Problem: Gerry was fortunate. His company’s new
marketing program resulted in a great deal of incoming calls. Daily he
received at least 2-3 calls from interested prospects who wanted to see
him. It was a salesperson’s dream. No more cold calls and lots of
appointments. But at the end of the quarter, his sales had not increased.
In fact, his closing rate had declined to 15%. What happened?
Diagnosis: Prospects are motivated by a number of things and it’s critical to understand the motivational hierarchy of pain, fear and interest. Pain is a problem today, fear is concern about future pain, and interest is often nothing more than simple curiosity. People spend the most to fix pain, and the least on interest. Gerry was often mistaking interest for pain.
Let’s take a moment to understand these concepts better. People will spend a lot of money to eliminate pain, especially if the pain has serious financial implications, and they’ll spend it now. Fear is compelling as well, although generally less compelling than pain. Because it’s not as urgent, they’re likely to allocate less funds and will postpone the purchase for a short period of time, depending on the imminence of the problem they’re worried about. Interest, on the other hand, is by far the least compelling. People will spend very little on “interest” and making an investment quickly is likely only if the cost is minimal. It is, however, important to note that many purchases seem to begin with nothing more compelling than a mild interest in the product or service. The skilled salesperson, by asking questions, is often able to uncover the true motivations which, in some cases, may not be that apparent to the prospect. Thus, the salesperson can play an important role in helping the prospect elevate the motivation from interest to fear and, perhaps, to pain.
Prescription: Sometimes the most important qualifying questions are the ones you ask yourself. Do you really know the prospect’s level of motivation? Are you mistaking “interest” for “pain”? If you’re not sure, try asking yourself the following questions as you interview the prospect: “What am I dealing with here? Does the prospect have a problem that she is committing to fix now or is she just worried that if she doesn’t start to address some issues she’ll have a problem later? When is later? Or, is the prospect simply fishing for information?” If you can’t answer those questions, you haven’t done a very good job qualifying the prospect. Keep working the qualification process until you’re positive which of the qualification trifecta (pain, fear or interest) you’re dealing with. Then you can decide how much time to invest with the prospect.
Good Selling!
Jim Dunn & John Schumann
About The Authors
The creators of the Common Sense Selling® process are two not-so-common sales professionals and trainers, Jim Dunn and John Schumann. They saw the lack of results and frustration that most salespeople experienced using the old “feature, advantage, and benefit” selling approach in today’s more complex selling environment.
Using their combined 65 plus years of sales experience, they developed a new, common sense approach to selling that is unconventional, by most standards…and it works!
Visit them at http://www.whetstonegroup.com/