Identifying pain is a key component in the sales process. There is no sale without pain. Uncovering your prospect’s pain has value to the sales process in several ways. It helps you build trust, establish a relationship and build rapport and provides insights as well.
Build trust. Ask the right questions, and you’ll build trust, uncover opportunities and cement your relationship as a trusted advisor. Ignore the pain, and you’ll become known as “a salesperson”.
Establish a relationship. To sell effectively, you must uncover customer pain points. This shows your interest in them and their business. Without doing so, you miss the opportunity to establish a mutually collaborative relationship with the customer.
Rapport. Equally important, buyers who believe that their pain is clearly understood will be more willing to share critical information throughout the buying process and will work harder to understand the solution being presented.
People buy based on emotion. People may justify a purchase intellectually but what makes them say yes is emotion. Uncovering their pain gets them to think emotionally and can make the difference between making the sale or not.
Differentiation. Without this critical information, sellers often stumble to differentiate their value when the potential customer is formulating a buying decision.
Gain customer’s perspective. When the seller doesn’t take time to uncover pain and discuss the implications of that pain early in the sales cycle, they lose the opportunity to understand what is truly important to the customer.
Relevance. Without understanding the buyer’s needs, the sales conversation usually focuses on product features and functions, which may or may not be relevant to the buyer. Unfortunately, product functions that are not tied specifically to customer pain can make the solution sound expensive and off target. At this point, the conversation quickly degrades to one of price and pricing discounts.
Pain-Solution Correlation. Without uncovering business pain, there is no means to formulate a solution that will address that pain. Without a meaningful solution, there’s no sale.
