I always say ‘no pain, no gain’. Of course I’m referring to the high heeled shoes I love to purchase and wear, but the same can be said of making a successful sale.
Knowing the client is a big step in selling to him. And this does not mean simply understanding what he tells you, but acknowledging his real, often unspoken needs. Take for example a software application salesperson. He may prepare for his sales calls by listing the top reasons his system is better than the average CRM systems on the market. It may be more affordable, offer advanced search functionalities, and be quick to implement. In chatting with the prospect however, he may come to realize that the client is bringing an eco-awareness into his organization. And redesigning a paperless client services department is an important aspect of this new goal. By steering the conversation into this new direction, and suggesting his system can cut down on paperwork, the salesperson has already won half the sale.
A simplified example, but what it boils down to is showing or proving a value or return of interest associated with your solution, in this case, the CRM system.
In an earlier blog, I had spoken about solution selling, where the principle behind it is simple – get a customer to acknowledge a business issue or ‘pain’, and offer a solution for it, and you stand a greater chance of making a sale. Getting them to identify their pain can be done through a number of probing questions like, “What issues are you looking to address?” or “What do you hope to gain from your CRM system?”
The answers you get may not directly lead to the root cause of the pain, but they can help you get a foot in the door and plan your prescription.
When trying to establish pain, ensure you have all the key decision makers at hand. If not, chances are you can miss critical feedback of what the company really needs. Partial response will also impact the final solution you offer and will result in multiple dialogues with team members, which again can be misleading.
Next, you need to make the client understand that this pain can flow throughout the company and can have a direct impact on a number of departments. By recognizing this simple fact, your recommendation can encompass the entire organization and help build opportunity, while your competitor may offer only a bandage solution which limits his growth. Who do you think the company will go with? And how would that impact your own sales growth?
Heard of a malpractice suit? It’s what happens when you offer poor advice. As we’ve seen, it’s hard for a buyer to take action without a vision, and it’s up to the salesperson to create this vision for him. But the chance to grab a big sale may stand in the way of creating a sustaining plan for the company. Don’t make that mistake. Malpractice can be more painful than a case dismissal. Your questions when exploring for pain need to be:
- Probing, to seek various unexplored avenues that may explain the cause of the pain, such as lack of systems to track inventory or lack of cross selling opportunities.
- Leading, to help the client stay on track and not get diverted by issues out of your control
- Affirming, which allows the client to acknowledge the pain and welcome a solution.
Using these questions, you can determine the following:
- The root cause of the buyer’s pain; why he is in pain and what are the factors causing it.
- The impact this pain has on the company. As seen earlier, the pain can spread to all departments or outward, to customers. It’s important not only to contain the pain, but to understand how it moves in order to restore good health.
- The vision required for the client to take action. Once you have the client admitting to this pain, you can create a long term solution to fix the problem. Share this vision with your client and address the way your capabilities might help him.
There is a difference between the actual pain and the reasons for this pain. Actual pain may be job related and felt by the team leader who is not hitting expected revenues. Or it could be prospect related, where poor organization is affecting team morale.
The reasons for pain may be many – poor lead management systems, lack of insight into sales pipelines, inefficient operations, and lack of customer information resources. Often, finding a solution is as simple as offering a CMS system which can streamline operations and make data gathering easy.
The basis of this pain can be for example, increasing costs, errors, and employee turnover, and decreasing profits and market share.
All three streams – actual pain, the reason for pain, and the basis of this pain – can be cross referenced. For example, the team leader who is not hitting expected revenue can in turn offer poor team solutions, leading to lower morale levels, decreased sales and profits, and a higher employee turnover.
It is not enough to identify the pain; the prospect must acknowledge it before you can offer a solution. So once the client has acknowledged low team morale and high employee turnover, you can begin with your questions such as:
- How many employees do you lose per annum?
- What is the annual loss resulting in a high employee turnover?
- How much do you spend on hiring and retraining new employees?
- Do you have team-building events?
- Do you have a budget for these events?
Getting your customer to admit to a pain can be difficult and if you are having problems, Keith Eades’ The New Solution Selling and Michael Bosworth’s, Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets, make for the perfect read. Check them out and you’ll be better adept at converting pain into an actual dollar amount.
