I bet right now you are carrying around a wallet or purse that contains your credit cards, debit cards, and/or cash.  I know why you carry that stuff around all the time…it is because you like to buy stuff.  Buying things can be very emotionally satisfying, unless a salesperson gets in the way and steals your emotional satisfaction.  That’s right, sometimes we, the sales professional, are the reason our prospects choose not to buy from us.

We who sell should understand what motivates people to buy in the first place so that we can avoid being the problem.  If prospects buy for emotional reasons then which emotions provide the greatest motivation?  Some people buy because it brings pleasure.  Clothes, food, drink, toys, and vacations might be some good examples.  Some people buy because it relieves or prevents pain.  Insurance, dentist, financial advice, and security systems might be some good examples.  It is important, however, to recognize that people’s desire to eliminate or prevent pain is significantly more powerful as a motivator when making buying decisions than people’s desire to have pleasure.  And most of us professional salespeople are in the pain removal/prevention business.  Therefore, your strategy when selling your product or service to the prospect should be to find out where it hurts.

Sometimes this is not easy.  It takes a good sales professional who is properly prepared with the right questions to uncover real pain.  Imagine going to visit the doctor to get a routine checkup.  The doctor begins to ask you a series of questions about how you feel.  The questions are good and very thorough.  You explain to the doctor about some minor cramping you have been experiencing recently in your side but it was no big deal.  In fact, you weren’t even going to bring it up if it weren’t for the thoroughness of the doctor’s questions.  The doctor orders some tests and a scan of your side.  A short time later, the doctor returns with the results and tells you that your appendix is on the verge of rupturing and it needs to be surgically removed immediately.  What would you, as the patient, do at this moment?  Would you tell the doctor to give you a price because you need three bids before you can decide who performs the surgery?  Would you say that you need some time to think about it first?  The pain that the doctor professionally uncovered would be so great that you would likely be motivated to authorize the surgery without even talking about price or anything else.

The sales professional should be prepared when in the sales call to thoroughly examine the prospect for pain which the product/service being sold can effectively remove/prevent.  The tools we use to execute this examination are questions.  Spend some time developing a list of diagnostic questions that are well written, thoughtful, clever, and unique.  If you hear the prospect say “That’s a good question,” you know you are on the right track.  Have at least ten questions prepared for the sales call because not all questions will find pain.  When you find pain indication, move the discussion from intellectual to emotional by asking the following follow-up questions:

1. Tell me more.
2. How long has this been a problem?
3. What have you done to fix it?
4. How did that work?
5. How much has this problem cost you?
6. How do you feel about it?
7. If I were to fix it, what would that mean to you?

It is extremely important that when you are doing your diagnosis, you keep your mouth shut as much as possible.  This is not the time to do a feature/benefit dump.  Let the prospect tell you everything about their problems and get emotional about it!  Your success at selling a deal at the price you deserve depends greatly on your ability to uncover the pain.  For the prospect to buy, it has got to hurt!

by Karl Schaphorst, President

402-403-4334

www.karlschaphorst.sandler.com

Sandler Training is a global training organization with over three decades of experience and proven results. Sandler provides sales and management training and consulting services for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) as well as corporate training for Fortune 1000 companies.  For more information, please contact Karl Schaphorst at (402) 403-4334 or by email at kschaphorst@sandler.com.  You can also follow his blog at karlschaphorst.sandler.com.