Chasing Your Prospect's First "Pain" Will Cost You Sales - Sandler Training - Canadian Energy News, Top Headlines, Commentaries, Features & Events

Written by Hamish Knox; President of Sandler in Calgary, Canada

Creating accountable, sales focused organizations in Calgary

Salesperson, “thanks for inviting me in, Prospect. On the phone you mentioned a couple of topics you wanted to discuss today. Would you remind me of what they were?”

Prospect, “yes, Salesperson. We’re having issues with our current vendor delivering parts on time. My A/P group is getting frustrated with our invoices being inaccurate recently. I wanted to know what you could do for us, which is why I agreed to meet.”

PAUSE

Let’s pretend you’re this salesperson. Sounds like a pretty easy sale. Your company operates on Just-in-Time delivery and you deliver on time for 99.8% of your clients’s orders. You use the latest accounting software with limited human inputs, which means your company produces an error on one of every 10,000 invoices. What we don’t know is if those are the real issues your prospect wants to solve.

Sandler’s CEO, Dave Mattson says, “a sales call that starts well ends well.” To start your sales call well when it comes to your prospect’s challenges, issues or opportunities make the phrase “and what else?” a key part of your sales toolbox.

Carrying on the scene above that might sound like…

Salesperson, “appreciate you refreshing my memory, Prospect. What else would you like to discuss about your current vendor?”

PAUSE

The answer may be “nothing,” but by asking “what else” instead of “anything else” prompts your prospect to think. Most people when asked a question with “any” in it will say “no” because the word “any” implies to the other party “I want to move on.” This could cause you to miss out on an opportunity to uncover more pain points for you to explore. (Note – this doesn’t mean drop “any” from your vocabulary nor does it mean that if you use “any” you won’t get additional information only that using “what” increases your odds of getting more information from your prospect.)

Another reason to ask “what else” is the pain points your prospect shared may have been the last thing they saw or heard before you came in. Using the scene above it could be true that your prospect’s A/P clerk was in their office moments before you arrived complaining about an inaccurate invoice. The first inaccurate invoice they’d ever received from their current vendor.

In that case your prospect is falling into the “primacy and recency effect,” which is the tendency for humans to recall either the first or most recent example.

Getting back to the scene….

Prospect, “well, I’m getting tired of only hearing from my account rep when they have a ‘special quarterly promotion’ or they ‘just want to chat.’ I’m busy. Tell me something that will make my life easier or make my company better or don’t call!”

PAUSE

Now we have three pain points on the table. On time deliveries, inaccurate invoices and little rapport with current rep. Still good to ask, “and what else?” until your prospect says something like, “you fix those and you’ve got my business.”

Challenge is where to start. One of the first two pain points could be the real problem your prospect wants to go away or the third one could be. Instead of falling into the primacy and recency effect ourselves best to have our prospect prioritize for us.

Back to the scene…

Salesperson, “thanks for sharing that with me, Prospect. Sad to hear your current rep treats you that way. You’ve given me a bunch of challenges. If you had to pick one to go away first, which would it be?”

Prospect, “well it’s the invoices that are driving me the most insane right now.”

Salesperson, “okay. Why’s that?”

Prospect, “because with all the screw ups on delivery we’re getting credits for this and credits for that. I don’t know if I should pay them or they should pay me!”

Salesperson, “makes sense. What’s the payoff to your business if your invoices are accurate?”

Prospect, “I can actually predict cash flow and my Accounting team won’t be in my office every second day downloading their stress on me!”

Salesperson, “that’s fair. If you had to choose between a better relationship with your account rep and deliveries that were there when you needed them, which would you want first?”

Prospect,” definitely…”

End Scene

When information comes out of your prospect’s mouth its real. When it comes out of your mouth you’re a pushy salesperson. Let your prospect pull you through their pain instead of you pushing solutions on them and you’ll burn fewer calories closing that sale.

Until next time… go sell something.

PS. A note on language as it relates to your prospect’s pain. Adapt your language to fit the way your prospect describes their pain. If they speak of “challenges” then you speak about “challenges.” If they say “challenges” and you say “issues” or “problems” your prospect will start to believe that you’re not really listening even if you’re totally tuned in.

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