Customer Pain Points – Your Ultimate Guide
Finding your potential customer pain points is a crucial part of the sales process, because if you can’t find what they are; it’ll be a lot harder to close the sale.
Many Sales Professionals and Business Owners go about their sales conversations the wrong way.
They generally present or pitch their idea, answer a few questions, and hope they said something to their potential client that’ll make them buy.
This old school methodology doesn’t work anymore, and a more consultative approach will gain you far better results.
The main reason this approach doesn’t work anymore either – is because you’re not speaking directly to the reason as to why they’re buying – being a current presence of pain.
In this article, you’ll learn what customer pain points are, why they’re important to find, and how to find your potential customer pain points in a systematic way.
Learn more: How To Stop Winging It, And Learn Exactly How To Close Consistent Sales With Ease
Customer Pain Points – Your Ultimate Guide
What Are Customer Pain Points?
Customer pain points; in a sales context, are the things that cause discomfort to your potential customers in their business, day to day activities, and their everyday lives.
Everyone has different pain points, and they come in different levels of pain.
Customer pain points are generally based on different levels of pain; and the measurement for the level of pain will be based on your potential customer’s perceptions, and what they categorise their pain points as.
Why Are Customer Pain Points Important To Find?
People buy for two emotional reasons – to escape pain and move towards a desired outcome; or pleasure.
All our buying decisions are subconsciously made by this weighting scale.
Whenever we buy anything, we subconsciously make a quick calculation; will this purchase mean more pain (ie: loss of money verse reward), or will it mean more pleasure (make me feel better than my current state)?
Human beings are meaning making machines; and all our decisions – including buying decisions, are governed between contrasting pain and pleasure.
Customer pain points are important to find when conversing with your potential clients, because without finding their pain points there is a high likelihood you won’t be able to close the sale.
People buy to escape pain, so it is imperative to discover what those pain points look like.
Don’t Make Assumptions
Just because your current customers may have purchased your product or service to get rid of a particular set of pain points, doesn’t necessarily mean your potential clients are doing the same.
Assumptions can kill sales – because it positions us in a frame of mind that we know better than our potential clients; which can break rapport and show a lack of empathy.
You may know the customer pain points you solve; however, don’t assume that everybody is the same. Not all clients are equal, and everyone has different perceptions of what their personal pain points are.
Instead, follow a systematised questioning process, and go three layers deep (which we’ll cover shortly).
The Different Levels Of Customer Pain Points
Speaking generally; there are three types of customer pain points your potential clients will be dealing with on a regular basis. These are:
- Technical issues
- An impact on their business
- Personal impact
Technical Issues
The first type of customer pain points your potential clients will regularly face, are technical issues within their business.
This can be anything to not generating enough leads, not closing enough sales, or having issues with hiring or managing their staff.
You’ll notice that even though these are legitimate pain points – they are also logical.
This is important to note; because although logical reasoning is important, people buy for emotional reasons.
If we have conversations with our potential clients about their customer pain points, and we keep the dialogue purely logical; you’ll have a hard-pressed time of closing any sales. This leads us to the next type – their business.
The Impact On Their Business
The second layer of customer pain points once their technical issues have been uncovered, is how those technical issues are affecting their business.
We mentioned as an example; perhaps they’re not generating enough leads.
What does this mean from a business point of view?
Pretend for a moment, their issue is that they don’t have a consistent sales structure to follow when conversing with their own clients.
That’s the technical issue – but what does this mean from a business point of view?
It means they probably aren’t being as profitable as they could be, which minimises spend in other areas, and a loss of potential that money can bring them.
Once you have an understanding of their various customer pain points impacting their business, it’s time to understand how this is affecting them personally on a day to day basis.
Personal Impact
The final, and most important part of the customer pain points discovery process is how it is affecting them personally.
The reason why this is the most important, is because behind any business – no matter how hard and non-emotional it may look – is a person or a group of people.
And people are emotional creatures.
People also buy for emotional reasons – and then justify their purchase or investment with logic.
Here, you can find out how the initial logical and technical issues are impacting their business – and then affecting them in their personal and daily lives.
Let me give you a real-life example.
Many of our clients at The 5% Institute are Sales Professionals and Business Owners.
They work in various categories; from real estate to finance, to small business owners selling consulting or other local business services.
Generally, they sell face to face, having a conversation or consultation before a sale can be made.
The technical problem they face, is that they don’t have an exact structure to follow to close more sales.
Their secondary pain points are that this means their sales are not consistent, and they generally wing it; hoping something will stick, or that they’ll get a call back if they’re interested.
Finally – the personal impact is that their life is feast or famine; sometimes they do OK, and other days they’re worrying about their next pay check. This impacts not only their own personal lives, but their immediate family too.
By investing in The 5% Sales Blueprint, they alleviate their pain points by reaping the rewards of a consistent system.
This example would speak true to your potential clients too.
They’ll have technical pain points, which creates an impact on their business – which finally, has a personal impact on them and their family’s lives.
10 x Questions To Uncover Customer Pain Points
There are various questions you can ask to find your potential customer pain points, and to slowly move from the logical technical issues, to how it is affecting them on a daily basis in their personal lives.
Ten examples of customer pain point questions include:
1 – “Can you give me a bit of background to this issue?”
2 – “How long has this been an issue for you?”
3 – “What’s this costing you on a yearly basis?”
4 – “How is this issue affecting your current clients?”
5 – “How long have you been dealing with this problem?”
6 – “How many more hours is this wasting on you and your team?”
7 – “How is this challenging your business?”
8 – “What’s the biggest issue with this?”
9 – “How important is it finding a solution to this problem?”
10 – “How long have you been trying to find a solution to this issue?”
To learn more about sales probing questions, as well as other question types and categories, check out the related article below.
Related article: Sales Probing Questions – 20 x To Use Daily
Final Thoughts
Customer pain points are absolutely crucial to discover with your sales discovery questions, because without it – there would be no real emotional reason for your potential client to make a change.
People buy because they want a change from their current situation; and this means escaping pain and moving towards pleasure, or a desired state.
The better questions you ask, the more successful you’ll be leading them towards the sale.
Want To Close Sales Easier?
Are you committed to closing sales a lot easier, and consistently?
If so, you should check out our self-paced and affordable online sales training program; The 5% Sales Blueprint.
It’ll give you everything you need to close sales consistently.
To learn more, simply click on the link below for more information.
Our Online Sales Training Program – The 5% Sales Blueprint.
