Open the door to business success
Let’s take a closer look. People will only decide to do something if it makes sense to them. I think we can all agree on that. So how do we know what will be meaningful to someone we are meeting for the first time or who we don’t know that well yet? We do this by asking questions and showing genuine interest in the people we meet.
Many of us salespeople have learned from time to time that we need to listen carefully and show our interest by asking questions. But how many of us are actually good at it? We are enthusiastic about our products and services. We want to take action and show our potential customers that we have a cure for every disease. We must learn to combat a prospect’s urge to vomit by offering them a solution to their problem, because if we do it too soon, we’re just guessing what makes the most sense for them.
Understanding basic human motivation will help you ask better questions to arrive at a final plan that makes sense for your prospect. As humans, we are all driven by two main motivations: the desire to avoid pain or the desire to achieve something. In other words, we either want to fix something that isn’t working or we want to create a better future.
consultant and author Mahan Khalsa said it best in his book Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play:
People who try to “escape the pain” interpret problems as pain and may give us a list of problems, frustrations and dissatisfaction. You can also use expressions that refer to physical or emotional pain, such as: “It’s killing us,” “We’re bleeding,” “It’s a pain in the neck,” “It’s a real headache,” “It’s “It’s a nightmare.” “It’s like pulling teeth.”
“Profit-oriented” people interpret problems in terms of outcomes (i.e., goals, objectives, and results). You can use phrases like: “What we would like to see”, “What we think is possible”, “Our vision is…”, “What we are passionate about”, “Our goal is…”, “We want to create. etc. Your language will tell us where you want to start. We just have to master the language.