This is about selling solutions vs solving problems.

There's an excellent quote about this common phenomenon from Lant Pritchett (Prof @ Harvard Kennedy School) that has stuck with me for years, and helped improve how I begin a working relationship with my clients:

"A lot of the time when we first interact with people and ask them to come up with problems that they want to solve they often name a solution because they have a preset idea of the solution and hence they never really have thought through to the problem to which this that was a solution"

Here is a great quick explanation of this from him and how he addresses it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--ewJatFeZU