Marketers are always discussing “pain points.” This is for good reason. If sellers don’t understand the challenges of their target market, they cannot understand how best to address them and engage their customers and prospects. It is marketing’s job to research, identify and frame those challenges, and then come up with compelling messaging that communicates how the seller can solve them. But not all marketers are successful with this. In fact, 56 percent of consumers believe businesses need to have a deeper understanding of their needs. One of the best ways to do this is to conduct your own research.
Do Your Research
Before you contact buyers, conduct your own market research. Stay on top of current trends, news, expert insights and the content shared by your peers. Communicate with your network within the industry or from similar industries to understand what challenges your target audiences are encountering and how they are creating solutions. It’s also a good idea to explore what your competition is doing to solve problems in the marketplace and how they are communicating with the same target markets. When you do research before talking to your customers and prospects, you’ll be ahead of the game and earn the trust and respect of your target audiences.
Engage in Conversation
The challenges of your target markets often overlap, but there are nuances specific to each buyer. To really understand the differences, engage in one-on-one conversations. Depending on the preferences of the people you want to reach, use multiple channels such as email, social media, texts, phone calls or face-to-face interaction. When you approach buyers, follow the advice of master sales trainer Roy Chitwood who encouraged salespeople to request permission to ask questions by saying, “In order to the best job I can for you, I need to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?”
The types of questions you ask matter. Sharon Drew Morgen, thought leader behind the Buying Facilitation sales paradigm, explains the importance of facilitative questions, or questions that enable change. “Questions, posed with the goal of enabling others to change themselves and discover their own answers, can be a vehicle for true leadership, change and discovery,” Drew says. “But not the conventional information-based ‘pull’ questions (based on curiosity and needs of Asker) we are accustomed to.” When done correctly, the answers to facilitative questions generate these results:
- Influence change
- Promote efficient implementations, buy-in and sales cycles
- Avoid resistance and bias, maintain personal integrity
- Lead the responder to discover.
Questions to Engage Your Customers
Here are some questions that will help you identify and uncover needs of customers or prospects:
- What challenges related to (fill in the blank) are you facing? Oftentimes buyers are aware when something is wrong but may not know exactly how to approach it. David Ehrenberg of Early Growth Financial Services states, “Clients may not always know what is best for them, but it’s still your job to ask what they need. Rather than making assumptions, ask potential clients to outline their pain points. What do they want and expect from you? Equally important, what don’t they need? Use this feedback to customize your offerings accordingly — or take a pass. Every potential client is not necessarily a good fit.”
- What solutions have you considered (or what solutions have you tried) and what were the results? It’s vital to understand what your client or prospect is already doing and how that has worked for them. If it didn’t work, why not? This information provides more pieces to the puzzle to hone-in on new opportunities and potential solutions.
- If you could solve this issue, what would it free you to do? This question provides you with insight into the customer’s goals and priorities. Sometimes the response can help identify new challenges that need to be resolved.
- What will happen if you do nothing? The answer to this question can be interesting. You might discover that the cost of the solution doesn’t justify making a change. Or you could find out that the prospective buyer is under tremendous pressure to take action.
- What are the key considerations for you in addressing this issue? Help prospective buyers identify their expectations in terms of potential successes, risk vs. reward, personnel and other resource considerations. Understanding those expectations from the get-go is vital to meeting them and ensuring you will have a happy customer.
- What do you think is an appropriate next step? By having the customer identify possibilities, it is one way to uncover where the individual is in the buying process. It also helps you identify and articulate an agreement on need.
A Problem-Centric Approach
The term “problem-centric” might sound negative. Without knowledge of problems or challenges, there is very little need or motivation to change. By getting buyers to talk about their work-related pain points, you can position yourself as a good listener, a trusted advisor and a professional who is truly interested in the buyer and the buyer’s success.
