Most buying decisions are made emotionally and one of the strongest emotions known to man is pain. People will go to great lengths to alleviate or avoid pain, including paying top dollar.
Successful professional salespeople master the art of getting the prospect to open up and reveal not only needs, but real pain.
Finding the Pain
Neil Rackman’s SPIN selling technique can help you get your prospect’s pain on the table early in the interview. SPIN stands for:
- Situation
- Problem
- Implications
- Needs
SPIN Selling
When using SPIN selling:
- Ask only enough Situation questions to know what’s going on. Have the prospect describe the situation as it exists and use words to paint you a picture.
- Get the prospect to define the Problem and identify dissatisfactions that lead to pain.
- Determine the Implications of the problem. How does the problem affect the prospect?
- When the problem is solved, what is the Needs payoff, that is, what is the desired outcome?
Listen carefully. Make sure you get all the pain out on the table so you can craft a solution using your products or services.
Getting Results
The key to the sales interview is the salesperson’s ability to ask the disturbing questions in a natural, non-threatening manner. When you finish the sales meeting, you should know:
- How long has the prospect had this pain?
- What happened the last time the prospect tried to solve/cure it?
- What is it costing the prospect to have this pain?
- How much is the prospect willing to budget to get rid of the pain?
Remember, no pain…no change!
To learn more sales secrets see Chapter Ten, Finding the Pain, in Secrets of the Softer Side of Selling. For even more sales help, join our FREE Sales Club! “See” you next week.
Good selling!
Don Crawford & Lois Carter Crawford