Sales Process

Most salespeople rely on their product or service to sell their prospect, using features and benefits to persuade them into buying. This typically means the person is giving away free consulting and lots of time and effort in hopes of getting that elusive “YES”, when in fact, they mostly get , “Let me think it over” or “We’ll get back to you”, or other non-committal responses and a sale likely never happens.

Think about what’s happening here. Following this traditional approach, the salesperson spends way too much time on the opportunity - and does not get the results he or she desires. This definitely can lead to frustration and reduced motivation.

One of the chief elements to cloing business using the Sandler System is to uncover your prospect’s pain and make them relive it. Most people buy emotionally, so getting your customer to emotionally relive his or her pain is a sure-fire way to get them to buy your product or service to relieve their pain. A couple of great tools to use in identifying your prospects pain is COP, or Costing Out the Problem, and The Pain-O-Meter.

Qualifying Prospects for Higher Success Rates

Identifying and measuring a prospect’s pain early in the sales process is one of the most effective ways to increase sales. So how do we uncover a potential client’s pain without being obvious about what we are doing? You already know and understand why Bonding and Rapport is the first step in the Sandler Sales Process, so now you can take the next step to get a clearer understanding of the challenges and pains your prospects face on a daily basis.

Establish and Maintain Bonding and Rapport
By Greg Nanigian in Sales Process

Before a prospect will share pain, you have to establish some level of bonding and rapport with that person. Why? Most people won’t share sensitive information with you unless they like and trust you first.  The Bonding & Rapport Step is the first of the Sandler Sales system described in this book. There are seven steps to this process, but none of them will work if you don’t take care of business here in the Bonding & Rapport Step. In fact, you should maintain bonding and rapport through the sales process and beyond. So let’s focus on it first.

An important, but often overlooked, principle in sales is "follow through."

After you’ve led your prospects through a discussion, to a point where they feel comfortable enough with you to share their pain, you need to keep that pain alive so that you can implement your solution. Prospects get emotionally involved when they reveal their pain and, as a result, are compelled to find a solution.

To start a productive discussion about pain — after you’ve built rapport, bonded, and had a meaningful conversation about goals and problems — ask: “What is the impact of this situation on your company?”

Pain is the gap between where you are and where you want to be. When that gap gets big enough, it can emotionally compel people to take action and make a purchase.

Many salespeople believe that presenting features and benefits is an effective way to sell. It’s completely ineffective.

A testimonial by the president of a leading New England advertising agency.

To uncover pain in the sales process, you must first establish bonding and rapport. Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a communications and behavior model developed in the 1960's, and it has grown in popularity and impact since.