How do you know if your prospect in sales is ready to take action? Spot key indicators of pain, its business impact, and the emotional response to move the sales process forward.
It is not enough to know that your prospect has a problem. In this video, sales trainer Shad Tidler answers the question “how do you know if you have enough pain from a prospect?” and discusses the importance of using the Sandler Pain Funnel to understand the problem the prospect is trying to solve, its impact, the emotion it evokes, and the level of commitment to fixing the issue.
Exploring Sales Opportunities With the Sandler Pain Funnel
As sales trainers, we are asked quite frequently about how to know whether or not it makes sense to continue pursuing a prospect. Using the Sandler Pain Funnel can be a valuable way to determine a few key elements about a prospect that can indicate whether or not they may ultimately become a customer, including:
- What is the problem?
- Why is it a problem for the prospect?
- How is the issue impacting the prospect?
- Is resolving the problem a priority?
- How are they really feeling about the issue?
- Is the problem one that the prospect is really committed to fixing?
If all of these questions are answered in a way that indicates that a prospect is actively searching for a way that you or someone else can help them resolve the issue, then it's likely that you have enough pain to continue the sales process.
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Video Transcript
When somebody gets a little uncomfortable, they'll start moving around a little bit.
Also, listen for tone of voice.
You might hear tone of voice drop and soften a little bit when they're starting to talk about pain. So these are key indicators to help us.
So I get asked a lot, how do we know if we've got enough pain, and if it makes sense keep moving on in the process, and if that prospect is committed to actually taking action, whether it be with us or somebody else?
So as we're looking at, how we do we know if we have enough pain, the first thing we have to know is what's the problem actually? Do we have context around what it is that they're trying to solve? And then next, we have to know why is that a problem? It's not just enough to know you've got a problem, but why is it truly a problem for them. What's happening when that problem occurs?
From there, it's now, how is it impacting them? If something doesn't have impact--think about it in our own personal lives, if it doesn't have impact for us, a problem, we just go, OK, I'm going to put it on the to do list. I've got to get to it.
It just keeps going on week after week. And we never get to it.
It works the same way with the people you're talking to across the table in those prospects. If it doesn't have impact, and the impact is not big enough, no action will be taken, whether it's with you or somebody else. They'll just say, that's something nice to think about. I'll get back to you. Or yeah, we should work on that. And just nothing happens.
Then we've got to understand when it comes to impact a couple pieces.
Business wise, how is it affecting their business? Is it dollars they're losing? Is it hours of work that are being lost? Is there some other impact--they're losing customers?
And then for that person we're sitting across from, we've got to understand, well, what's the impact from them? When the business is losing money, are they measured on it? Is it taking money out of their own paycheck? Is it they're having their bosses yelling at them? Or they've got customers yelling at them? And they're fearing, OK, gosh, what's going to happen next?
And then we've got to get down to the emotion. So how are they really feeling about it when this is all happening? What's the real emotional response they're having to? Because that's what people really want help solving is when problem A happens, and it has this effect, this is what I really feel. And I want to get away from having that feeling every day.
And then finally, is this something they're committed to fixing? Do they really want to take action? And once again, that's not whether it's with you or someone else, it's just, are they committed to taking action? If we've got all those pieces, now we've got enough pain. And we can keep moving forward with that prospect.
