Don't make your selling small

Hi Friends,

Welcome back to Win Rate Wednesday! Let's talk about "pain points."

[This Week on The Win Rate Podcast]

Joining me on this week’s episode of The Win Rate Podcast to discuss the buyer experience with the human seller and AI are:

Jeb Blount, CEO of Sales Gravy, an international sales training firm. He is also one of the most prolific authors of excellent sales books. Including the perennial favorite Fanatical Prospecting.

Mark Cox, Founder of In the Funnel Sales Coaching. And host of The Selling Well podcast.

Brent Keltner, President of Winalytics and the author of The Revenue Acceleration Playbook

Click here to listen: The Buyer Experience with the Human Seller and AI

If you have a question about any aspect of B2B selling that you’d like to have answered by me or my guests on The Win Rate Podcast, please submit them to me via email at [email protected] or you can DM me on LinkedIn. I’d love to hear from you.

[Today’s Win Rate Advice]

Stop focusing on “pain points.”

They make your selling small.

Every day on LinkedIn you are exhorted to understand your buyer’s “pain points.” And connect your solution to their “pain.”

But what if the pain is mostly in your mind and not theirs?

I’ve won over half a billion dollars in orders over the course of my career. Winning mega-deals and small deals with customers all around the world.

Not once, in English or any other language, have I ever asked a prospect about their “pain points.”

Why? Because they didn’t have pain points.

What these decision-makers had instead were ambitions and goals and a vision of the things they wanted to achieve for their business.

They didn’t see pain. They saw opportunity.

They wanted to increase market share. They wanted to grow revenue. They wanted to reduce their product costs. They wanted to shorten product development cycles. And more.

And they were looking for a vendor to help them shape that vision and achieve those outcomes.

Vision. Ambition. Opportunity. Change. Transformation.

That’s what you need to connect your solution to. Not pain points.

How you visualize how you’re helping your buyers translates into the actions you take.

My printer has run out of ink. That’s a pain point.

I don’t need a salesperson to fix that.

On a personal level, I sometimes cut my finger chopping vegetables for dinner. That’s a pain point.

I clean the wound, stick a band-aid on it and I’m good to go.

Small problem. Easily fixed.

That’s what pain points represent to buyers.

Something relatively small that you put a band-aid on.

Truly understanding the most important things the buyer wants to achieve is the objective of discovery.

Focus on uncovering the buyer’s pain points and you make your selling small.

And you become smaller, less relevant and less valuable to the buyer as a result.

A customer can buy band-aids from anyone.

Making a change to achieve their key ambitions is what they should be buying from you.

[Start 2024 On The Right Foot]

The start of the new sales year is the ideal time to invest in your development as a seller.

Are you equipped with the skills you need to achieve your goals in 2024?

I can help you with that.

I have a few 1-on-1 coaching slots open for individual contributors and sales leaders.

Click here to schedule a brief intro call. Or DM me on LinkedIn if you’re ready to make a change.

Good selling,

Andy