I thought about this post sitting in the parking lot of my endodontist’s office. For those not familiar with endodontists, they do root canals. For the past several weeks I’d been dealing with a lot pain in my teeth. Anything too hot (i.e. +1 degree over the ambient temperature of my mouth) or too cold (-1 degree.. etc etc) caused massive pain in one of my molars. Anyone who has been in need of a root canal I’m sure has known this pain.
And if you’ve ever been in excruciating pain, you know you’ll do virtually anything to get rid of it. For me, I drove 4 hours to Southern Indiana to get my teeth drilled upon. The pain effected me enough that driving four hours in the middle of the week was TOTALLY WORTH IT.
Oftentimes, business owners will meet with a prospect who falls in love with their offering at first, but then never converts. They loved your pitch, the price was perfect, you even scheduled a golf outing together…they seemed like the perfect lead! But they never bought. Why?
Going back to my tooth a bit– I dealt with discomfort in this tooth for several weeks, and for those several weeks, I could handle it – just eat a bit less ice cream or hot chocolate and then I’m good – until one day when the pain and sensitivity were so bad that eating virtually anything would set it off – at that point, I called my uncle, hopped into the car and voluntarily drove 200 miles to have someone drill on my mouth! The pain was that bad. But what’s this have to do with your sales process?
Your potential customer might be converting because the pain, for them, isn’t yet worth fixing. They’ve lived with their outdated website for 10 years, had the patchy lawn for 8 seasons, are used to taking pain pills daily, and can still drive their car even without a door handle.
As a salesperson, your job is to make the prospect aware of the pain, if they aren’t already, and also to help them be aware of the side effects of the pain. For me, even if, during the course of the day the tooth pain wasn’t that bad, when I went to eat – Game Over.
The tooth pain started to have a huge effect on my daily life, even if I didn’t see it during the normal, non-eating, part of the day. A skilled salesperson can identify the pain point and tie it in to the aspect the prospect loves most (eating, impressing customers, keeping your family safe, etc.)
However, if your prospect has been living with it so long that they’ve grown used to it for years and years, move on. They aren’t a good lead.
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