Pain that belongs to someone else is not your deal, and the competitor you most often lose to does not have a sales team.
Pain has to be owned by the person in front of you. A problem that affects a different department is real, and it is that department's deal, not yours. The person you are talking to will be helpful, interested, and unable to get it funded.
Three properties to establish:
It is theirs. They feel it, they are measured on it, or it makes their week worse.
It is current. A problem they might have next year competes with problems they have today, and loses.
It is priced. See the metrics lesson. Unpriced pain does not get funded, however genuine.
The useful follow-up is not "is that a problem?" — they will say yes to be agreeable. It is "what have you tried?" Someone who has tried three things has a real problem. Someone who has tried nothing has an irritation, and you should know which you are selling into.
Two kinds, and reps consistently prepare for the wrong one.
Named vendors. Ask directly: "Who else are you looking at?" Most prospects answer honestly. The follow-up that matters is "what do you like about them?" — it tells you the criteria and where you are weak, and asking it makes you look confident rather than threatened.
The status quo. This is the one that wins most often. Doing nothing has no salesperson, no implementation risk, no budget request and no internal politics. It is undefeated in deals where nobody established what the current state costs.
You do not beat it by being better. You beat it by making the cost of inaction concrete and present. That is the metrics work and the implication questions from SPIN, arriving together:
> "If this is still true in six months, what does that add up to?"
If the answer is "not much", you have learned the deal is not real, which is worth knowing in week one rather than week nine.
A prospect evaluating two named vendors is in a live deal with a real budget. A prospect evaluating you against doing nothing is in an education process that may or may not become a deal. Forecast them differently.
Answers are shown as soon as you open each one. The explanation is the point, not the score.
Doing nothing has no salesperson, no implementation risk and no budget request. It is undefeated wherever the cost of the current state was never established.
Someone who has tried three things has a real problem. Someone who has tried nothing has an irritation. The first question invites agreement rather than information.
They will be helpful and interested and unable to get it funded. The account may still be good; you are talking to the wrong person in it.
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