In sales, the topic of ‘Pain’ is somewhat easy to understand. Many would define pain as “an emotional, compelling reason to do something different.” For example, if a prospect is buying product from an incumbent supplier, there must be some level of pain involved with that supplier in order to change suppliers. Easy to understand, right? Not so fast!
While salespeople understand the concept of pain, at times they struggle to execute good pain conversations. No matter if you are new to the profession or experienced, the struggle is real. But let’s inspect what’s driving that struggle:
1. Product Knowledge: It can be a blessing or a curse if not utilized appropriately. Salespeople can be too eager to exploit their features and benefits. Product ‘dumps’ too soon can prevent the salesperson from getting the prospect to open up about the impacts of the problem. You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room, but you do need to know when it’s time to use product knowledge.
2. Understanding Impact: The problem the prospect brings you is never the real problem. The prospect might say “I’m looking to put a new roof on my house.” Now, after looking at that roof it might be easy to jump to the conclusion that the roof is in terrible shape and the owner is concerned with leaks and ongoing repairs. Fact of the matter is the owner is looking to sell the home and gain a higher re-sell value and it has nothing to do with leaks.
3. Questioning Strategies: While some salespeople take a ‘wing it’ approach to questioning, the real pros use a structured strategy that walks a prospect down a path to impact (see above). Structure allows the salesperson to create repeatability in their talk tracks while creating trust with prospects when asking the right questions. For example: Salesperson asks, “can you share with me when you noticed your roof looking like that?”, to which the prospect replies “about 5 years ago.” Salesperson asks, “just curious why is this a priority now?” and the prospect responds with “we need to sell, get top dollar, so we can buy our dream home.” Now we’ve gotten to the root of the problem.
Executing a good pain conversation can provide a number of benefits. By asking the right questions you solidify yourself as the subject matter expert (more powerful than features and benefits). Like a trusted advisor, you truly understand what your prospect needs and why they need it. In addition, without pain you are more likely to be commoditized by the prospect, making the sale all about the price and not the solution.
You can do this!!! It’s okay to put your prospects in pain. And when you do, show them that you are the solution!
Rick McDermott has over 25 years of successful sales experience working with several of North America's largest steel and aluminum distribution centers. Working in sales and management roles throughout his career, Rick has provided a broad range of products, value-added services, and logistic solutions to companies in diverse industries such as Oil & Gas, Semi-Conductor, Aerospace, Mining, and Capital Equipment Manufacturing. His passion for business and desire for helping others has been combined through the creation of McDermott Professional Solutions Inc., a licensed Sandler Training® center located in Independence, Ohio.
