One of the core principles of the Sandler Selling System is the concept of pain.
You know from psychology that eliminating pain in the present moment the strongest of all psychological motivators.
Pain will get people to change.
The challenge in selling is that many salespeople are dealing with problems and not pains. This causes them to deal with prospects that aren't truly motivated to make changes. The prospects, then, don't support the solutions you’re presenting or proposing.
A couple of things to keep in mind.
First of all, pain is personal and emotional. That's a core concept in the Sandler system.
But here's the challenge.
If you're selling to individuals without a corporate structure, it's a little easier to get to the personal and emotional pain. But if you're selling to multiple decision-makers in businesses (which you always are), each one of the decision makers have a different personal and emotional impact of the pain.
You need to know, for each of the different players who are influencing the decision, what their impact of the corporate pain is.
Let's just say the corporate pain is that they’re getting poor service from their current supplier and you’re in there trying to get them to change to you. Well, if poor service is the corporate pain, there's some people in the organization who have a personal, direct impact of that. Someone in operations, for example, might be working longer hours. They might be frustrated because of the service issues they're dealing with. But maybe there's somebody in procurement or buying who really isn't affected. Maybe there's somebody in finance or another department who doesn’t even know the pain is there.
When you’re strategically mapping out your accounts and how you're working them, think of the cast of characters. Keep asking yourself the question, "Am I dealing with the corporate pain or the personal pain of this person, and am I getting to the point of how it impacts them?"
If it impacts them personally and emotionally, you will create somebody who's more of a raving fan or at least someone who's going to support the decision to switch suppliers and move to you.
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Check out some of my recent blog posts:
Beware Of Premature Presentation Syndrome as a Chicago Sales Professional
Sandler Secret: Use The Submarine As A Diagnostic Tool
Dealing With Terms & Conditions As A Chicago Sales Professional
How To Get To The Right Decision Makers
Millennial's & Gen Z - What This Incredible Generation Means To You As A Chicago Sales Manager
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