People buy for one of two (and sometimes both) reasons; to reduce or eliminate pain or the expectation of added gain. In good times, the pain can be nothing more than a nuisance and the expectation of gain may be incremental at best. Clearly, however, these are not good times.
In today's environment, your prospect's pain must be darn near excruciating and the expectation of added gain goes from incremental to exponential. So, what do you do? Since most of us aren't selling products or services that deliver real exponential gain, qualifying for pain is your only viable option.
Pain, when truly present, leads to action. Incremental gain will get you a meeting, but the sale will invariably wait until dollars can be added back into the budget. However, if pain is truly present, then even the claim of no budget becomes negotiable. If pain really exists then the probability of a sale is in direct proportion to your ability to quantify the magnitude of the pain and convince your prospect they need to re-allocate dollars to your solution.
If you cannot identify real pain with your prospect, then you most likely don't have a real opportunity for a near term sale. And, since time is the most precious asset of any salesperson, don't waste it on a prospect who is just looking for attention. Focus on either identifying or creating real pain or move on to someone new. The good news is that in these times, EVERYONE is in some level of pain. Find it, quantify it and sell to it and you can experience even better results than when times are "good".
For Salespeople:
Make one of the first questions you ask: "How has your life changed in the last 6 months?" This will immediately reveal whether pain exists. Whether the pain originates from the Revenue (R) or Expenses (E) side of the Profit (P) equation, if it is acute enough, the prospect will be open to hearing your story. If you identify pain in the first meeting, DO NOT try and sell at that time.
Develop your response and then at the second meeting, ask your client to qualify the pain again. Make them sell you on the acuity of the pain. Why is this important? Because if they cannot restate again the nature and acuity of the pain, don't waste your time sharing your solution-they can't buy right now. Tell them you'll get back to them in several weeks and see what happens. Again, in the absence of real pain, people aren't going to buy right now.
Sure, you can sell on "value", but only in relation to relieving the pain. Value, when it relates to adding revenue is not going to be heard when most companies are cutting budgets, staff and revenue projections because they already believe sales will decline. You'll never win an argument with a four year old and you'll never convince a CEO to spend money for gain when they believe gain is not possible.
For Sales Managers:
Use the issue of pain as you review the pipeline with your people. If they cannot share real pain within each of their prospects, then they are not truly a qualified prospect. When budgets are being cut and companies are in survival mode, pain finds money; gain does not.
Don't be fooled by a salesperson's fear of reporting a weak pipeline. You already know its going to take much greater effort to build and maintain a solid pipeline. If your levels remain the same and little to no pain is identified, your radar should be redlining. Focus them on qualifying for pain or creating pain. If pain exists and your solution can relieve it, then your closing ratio and average selling price should more than compensate for the lower number of unqualified prospects in your pipeline.
Further good news - when this crisis passes (and it will), you'll have an even better skilled sales force that will flourish when the promise of gain once again becomes a viable benefit.
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