If ethical selling is about being helpful, and helping people decide whether to solve a problem or keep it…
Then helping them figure out exactly the size and cost of the problem is something that helps you, your buyer, and the entire sales process.
And to help create clarity on the problem, I like working with a “problem-stack”.
That means:
Three related problems, that add up to one major frustration.
For instance:
When students sign on to learn my Sales for Nice People framework, this is usually the problem-stack they’re facing:
“I don’t like that I have to “sell” my work
I struggle to land as many clients as I ought to
It’s hard to get people to pay me what my work is really worth”
Put together, these problems add up to the frustration called:
“It’s that damn selling-thing, that’s part of business – that I finally want to get right!”
And that set of problems, with its core frustration, is exactly what gets solved with the SFNP training.
Three reasons why it’s so useful to have a problem-stack:
1. It enables you to elegantly ask for the sale, without any awkwardness
Just recap the problem-stack and frustration, ask if you got it right, and suggest talking about solving it.
In my case, that could look like this:
“So you’re saying you don’t mind selling but it’s a struggle.
You know you could land more buyers, and you want to increase your fees by 50%…
And, you want to finally get out of the feast-or-famine cycle?
Right, then should we see if the SFNP training can solve that for you?”
2. It gives you a lens, a filter to look through when considering opportunities
Most sales will happen later rather than sooner, so why you want to focus your time and interactions on people who have an urgent need, and spend less time on people with a someday-problem.
By considering the problem-stack of your ideal buyer, you’ll be able to quickly triage opportunities that require long-term communications and a nurturing of the relationship, from opportunities that may close soon, and that actually merit investing time in right now.
As a result, you’ll have better sales engagements with people because you’ll be more relevant, timely and needed, as a result of not engaging with long-term candidates.
Helpful indeed.
What about your ideal buyers?
What’s their problem-stack?
What core frustration does it add up to?
Cheers,
Martin
