving
“Nobody cares about your product. What they care about are the problems you can solve and the results they’ll achieve.” — Mark Stiving
“The better a salesperson is at understanding your problems, the more likely you are to believe that solution solves your problem.” — Mark Stiving
“When someone can articulate your problem with nuance and detail, suddenly you believe they can solve it.” — Mark Stiving
“Confidence changes when someone demonstrates they truly understand your situation.” — Rebecca Kalogeris
People / Concepts Mentioned:
- Theodore Levitt. Referenced for the famous insight: “People don’t want a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.”
- Jobs to Be Done. A framework focused on understanding the underlying job a customer is trying to accomplish.
Connect with Rebecca Kalogeris:
Connect with Mark Stiving:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/
- Email: [email protected]
Full Interview Transcript:
(Note: This transcript was created with an AI transcription service. Please forgive any transcription or grammatical errors. We probably sounded better in real life.)
Mark Stiving
The question is, what are we trying to solve? And the better a salesperson is at understanding your problems, the more likely you are to believe that salesperson. The more likely you are to believe that solution solves your problem.
[Intro]
Mark Stiving
Welcome to Impact Pricing, the podcast where we discuss pricing value and the problematic relationship between them. I’m Mark Stiving chief educator at Impact Pricing, and we offer programs to help you get paid more.
Our guest today is brilliant is me and I’m joined by Rebecca one more time.
Hi Rebecca.
Rebecca Kalogeris
Hello, Mark. Brilliant and modest. I see. So perfect.
Mark Stiving
So what are we gonna talk about today?
Rebecca Kalogeris
Alright, at the end of the last episode, you complimented my question because it was brilliant, but I, we’ve been talking about results, right?
And how really value is about, is the results that you get from a product.
And then I said, okay, we talked about results. Results being really important, that we had to quantify that payoff would be worse.
And that one of our roles as a seller, as a company is to help buyers quantify that, to really see what kind of payoff would be, but we couldn’t just be like, you’ll save $10,000.
And you said that we would answer that question in the next episode, but as we talked about this kind of offscreen, we said that before we could actually answer that question, we have to dig into the second half of what you call law two, right? So value is the result of solving problems. So let’s talk problems.
Mark Stiving
Let’s talk problems.
So you do recall, if you listen to the app, last episode, I said, if there’s no problem, there’s no value.
Rebecca Kalogeris
No problem, no value,
Mark Stiving
Right? And so value is the result of solving problems.
So now the question is, why do we care about problems? So let’s start with this. Buyers typically are horrible at articulating their own problems.
In fact, I’ll make the argument that buyers almost never articulate their own problems. So we tend to use drill. I use drills a lot, right?
Just doesn’t, I don’t know why. It’s probably because of Ted Levitt’s story. Nobody buys a quarter inch haul. They buy a quarter inch drill. I’m sorry. Flip that nobody buys a quarter inch drill.
They buy a quarter inch hole. So I just talk about drills a lot.
And if you think about it, so you’re working on your living room, you’re about to hang a picture. You’re like, man, I gotta drill a hole. I don’t have a drill. I think I’ll go down to the hardware store and buy a drill. What you didn’t do is you didn’t step back to articulate the problem.
You said, ‘Oh, I know how to solve this right here. I’m just gonna go get a drill.’ But here’s the problem, right? What’s the material behind the wall? What kind of drill do you actually need? How often are you gonna use the drill?
Do you need one that you can take around with you that’s battery powered? Or are you gonna plug it in because you’ve got a plug, right?
Real close to you? Have you really articulated the problems that matter as you go pick out a drill?
And I can almost guarantee you the answer to that was no. You stand in front of the drill aisle at the hardware store looking at different drills saying, which one do I want?
Rebecca Kalogeris
It’s interesting. So it’s counterintuitive because I think everyone thinks about then and goes my problem is I need to hold in the wall to hang this picture.
That’s the problem. I would articulate that. I would say everybody articulate.
We would, you said what brings you. Very few people are gonna be like, I was just thinking I’ve never had a drill and I would really like one.
No. They have some problem they’re trying to solve.
So when you first said that, I was like, no, I we all do that. But I think what you’re talking about too is also it’s the specificity of the problem. It’s really digging into the depth of it.
We all can see I need to hang a shelf or fix this or that. But it is all those other things that match the specifics of the problem that really help you identify the right solution.
Is where we say people don’t spend the time articulating this. We talk about this with the CRM system, right? I need to track my sales deals better.
Obviously that’s why I’m buying a CRM system, but what is the problem? Is it they’re not closing fast enough? Is it that we have surprises in our pipeline from a delivery perspective?
There is another level to the problem than that top level problem of which I do think everybody articulates that people aren’t very good at and are frequently surprised when a salesperson, if you get a helpful salesperson at Lowe’s, is asking you specifics to help you find the right one.
Mark Stiving
Yeah, and I’m not a specialist in jobs to be done, but when I think about jobs to be done, I think about it the way you just articulated the high-level problem.
Oh, I need to drill a hole ’cause I’m trying to hang a picture.
So I’ve got that specific problem in mind and I know what job I need to do, but it turns out there’s a whole bunch of problems behind that.
And so do we truly understand what those problems are? I would argue, in fact, I dunno if you do this when it’s time to go buy a new car. Do you step back and say, okay, what are the attributes that absolutely, we really are looking for?
Rebecca Kalogeris
What’s the most important?
Mark Stiving
And so, now we’re actually thinking about what are the problems?
Actually, here’s what’s funny, is we’re thinking about what features we want. We’re not thinking about what problems we have and how to solve those problems. Absolutely. You’re right, because I need a, my promise, my car is old, it’s not reliable, and I need a new car. That’s the problem.
But what I start to go, okay, what do I want?
Rebecca Kalogeris
I step back and go, okay what should I prioritize from a feature perspective?
Is it safety items? Is it gas mileage? Is it. You might really not a car person, other things that happen with cars.
Mark Stiving
Yeah. But the point is even buyers think in features.
Rebecca Kalogeris
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a great point.
Mark Stiving
But, and this is why one of my favorite sayings is nobody cares about your product, what people care about, or what problems they have that you can solve, and what results they’re gonna achieve after they get it.
Now buyers don’t even know that.
It turns out it’s true, but buyers don’t realize it. Experts can look at your features and say, yeah, I know what that’s gonna do for me.
Rebecca Kalogeris
Yep.
Mark Stiving
Most people are not experts, so when you buy a new car and you’re thinking about a gas mileage, you’re like, yeah, I got it. That’s not a big deal.
Let’s say you’re gonna go buy a new electric car and you’ve never bought an electric car before, and they start telling you about the features of the motors, and you’re like, sorry, I have no clue what that’s gonna do for me.
And this is the way most buyers are, especially in the world of B2B. We’re gonna buy something for the first time.
Or we’re gonna buy something new that’s got new capabilities and new features, and or we’re gonna buy ai. What the heck is AI gonna do for you?
So we don’t understand, we as buyers don’t understand when someone gives us a feature, what’s that really gonna do for us?
Remember, buyers are making predictions of the future.
So we give somebody a feature and we say, okay, now use that to predict the future, even though you have no idea what that feature is.
Rebecca Kalogeris
Yeah. And it’s interesting.
Mark Stiving
Any wonder?
Rebecca Kalogeris
Yeah.
Mark Stiving
Go ahead.
Rebecca Kalogeris
No. Interesting. No, I was gonna say it is, and I think it’s exactly where you’re going. Interesting. How that buyers unintentionally make it harder for the salesperson to help them find the right solution.
We go, big problem. And then we do start to go the features that we know we want, right? Like I wanna, I want a dashboard, I want that.
And like we have it, which is why we talk a lot about questions that salespeople ask us to try to translate this, but if they’re not thinking problems either, and they’re also being like let me show you this feature.
Then we have a big disconnect and all of a sudden I’m at a car place and they’re telling me about the, whatever thing that I can’t translate into anything, and then I’m just going to go home. I’m not gonna be excited.
The feature they described that doesn’t exactly relate to a problem I have.
Mark Stiving
Exactly. And so now let’s move backwards in the whole process for a second and let’s talk about the importance of problems.
So you walk into a hardware store and say, Hey, I need to hang a picture. And the person then starts to ask you questions, but the questions he asks aren’t about what features of a drill do you want?
The questions he’s asking now are, how do you live?
What’s your house look like? How often do you do home repairs? Do you need to go up in the attic with your drill? Do you put it in your car and travel with it so that you can do things when you’re on the road?
So these are all problems we can solve with a battery powered drill.
The question is, what are we trying to solve? Solve, and the better a sales person is at understanding your problems.
The more likely you are to believe that salesperson, the more likely you are to believe that solution solves your problem.
Rebecca Kalogeris
That sounds like a good answer to my question.
Mark Stiving
It’s okay for you to say, Mark, that was brilliant.
Rebecca Kalogeris
Oh, Mark, that was brilliant. It’s like a hostage video, blink if you mean it.
It’s so interesting when we, problems are important and then we have to dig deeper into what those problems really mean and that understanding and to be able to ask the questions be like, oh wow. If you asked me smart questions about my drill means I do feel like, I feel like you are an expert in a problem that I have and what comfort I have with that.
Oh, you’re right. That is really what that is. And, oh, you’re right. I do need to think about this. It gives me so much more confidence.
Mark Stiving
Oh, what’s that? What’s that word you just said?
Rebecca Kalogeris
Confidence. Right?
Mark Stiving
Confidence. So you may recall from an earlier episode, we emphasized this word, confidence. And we said that confidence had three components.
Those three components were payoff, probability, and anticipated regrets.
Last episode we talked about the payoff, which is value. Now let’s talk about the probability. How likely am I to believe that you can actually solve my problem?
Rebecca Kalogeris
Yeah.
Mark Stiving
And so companies do many different things to try to solve that, right?
We talk about case studies, we give referrals, we give references. But you know what buyers are sitting there thinking, yeah, but I’m different. Oh, always. Have you ever done this for a company that looks just like mine?
And so how do we get them to be confident that we can solve their problem?
And the answer is, how well do we understand their problem?
Can we articulate their problem back to them and add enough nuance, add enough detail that they hadn’t thought of before? They look at that and say, oh, you understand my problem now? I believe you can solve it.
Rebecca Kalogeris
Gosh, it’s, I think about that’s true with doctors too.
Like when you go and you sell, so to the doctor, they’re just like, great, take two of these and call me in the morning. You’re like, okay, I’ll try it.
But when they’re like, does it feel like, does it feel like this? Have you, what happens when you lay down or whatever? The, it shows a different level and your confidence that the solution they’re giving is likely to succeed is totally different.
I don’t necessarily think the first one causes me harm, but I don’t believe it in the same way that it can solve my problem.
Mark Stiving
Yes. And so if they can, if the doctor can articulate your problem, can identify other symptoms, can say, here’s probably the cause of what’s going on and why it’s causing these symptoms, suddenly you’re like, ‘Oh he gets it. He knows what’s happening here. I’m gonna let him cut me open,’ or whatever it happens to be.
Rebecca Kalogeris
Yes. But it’s true.
Mark Stiving
Yeah, and I’m not sure if I should say this on the podcast, but believe it or not, that’s exactly how I sell, right? I don’t ever tell people what results they’re gonna get. I simply talk to ’em on the phone and say, here’s what the problem is you’re dealing with.
Rebecca Kalogeris
And you are really good at asking that second question when they think they know.
And it really is, I think, a superpower of yours, right? Is that to be able to like, oh, but I’ve seen you’ve seen enough.
But also, you ask these questions that help them recognize the problems they’re having and that you have a, and you do a really unique understanding of these types of problems making you, really good at helping people with.
Mark Stiving
So what was fascinating is I never understood that until we started studying problems so deeply.
And so it, it’s just an interesting self-observation.
Oh, I guess that was a plug. Thank you.
Rebecca Kalogeris
All true.
Mark Stiving
Okay, so what are we gonna talk about next episode, Rebecca?
Rebecca Kalogeris
I dunno. Mark, are we gonna dig in deeper as to how we can help people understand their payoffs or, I think we’ve covered that.
Mark Stiving
We are gonna answer the question that we didn’t answer
Rebecca Kalogeris
Ah.
Mark Stiving
At the end of the last episode, which remind me of the question. It was something like, how do we help buyers quantify value as a salesperson?
Rebecca Kalogeris
Yes.
Mark Stiving
And so now that we understand problems, we understand confidence, we understand payoff. Next time, let’s talk a little bit about how we’re gonna help salespeople or companies communicate that value so the buyers can articulate it and quantify it.
Rebecca Kalogeris
I love it. Let’s do it.
Mark Stiving
Alright, Rebecca, thanks very much. And to our listeners, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, would you please leave us a rating and a review and if you have any questions or comments about this podcast or if your company wants to get paid more for the value you deliver, email Rebecca at [email protected] or me, [email protected].
Now go make an impact.
[Outro]
