Uncovering customer pain points ultimately affects your sales results. On the one hand, they are the key to why a customer needs to negotiate with you. On the other hand, the same pain points are the reason why many sales discussions are not successful.
Imagine you are in pain and you don't know why. The doctor examines you for two minutes and prescribes a few pills. After a couple of days you feel considerably better but after a while the symptoms return. Therefore, you go to another doctor. This one takes the time to check you from head to toe, runs some tests and finds the real reason for your pain. He starts the treatment and the pain disappears forever, with the “side effect” of actually feeling now better than ever before.
Understand the problem that is causing the pain, not just its symptoms.
The same thing happens in sales day by day. While all sales professionals pay great attention to existing pain points, not much feel the need to dive deeper into the cause of these problems and how these affect the overall result. These easy-to-spot problems are called “surface pain points” because they describe the current situation well but only scratch the surface with regards to the real problem that companies are facing. Surface pain points can be divided into the following 4 main categories::
Financial Pain -
This pain describes the general situation of raising revenues with the parallel rising of costs (distribution or headcount) but dropping profits. It gets worse if the customer is just profitable enough to keep the doors open (break-even situations)
Productivity Pain -
Mass approach to customers, too long sales cycle, too many meetings (internally or with customers) or carrying out special-offer campaigns to achieve goals, are strong indicators of this pain. It gets worse if the order books are full and the customer’s deadlines cannot be met.
Process Pain -
Most of the processes are messy and out of date. Hybrid revisions are celebrated as an innovation or revolution and monitoring of the sales pipeline is unpleasant and slow. It gets worse if the customer uses multiple systems that affect multiple departments.
People Pain -
This pain describes the general situation of high dissatisfaction among employees and customers. Low service level, rudeness and incompetence lead to customer loss and low new customer acquisitions. It gets worse if the best performers leave one after the other.
For a better understanding of the dilemma each of our customers is in, we need to walk in their shoes for a bit. The customer is exposed to the situation, where they identify their own pain points by looking at the current situation versus past results. At the same time, the solutions they wish to find should arise from the comparison of the current situation versus the future. These separate perspectives make future decisions incredibly difficult.
You must always keep in mind that the customer does not really understand your product fully at first glance.
Every sales professional who concentrates only on surface pain points unconsciously supports and even increases the customer's problem. By focusing on the problem in comparison to the past results, both sides move away from a potential future-oriented outlook. Afterwards, the customer has to compare the jointly found solution with his desired future but this time alone, without the possible influence of the sales professional who took part in finding this solution. If these do not fit together, the solution is considered unsuitable and the sales professional has no chance of improvement. This customer is lost, the deal will never be closed and there is no second chance. Here are 5 easy-to-implement steps to understand the real pain of your customers:
Make The Wound Bigger -
Try to understand the customer’s pain better and isolate it from the rest of the business. Ask what the customer has already done to solve the problem. What drove them? How did these decisions affect the outcome and what would happen if they didn’t change anything? The more the customer reflects about their pain, the better they can concentrate on the solution..
Be A Visionary -
Ask your customer about their mid and long-term goals. Let them create a vision of a perfect future and how the potential collaboration can help them achieve this vision. This distracts your customer from thinking only of the past and pushes them into the future.
Be the Motivator -
Find out who is driving the new solution. Is the customer forced to do so because they haven’t achieved their goals? Do they want a promotion or have been ordered to search for the new solution by a higher manager? If you know the motivation that drives them, it is easy to find the right words to bring them to a quick decision.
Bring Your Competitors Into Play -
Actively ask what the customer liked about alternative solutions or about your competitors. Don't create negative emotions. On the one hand, you should be able to realize what they didn't like (usually remains unspoken) and on the other hand you avoid comparing your negative aspects with the negatives of the competitor.
Present Your Solution -
Present only a part of the product that focuses on the identified real pain points. Never show the full range you can offer. It doesn't interest the customer and could also have a negative impact on the price you are offering.
You must always keep in mind that the customer does not really understand your product fully at first glance. All of their decisions are based on hope and a desire for success. It's up to you to connect the dots correctly for the customer. Recognize and isolate the problem. Increase the pain and with it the awareness of the need to act. Build a long-term vision of an ideal solution with a significant short-term healing effect. Then, and only then, will you develop a long-term relationship with a loyal customer. A customer who would pay you (almost) any price because you understood them. You helped them and didn't just sell a standard solution.
If you find my tips valuable but still don't know exactly how implementing them, I’m inviting you to write me an email and we review your specific challenge together and form a path to success. My email is: chris@forty-two.digital