In all too many industries, sales die due to insufficient questioning and discovery, and due to salespeople who only look for the low-hanging fruit. In some businesses, salespeople just know what the common issues are, and look only for those issues in discovery. The problem is, if they don’t find those issues, they’re pretty helpless.
The salesperson who does the common ‘easy pain’ discovery and doesn’t find it then has two options – walk away, or present to a need that hasn’t been discovered, and hope. The problem is this – just because the customer doesn’t have the easy pain doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have needs; always remember that there is a reason the customer is seeing you.
We salespeople do this often. Not finding easy pain, we’re helpless. We don’t have to be. The first thing you have to remember is that customers don’t always buy to soothe the sore thumb; they have numerous reasons. In the B2B world, buying motivations can be numerous, but they can be expressed by the simple term SWOT.
S: Strengths; in other words, what is going well now for the customer.
W: Weaknesses; what’s going wrong. This is typically the ‘easy pain.’
O: Opportunities; how the program being discussed can be grown or improved.
T: Threats; what could go wrong in the future.
Customers can and do buy based on any one, or any combination, of these motivators. If you notice, the ‘easy pain’ only covers ¼ of the possible motivators. Here’s the kicker: Oftentimes, the biggest return on investment for the customer isn’t fixing a Weakness – it’s improving a Strength. But if you never ask about Strengths, or never look for ways to improve them, you leave that on the table.
So, what should the salesperson do when in a sales call where the ‘easy pain’ doesn’t come to the surface?
First, compliment the customer on avoiding the issues so common in this industry, product, or service. Anytime you acknowledge what your customer is doing well, you gain credibility.
Second, if you haven’t already (and you should be doing this through your questioning to begin with), start probing the Strengths, Opportunities, and Threats. If you spot an area where you can improve a Strength, bring forth an Opportunity, or head off a Threat, point that out and ask about the buyer’s motivation to move forward based on those issues.
Third, if you can’t come up with anything, you have two options – neither of which is attempting to nitpick or push something forward that won’t sell.
You can look at your customer and say, “Let’s be honest. I can’t come up with a single way to improve what you’re doing. Congratulations.”
Or, and depending on your personality, this might be best, (if the sales call was a preset appointment) you can be honest and say, “Mr. Customer, there was obviously a reason you wanted to see me – but I can’t figure out what it is based on my questioning. What motivated you to take this meeting?” Sometimes, the buyer will tell you a motivation that you hadn’t thought of, and you’re off to the races.
However, when you attempt to diagnose a problem that doesn’t exist, or nitpick, or just toss out an unqualified proposal, you just end up ruining your credibility. To be more successful, acknowledge and probe ALL the buying motivators. Don’t just shoot for the ‘easy pain,’ because sometimes the best sales aren’t easy.
