Many professionals look down on sales. It is the #1 skill to learn to quickly get ahead. These 6 steps will show you how.

I don't care what stage you are at in your career or business. If you are looking to take your business or career to the next level, learning to sell is the #1 thing that will help you make that step, and this process can assist you greatly. 

Many people seem to view sales as something that they “don't do”. I hear it all the time. I actually had someone prospect to me recently, who announced that “they don't sell”. Madness. 

Well, I realised about 11 years ago. It is all about being able to sell. I worked briefly with a mentor who helped open me to the power of learning how to sell, properly. 

You can have the best product or service in the world, but it is going to go nowhere if you don't know how to sell it. 

This is also true if you are working for someone and are looking for a promotion. You have to know how to sell.

But sales is a science and the #1 thing you have to uncover in sales, is what is the prospects pain point. What is the Big Problem that you can help them solve? 

You cannot dig deep enough when looking for pain points, but in my own sales process (which I've used to sell over $1Bn of products and services, primarily in the construction and construction-related sectors), I go through a 6 stage process. 

In most sales situations, when you get in front of someone, you have between 30-45minutes of their time. You need to use it well. This is how I structure that time.

Stage 1. Rapport Building, 3 minutes of well researched, engaging conversation (people buy from people that they like). Look up the prospect's background on LinkedIn, research them on google, find some points of common interest to talk about. This is where most people go wrong, they spend too much time talking crap with the prospect and eat up valuable time because most people will only give you 30-45 minutes of their time. 

2. Establish credibility, 8 minutes. I generally always pre-frame the sales call and get the prospect to outline their challenges, so that when we meet or talk on the phone, I have prepared some material or case studies, which I use to demonstrate to the prospect that I am the answer to all their problems. For example, if I am selling our services to a hotel owner, I bring up 5 previous projects where we created amazing spaces for the hotel owner, which saw their revenue go up by 150%. I always communicate credibility in a way which addresses a desire or pain point in the prospect, who doesn't want their revenue to go up by 150%?. 

Stage 3. Positioning Strategy. 15 minutes. Then I get into stage 3, I call it the positioning strategy or key questioning. I use strategic questioning to frame a conversation with the prospect, where they tell me their biggest pains and aspirations, the aim is to get the prospect to outline themselves what their Main Concerns are.

You get to understand their challenges/pains so you can then sell to their Hot Buttons. 

Let me give you a hypothetical example.

Let’s take a company that sells customer relationship software (CRM). The functionality of what they are selling is a piece of software that stores all of the information about your customers and prospects. A Transactional Sales Person will sell the Features, applications, the cost of their package vs the competition etc.

A Consultative salesperson, who is looking for pains so that he can identify the prospects Hot Buttons will take a different approach and will ask a Host of Open Questions to uncover the prospects real pains…

Let me give you some examples, let’s imagine the Consultative Sales Executive is asking the prospect (a sales director) some key questions…

Q1. What is the biggest challenge/problem in your sales process

“We have real problems keeping track of all the information that a new customer will have. This information is generally lost when the opportunity passes from sales to operations. So they have had a number of clients complain that the brief wasn’t followed through by operations”

Q2. What is your biggest frustration as Sales Director?

“I am very frustrated that I cannot keep accurate track of the activities of my sales team so see how many calls are being made and how many of these calls are being converted to meetings and ultimately converted to sales”

Q3. What is the biggest challenge you are currently facing?

“I am under a lot of pressure because the sales forecasts we have been submitting to the CEO are continually too optimistic, the result of these is we have over-ordered stock which is not sitting in the warehouse and will have to be discounted”

Two very different approaches have put the sales executive in a very different position

The Consultative Sales Executive will now be able to create a very compelling Value Proposition and Positioning Strategy around the pains / Hot Buttons that the prospect himself has identified

They will be able to solve all three pains with their CRM software and will state the positive financial impact it will have for the prospect due to:

- No loss of clients, with a smooth transition from new business to operations

- Instant statistics about activity, enabling the sales director to motivate the team and ensure a higher level of productivity

-Accurate pipeline forecasting, leading to correct levels of stocks

The product or Transactional Salesperson has only demonstrated better features and their related benefits, so all they can compete on is price.

When it comes to discussing price, which Sales Executive do you think is in a stronger position?

The previous examples related to company pains. However, do not underestimate personal pains as a powerful selling tool…

Your service or product will save them

- time

- reduce their workload

- reduce their stress

- allow them to produce better reports

So they can be more effective in their jobs, work fewer hours, spend more time with their family etc. etc

Solving the prospect's pains will not only help you sell your services or product to them, but it will allow you to position yourself as a:

- Consultant to the prospect – was through the right key questioning you will work out the correct solution for the prospect

- Trusted advisor – where you are firmly entrenched in the mind of the prospect, because you are making them better at their job, improving their lives etc. …

The list of questions you can ask to uncover pain points in endless and very much depends on the prospect if they are a single person owner-manager, or you are talking to someone incorporate, however, let’s say you are talking to a corporation who are interested in outsourcing their services to you

• So, can you tell me your top 3 concerns with regards to this project?
• What business challenges are you hoping to address with this project? 
• What are your top 3 concerns with regards to employing a consultant for this project?
• What is the main objective you want to achieve with this project?
• What does success look like for you? 
• Have you had any issues with these types of services in the past? 
• How did those issues affect you personally? 
• What criteria will you use to evaluate proposals? 
• Is there a weighting I need to consider? 
• Can you tell me how the decision-making process works?
• Are you the decision-maker?  
• What is the timeline, when will a decision to appoint a consultant/contractor be taken?

As I said, the list of questions you can ask is endless. But you do not stop until you are sure that you have uncovered their top professional and personal pain points.

I will repeat back what I understand their top 5 pain points are, just so I’m sure I’ve picked up the key ones. 

Stage 5 Sales Value Proposition. 5  minutes. I then move into the next phase, which to build and create a Value Proposition, where I position my services, based on the clear need and pains the prospect has identified. 

This is where you use the prospects hot buttons to really hook your prospect. At this point, you will know exactly what products or services your prospect wants but also you will have identified

How your products or services will be able to benefit them.

You need to ensure that your product or services benefits are tailored to the prospect's pains...

To do this you need to outline how using your products or services will relieve this pain 

Outline how they will be better off by using your product or service, how their life will be so much easier, they will have more income, they will get to exactly where it is in life they want to get to, etc. 

Bringing it all together

- By using what you learn from key questioning match the appropriate Value Proposition to the Prospects Needs

- Repeat your understanding of the prospect's pains so that they know that you have listened to and understood what matters to them

- Address specific pain points when you outline your product or services benefits aka Your Value Proposition

- Reinitiate how much time/money/stress etc. will be saved by using your product/service to address this pain

Stage 6. You Close the Sale, 10 minutes. create urgency, benefits, whatever technique you need to deploy to get the prospect to make a decision. If you are selling something with a long sales cycle, like construction services, at this point your key objective is to arrange a follow time for the next meeting, so make sure you agree a time and date for the next meeting right there and then. Then at the follow-up meeting, make sure you prepare a specific presentation which addresses all of the prospects pain points. 

I hope this helps, I have personally had massive success with this system, but so have the clients and companies that I’ve coached. 

Remember, you are always selling, so this process will work for almost any situation. Even if you are just trying to uncover with your boss what priorities they have so you can focus on them and get promoted.

If you are looking to take your business or career to the next level, learning to sell is the #1 thing that will help you make that step, and this process can assist you greatly.