I know that it’s old but I still find it a really useful first principle to fall back on when trying to produce sales questions to practice asking.

One of the things I like about it through the I & N is the balance between focusing on pain and gain.

Which of these do you feel more important because I am likely to blog on this issue soon. Traditionally I have been taught that you should find the pain because that’s what motivates the customer to move from “need to think about” to “I want it NOW.”

But a book I’m reading at the moment says that it is better to focus on the GAIN as it better conditions customers from the start for repeat purchases - and I like repeat purchases.

SPIN, where did time go.

A good refresher. Yes, we’ve all been trained on it - but how many people really use it consistently?

Some of this is probably a bit dated now as buyers have been conditioned to fear the dreaded “if you would find a solution to solve this problem, would you be willing to buy it today” line of questioning - but valuable link nevertheless.

I agree that the technique is old but I find that it presents a useful framework for people to work with.

One of the aspects that I like is the focus on both the pain of the current situation and the gain of the benefits of the proposed solution.

I will be blogging about pain v gain soon because I am starting to see conflicting advice coming from different sources. Much of the sales training I have seen tries to focus on the pain to stir the buying out of “need to think about it” into “I want it NOW”.

But I have recently come across material from respected sources that say that the ongoing customer relationship is much stronger if the sale is based on gain.

I’d be interested to read what anyone else has to say.

When I first started in sales I was sent by my sales manager on a two day sales course where I was introduced to the concepts of what I call S.U.F.F.E.R. (Stress, Uncertainty, Fear, Frustration, Expense and Risk). By helping the customer to agony-bask in the negative aspects of their current situation, we endeavoured to stimulate the customer into action.
Here in New Zealand we have a cute, soft, furry animal that is often exposed to considerable S.U.F.F.E.Ring. Unfortunately the S.U.F.F.E.R that a possum experiences when he stares into your oncoming head lights, just before he becomes one-with-the-road, does nothing to galvanise him into the required evasive action.

It is commonly said the possum is blinded by the oncoming headlights and for this reason does not take evasive action.

The possum’s problem could just be that he becomes paralysed with stress, uncertainty and fear, etc. Selling S.U.F.F.E.R is a great way to get clients to focus on the first two galvanising factors listed above, but S.U.F.F.E.R is only half of the equation. We also need some way to address the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh motivating factors.

To motivate people to take positive action to address issues, clients also need to be confident that there is an effective solution. Clients must also be motivated to work towards a vision of a profitable outcome rather than be paralysed into inaction by oncoming headlights.

I believe that once we get past physical survival, the greatest deeds have been accomplished when people are working towards positive outcomes. Edmund Hillary didn’t climb Everest to avoid financial ruin or deal with any other negative issue that we are aware of and he certainly didn’t attempt it to gain a higher level of safety or security! While fear of failure was probably a motivator, I am sure the main motivator was a vivid vision of achieving an extremely satisfying goal.

While the elements of S.U.F.F.E.R. are very good a focusing attention on the issues, a vivid vision of successful results and consequential satisfaction are often much stronger purchasing motivators.

When it comes time to address issues we need to help clients agony-bask in their S.U.F.F.E.R.ing, but we also need them to have H.O.P.E (Hope, Opportunity, Profit and Enthusiasm) in order to be truly motivated to take action now. No doubt Edmund Hillary had all of the elements of H.O.P.E in abundance before he undertook his climb. A profitable outcome is one that meets the vision of the desired results. (A profitable outcome need not always be financially profitable). In order to best stimulate positive action, we need to assist clients to vividly paint a vision of them enjoying very satisfying results.

Purchasing Motivation = S.U.F.F.E.R. + H.O.P.E

Focusing exclusively on S.U.F.F.E.R is also a pretty negative way to sell. It doesn’t assist in making selling an uplifting, satisfying and collaborative process for the buyer and seller. No one wants to spend money to solve a problem without getting positive results.

This proved to be true when I sold network firewalls and initially focused on the customers potential S.U.F.F.E.R.ing of having their in-house network attacked by hackers via the Internet. I soon realised that customers resented spending money to solve an issue. However when we also positioned firewalling as a solution that gave them secure remote access and enabled them to take advantage of new business opportunities (H.O.P.E) the results suddenly became markedly different.

On the flip-side, when the now universal UTP structured data cabling systems were first introduced into New Zealand, I worked in Telecom New Zealand in the sales team responsible for promoting it. Initially we went to the market promoting H.O.P.E (the advantages of a single, patchable and flexible cabling system that could support all of their phone and computer cabling requirements). After a huge effort and lots of work over several months …we had only sold a couple of systems!

It wasn’t until my one and only customer for the new system pointed out to me that because structured cabling systems were star-wired by nature, (unlike the older daisy-chained cabling systems) there was no single point of failure in the cabling system that could stop the entire network functioning. I then understood the real S.U.F.F.E.R.ing of running a business on pre-existing daisy-chained coax system, where a single cabling fault anywhere in the system stopped the entire network functioning.

With this knowledge we were then able to introduce S.U.F.F.E.R.ing …AND agony-basking into the sales process. I then went back out to my clients with this understanding and the success was a veritable landslide.

Rather than using negative statements to address S.U.F.F.E.R alone, I believe it is better to employ positive positioning that allows us to encompass both S.U.F.F.E.R. and H.O.P.E.