In lesson 14 we talked about motivating people by creating pain. Now we're going to integrate this concept into the most common type of selling.
You've heard all about turning features into benefits. For example, you tell a prospect, 'The extended coverage available through Company X will let you sleep better at night.' The feature is extended coverage, but the prospect doesn't care about that, per se. They want to sleep better at night, knowing their assets are protected. So your job is to link the new feature with the benefits the client wants.
There's one problem here: Content people don't buy things.
We said it in Lesson 14, and we'll say it here: No pain, no motivation. Or, in the case of people who are motivated by pleasure, no potential pleasure/reward, no motivation. If you just sell on benefits, you're assuming that your benefits are so compelling they'll overcome the prospect's inertia of contentment. Why are you leaving this to chance?
Positive or Negative Emotion
If you talk about all the wonderful things your product does, you'll sound like just another salesperson with dollar signs in their eyes. You see, it's human nature to refuse to solve a problem that isn't clearly focused and clearly at hand. If your prospect doesn't feel that the problem you're offering to solve is important, you won't make a sale.
Is focusing on the prospect's problems a negative approach? Well, it's a fact that people are far more likely to take action when they're inclined toward avoiding criticism, ridicule, pain, financial loss, or fear than when they're inclined toward gaining pleasure, pride, or profit. It is true that some people are primarily motivated by pleasure, but overall, the odds are better for an approach that favors avoidance behavior.
By finding pain, you conclude your selling effort with a solution to a problem. What's negative about that? If you agree that people do things for their own personal reasons, then bringing their problems into perspective helps them realize you're genuinely concerned about their problems.
Greater Satisfaction
Satisfaction and dissatisfaction are states of mind. People often think they're satisfied when actually they're only content with the status quo. Newton's First Law of Motion states that 'a body at rest tends to remain at rest until some outside force acts on it.' That's what selling is all about. An outside force (you) brings some dissatisfaction into focus, causing people to move to a state of higher satisfaction.
Fear of Loss
I know what you're thinking. 'Fear of loss - that's the ticket. If everyone I contact was really focused on the possible loss they'd sustain without my coverage, I'd spend all day writing applications.'
Well, that's true. So why don't you just tell your prospects all the ways they'll lose something, such as money, time, or happiness, if they don't buy from you? Are you worried that they might think you're trying to scare them? If so, you're probably right. A little subtlety is important.
Trouble is the Absence of Benefits
What would happen if you tried to do the opposite of benefit selling? That has a name, too - it's called selling trouble. When there's an absence of benefit or if neglecting to take some action will lead to missing the related benefit, you have trouble.
Here's a list of benefits, rephrased as trouble:
Benefit Trouble
Make a profit Miss out on profits
Cut costs Waste money
Save time Waste time
Easy to do Work harder than necessary
Improve your health Risk poor health
Save on taxes Pay the government too much
Peace of mind Worry or fear
Improve your image Look bad
Improve satisfaction Get complaints
When you present solutions as ways to avoid trouble, you've tapped into that strong motivation: pain. It's painful to consider the possibility of wasting money. Ouch! And most people want to prevent complaints a lot more than they want to improve customer satisfaction. That's just the way we are; we prefer to eliminate pain first, then work on attaining pleasure.
Our job becomes solving painful problems, not offering wonderful potential. It's almost always easier to do that. So focus your prospect's attention on the pain of their situation. If pain isn't readily apparent, try to create some by re-framing as trouble the benefits you were about to present.
EXERCISE
Make a long list of the benefits of buying insurance from you. Now re-frame each benefit as trouble by restating it as an absent benefit. For example, the opposite of making profits is losing money. Now review the list of troubles. Which do you find more compelling, benefits or troubles?