Let’s face it, you wouldn’t want your doctor to provide treatment without first giving an examination. And you wouldn’t want your mechanic replacing parts before taking a look under the hood. The same goes when it comes to the sales process. If you want your product or service to be the solution, you first must have a thorough understanding for the problem and all of its implications. Insight is key. If your goal is to convert a prospect into a revenue-generating customer – make sure you understand their pains.
Create buyer personas
First, if you haven’t already, be sure to get to know exactly who your prospect is. A “buyer persona” is a tool to describe who your customers are and what challenges they face. In other words, you may know your prospect’s job role, but do you know what their specific needs and interests are? What is the typical background of your ideal buyer? Depending on your business, you could have as few as one or two personas, or as many as 10 or 20. When creating buyer personas, take into account customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. The more detailed you are, the better.
Ask insightful questions
It is important that your sales team is asking questions that get prospects to open up about areas of frustration. Rather than dominating the conversation with product pitches and sales speak, turn the conversation on them by asking insightful questions that give you valuable details. For example, here are some questions that can help dig deeper into a prospect’s pain points. You can get more ideas from Hubspot’s full list here.
“How is it impacting your organization/customers/staff?”
“Why isn’t this particular service/product/situation/issue working for you right now?”
“How did these problems/issues first come about?”
“Can you make an educated guess as to how much it costs you?”
“What have you done in the past to address the problem?”
“Do you have a budget allocated for this project?”
Interview previous clients
Getting feedback from the people who have already purchased your product and engaged with your company is a great way to learn more about future prospects. Don’t just ask them why they decided to go with your product or service, use those insightful questions to dig deeper at the problems they were having when they came to you.
“Customers usually like being heard, and interviewing them gives them a chance to tell you about their world, their challenges, and what they think of your product. Customers also like to have an impact on the products they use, so you may find that, as you involve them in interviews like this, they become even more loyal to your company. When you reach out to customers, be clear that your goal is to get their feedback and that it's highly valued by your team,” explains Hubspot.
All said, by making an effort to understand your prospects pain points, you’ll also be demonstrating to them that you care about helping them with their problems.
