What’s better to emphasize when selling – pain or gain?
This is a bad question.
Pain and gain are two sides of the same coin.
The prospect is on a journey from pain to gain (not one or the other).
Stop flipping the coin and use it as a deposit to help people solve their problem and get to where they want to go.
What does this look like?
Example:
- Losing profits – no fun (pain). Definitely important to understand and call out the things that are hurting your prospect.
- Increasing profits – fun (gain). Showing the future state of what could be is important too.
Putting them together is the real problem-solving skill to develop in both sales & marketing.
It might sound like this:
With your services, your prospect would be…
- Enabled to minimize lost profits, putting them in the black
- Allowing them to achieve their goals of x, y, and z
This is the story your prospect wants to engage in.