MAKING THE SALE

Peter de Lange • October 28, 2021

Finding the Pain to Make a Sale

Imagine you have a 10:00am appointment with your doctor. You arrived a few minutes early, and start looking at the stack of magazines that were on the coffee table.

Shortly thereafter you are escorted into the Dr’s. room. The Dr proceeded to tell you all about himself. Where he grew up, where he studied. He described his years at medical school and experience.

Then he started telling you about how great his staff are and about the new X-Ray machine he has just purchased.

After this brief introduction, the Dr. fires up his laptop, and takes you through a 25 slide PowerPoint presentation that told you all about the wonderful services that he and his staff provided.

It had eye-catching graphics and charts. Great patient testimonials.

After about 35 minutes, The Dr then asks you how you are feeling. You then tell him you have a headache. So Dr. prescribes you some pills, and sends you on his way.

What’s wrong with this story?

Doctors Ask Questions

Doctors don’t work this way. They ask questions. The first thing they do is ask you to fill out a medical history form so they can get to know more about you.

Then the doctor asks you lots of questions, and begins to examine you. He listens to your heart and lungs. He looks into your eyes and ears, and up your nose with a little flashlight.

He makes you open your mouth, pushes down your tongue with a depressor, and makes you say AHHH, while he looks down your throat.

Depending upon the answers to the questions and the results of any tests, he may ask you more questions and/or run more tests to be sure what’s ailing you. Or give you a prescription and send you on your way.

Finding The Customer’s Pain:

Sales people need to be trained to “Find The Customer’s Pain.” This may not be the best phrase, because what do you do when you’re in pain? You usually see a doctor, right?

So, if the customer was in “pain” she would call you, or one of your competitors, and ask you to come over because she knew she had a problem that needs fixing.

But, if the customer doesn’t know she’s got a problem, how do you discover that she has a need for your product or service?

You do it by asking questions. Not by talking about yourself, like the Dr. did.

Just finding out that a problem exists isn’t enough. You’ve got to discover the financial impact or economic value of the problem. You’ve got to get the customer to tell you how much it’s costing them because something isn’t working properly.

The Problem’s Financial Impact:

Cherryl, whose company makes shipping label software told her coach about one of her clients who ships at least 1,000 packages a day. When asked how many of them get shipped to the wrong address, she said that only two were mislabelled each day, or just 2 percent.

You’d think that 2 percent is good, but what is the actual cost to the company of those two mislabelled packages each day?

Consider the additional costs of:

Pulling a new order from the warehouse and putting it in a box.
Retyping the labels.
Dealing with an unhappy customer who didn’t receive the merchandise.
Restocking, if the merchandise is returned.
The merchandise cost if the package is lost.
Re-shipping.
The duties, insurance, and delivery fees.
The list could go on and on…

In this case, it was costing her client at least R1000 for each mislabelled package. That’s R2000/day. R10,000/week. R500,000/year.

By finding out the financial impact of the customer’s shipping problem, Shelly had discovered a R500,000/year problem. (What’s the cost of this over the next five years?) Now Cherryl’s R50,000 solution didn’t seem so expensive, in fact it paid for itself in just five weeks.

So, spend more time asking great questions, and less time talking about yourself and your company, and you’ll create more opportunities, close more sales, and make more money.

Working with a professional like myself a certified business coach with ActionCOACH can help you develop solid sales strategies.

To find out more about how I can help you email me at peterdelange@actioncoach.com and book a 30min Zoom call.

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