Building Rapport with a prospect is step 1. Conducting a good sales interview is step 2. However, step 2 is about "UNCOVERING PROBLEMS". Often that is not an easy conversation to have. People do not want to talk about problems. That is, unless they are seriously looking for a solution. As salespeople we have to have enough backbone to ask the hard questions.

Often salespeople answer every question the prospect has yet we walk on eggshells, hoping not to upset them. We certainly want our prospects to feel comfortable with us, but a sales call doesn't necessarily always have to be pleasant.

Our job is to discover a gap between what they are doing today and how our product and service can make it better for them – finding their "pain." We have to make our prospects feel a little pain to discover how much our product or service can help to ease that pain.

To uncover the pain means the prospect will be more motivated to buy. The better you understand their situation, then the better equipped you are to help them to solve this pain. It turns out to be a win/win for both of you.

On the other hand, if you try to find pain and there isn't any, then you know you can't help them and you can move on to other prospects.

Make your prospects deal with their pain instead of trying to make everything pleasant for them. The better we are at finding what a prospect needs by discovering their "pain," the better we sell.

Jeremy Rawitz

Sales Strategy Corp.

jr@salesstrategycorp.com