Smashing Inside Sales, Part 2: Open, Problem, Solution, Close
This article is part of a 6-part series called Smashing Inside Sales, a guide to making it rain in inside sales!!
Part 1: An Introduction to Phone Sales
Part 2: Open, Problem, Solution, Close
Part 3: Inner Game (In progress…)
Part 4: Objections and Frame Control (In progress…)
Part 5: Building Rapport
Part 6: Cognitive Tricks (In progress…)
Give this incredible story by Jamie Foxx a quick listen.
This is terrific storytelling. Foxx really took us on a journey there: the introduction, the rising action, the climax... Every piece existed for a reason. Every stage was deliberate. There were no accidents — he knows what you’re thinking and feeling at each stage, and pulling the right levers to push you from one stage, to the next, to the next, to the next.
Plot out your favorite movies and you’ll find they all follow a structure. There’s an introduction, rising action, a climax, falling action, etc. They were designed that way to make an impact on you. The structure may differ slightly among movies, but it’s pretty damn close.
A good sales pitch is no different. All sales follow generally the same structure, every single time, and it’s supposed to push the prospect in a certain direction, then another, then another, until you close the deal.
Every sale has these four stages: Open, Problem, Solution, Close. I go into detail for each stage showing you the individual techniques I used that worked for me, but all sales, in all countries, for all products and services, in every language, have general Open, Problem, Solution, Close stages:
Step 1: Open
A. Introduce Yourself
B. Value Proposition
C. Qualification
Step 2: Problem
A. Exploring the Situation
B. Aggravating the Problem
Step 3: Solution
A. Connecting the Solution to the Problem
B. Temperature Check
Step 4: Close
A) Having Strong Inner Game
Step 1: Open
The Open Stage is composed of 3 steps: Introducing Yourself, the Value Proposition, and Qualification.
A) Introducing Yourself
About Introducing Yourself
This is where all of your calls will start, and many of your calls will end.
At the introduction, it’s important to get one thing clear: your job in the Open is NOT to sell the product. There is NO point in explaining your product or service at the beginning. Don’t even try. In the call’s introduction, you have one job and one job only: to KEEP THEM from hanging up.
And, honestly…you can’t blame the prospect for wanting to hang up right away. In the later section How to Build Rapport, I explain two common mindsets of a person getting cold-called:
- This is a sales call, and I want to hang up immediately.
- I’m curious, but I’m not convinced this call is worth my time.
It’s totally understandable to have this reaction. You, a telemarketer, are a complete stranger who has interrupted their day in hopes of taking something they have, namely their money. This is on top of what you’ve already taken from them: their time and attention. So they’ve already given you more than you’ve given them. You’re a thief. A… time… thief. At least from their prospective.
But you know better: you know you’ve got something that can help them save time, or make money, or make their life better in some way. So, let’s figure out how to introduce yourself in a way that allows you to sell an improvement to their life.
How to Introduce Yourself
Remember, your immediate job is to keep them on the line with your introduction. This step itself is short — we’ll move onto the next step very quickly.
To keep them on the line, we have a couple tricks up our sleeve. Regardless of what your script looks like, try some of these techniques to keep their attention. These techniques apply to your verbals (what you’re saying) and your tonality (how you’re saying it).
Let’s begin with the Verbals. What you’re saying.
1. Verbal Technique #1— Lean on the Familiar
It’s super helpful to already have something in common with the prospect. I’m not talking about finding something in common through conversation, I’m talking about something that you know, before the call, that you have in common with the prospect.
At one of my jobs, we used a web browser extension to determine the eCommerce platform the prospect (an online business) was using, and we introduced ourselves as a partner of that eCommerce platform. They heard us say the name of the platform, recognized it immediately as a service they were using and trusted, remarked with an “oh, yeah” or “uh huh yeah” and their attention was snagged. Were we compatible with the eCommerce platform? Yes. But, were we with them? Not exactly. But, saying the name of something familiar and trusted got their attention long enough to keep them on the phone so we could continue selling them.
In another position, our leads came with the property address the prospect had recently indicated an interest in. Opening with the property name suggested that I was maybe somehow affiliated with the property. Was I? No. But again, it got their attention long enough to keep them on the line.
In both cases, suggesting a relationship with a platform, a property, or something they’re familiar with worked to snag their attention and keep them on the line.
That said, this was accomplished entirely due to my confidence in delivering these lines. And the confidence is in the tonality, NOT the words — the tonality. We’ll discuss tonality in the section on How to Build Rapport.
2. Verbal Technique #2— Pattern Interrupt
How does a stereotypical sales call begin?
Good morning, this is Paul from WidgetGram, how are you?
Ew. Nothing screams “sales call” and “this is a waste of time” and “hang up now” more than this.
This is why the pattern interrupt can be a powerful opening technique. This is when we say or do something unpredictable to capture a prospect’s attention.
Remember, once the prospect realizes the call is a sales call, they’ll probably want to get off the phone as soon as possible. It’s the instinctive response. They’ll immediately put us in the category of “annoying saleperson trying to sell me something I don’t need” and try to get rid of us. It’s called confirmation bias, and it’s the “script” that they’re on. But the thing is…you know you’ve got something that can genuinely improve their lives. And so you need to get them off their script. A pattern interrupt aims to get them off that script.
Here’s one way to pattern interrupt:
Hi, there…ummmm, you know, I’m not exactly sure if I’m talking to the right person…ummm…I’m looking for the person in charge of [department].
This sounds really goofy, I know. But I’ve seen it work, and consistently. It’s bonkers.
The idea behind this opening line is to make your way to the relevant party, the person you should be selling, by sounding like a confused, lost person to whoever picks up the phone. You will be seen less as a threat and more like someone who is just not sure who to talk to. I mean, how can a clueless guy or girl like you be a salesperson with an agenda? “Those aggressive salespeople I hang up on immediately sound so different! They’re Donald Trump and this is Forrest Gump!”
It’s surprising how many times they’ll transfer you over to the department manager. It’s crazy and awesome when this works. Then, when you get to the department manager, you’ve reached the person who is worth selling to, and you move on to the next step of the sale.
Now, let’s talk about your Tonality. How you’re saying the words.
2. Tonality Technique #1 — Match and Mirror
Everything you need to know about Matching and Mirroring is in my article on How to Build Rapport. This is super important, so read it!
2. Tonality Technique #2 — Convey Confidence
Bro…in sales, it’s game over if you’re not confident. In no technical field (the world I live in now) are you publicly rewarded for publicly bullshitting like you are in inside sales. You don’t even have to be confident, just seeming confident can be good enough. This is where that saying “fake it til you make it” becomes super relevant. When you’re starting out, you probably won’t be great and you won’t have many sales. But as you close more and more sales, you’ll realize you’re capable of the job, and it’ll likely automatically come across in your voice. But, how do you have confidence before a single sale? It’s a classic chicken or the egg problem. Well…you have to fake it ‘til you make it.
I’ll never forget starting my first sales job, sitting next to a guy named Chad “L”. I thought this guy talked out of his ass 99% of the time. It was annoying how relentless and undefeatable his swagger was, nothing could stop this dude from talking about himself. But he turned out to be the best salesperson out of our group, and continued to kill it his entire time there. It became more clear later down the road, when I started killing it myself, that his level of confidence was super important to sales success.
So let’s get into confident tonality. Confident people speak a certain way. Here are some quick things you should Do and Don’t Do when you speak.
Do:
Speak loud enough to be heard — They should hear every word loud and clear. You’re entering their world. You are competing against both the noises in their environment and the thoughts in their head. It helps to sit up straight and “speak from your diaphragm” as the singing and acting voice coaches say.
End your sentences strong — I am super guilty of this…it’s important to end your sentences definitively. Don’t finish it with a mumble or trail off. Finish every sentence strong.
Speak clearly — don’t make anyone ask “excuse me?” or “what was that?”
Speak with INTENT — You a muhfuka on a mission. You’re going in a direction and no one is stopping you. You have an impenetrable conviction. Talk like it!
Don’t Do:
ummmm
I think
I guess
Am I right about that? — these phrases all signal uncertainty. You’re not speaking with intent when you speak like this.
Laugh for no reason — just sounds corny. Be comfortable in the silence.
Anything that makes you sound weak
We’ll go into this in detail later in How to Build Rapport, where we’ll return to confident tonality again.
Great — we’ve covered how to Introduce Yourself. Let’s move now to the part of the sale that actually involves your product or service, the value proposition.
By the way — for more literature on attention and the neuroscience of attention, read Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff. It’s a fucking incredible book on how to navigate people’s mental barriers and crawl right up in someone’s head. Oren is a professional pitch man who has raised over $2B for his clients. He acts as a hired gun for companies that need to secure big funding from big VCs. This man eats, breathes, and lives pitching, and he’s got a ton of great info on how to move from a person’s fight/flight/freeze “croc brain” all the way up to a person’s neocortex that’s actually receptive of facts and logic. If you’re as much of a sales and psychology nerd as I am it’s highly recommended reading.
B) Value Proposition
What is the Value Proposition?
Now that we’ve grabbed the prospect’s attention in the introduction, the prospect is now ready to listen to the value proposition.
The value proposition is the value your product or service offers. It is why what you’re selling is going to help the prospect’s life. It is what excites the prospect, on some level.
How to convey the Value Proposition
Keep two things in mind when conveying the Value Proposition: It must be (1) simple, and it must be (2) relevant.
- The Simplicity of the Value Proposition
Dumb the value proposition down, as hard as you can. Most products and services do one of a couple things:
They save you money.
They make you money.
They save you time.
This is the value proposition for most of the products and services in your life. Sure there are nonprofit activities where you’re a̶c̶t̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶r̶o̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶l̶d̶ not doing any of the above, and there are health products and art. In these cases you’ll be selling good vibes, physical health, or emotion. But in inside sales, you’re often dealing with time and money.
So, keeping this in mind, how’s the value proposition sound? To understand how it should sound, let’s first take a look at how it shouldn’t sound.
DON’T say “Our software is a system for automatically routing and escalating important events. The Salesforce customer portal provides customers the ability to track their own cases, includes a social networking plug-in that enables the user to join the conversation about their company on social networking websites, provides analytical tools and other services including email alert, Google search, and access to customers’ entitlement and contracts.”
…🤓 🤖 I’ve read this multiple times I still don’t follow..
The following is much simpler and it gets right to the point. Say this instead:
“Our software helps you do two things: first, it’ll make you money. You will make you money because Salesforce will help you follow up with and track your leads better than ever before, meaning no more leads falling through the cracks. Better follow up, more sales, more money in your pocket. [Wash, rinse repeat for the second value proposition]
This is straight to the point. It states what value the product/service provides the prospect, and how. Sprinkle in some Cognitive Tricks and, fingers-crossed, we’ve got their attention. Boil the value proposition to its simplest components and share it with the prospect clearly and firmly.
2. The Relevance of the Value Proposition
Remember that I mentioned there were two things to keep in mind when conveying the value proposition — to keep the value proposition simple, and to keep it relevant.
I’ve been talking, so far, about the prospect as if they’re one, single, person, to keep things simple. But when you’re selling to a business, for example, the prospect is the company, and the company is composed of multiple people.
This is when the relevance of the value proposition becomes important, and why you must emphasize the value proposition that is relevant to the person on the phone.
Say you’re in software sales. You know the software will save the business time and make them money. Oftentimes, though, the person buying the software is different than the person using the software. The person using the software is the user, where the person buying the software is the customer. Well, the user and customer care about entirely different things.
In the software sales scenario above, what happens if you get the person using the software on the line? What do you think they’ll care about more…how much money the software is going to save their boss? Or how much easier their life will be when some process that was once manual becomes automatic, giving them time to focus on other things? Similarly, will the business owner care more about how much of someone else’s time will be saved, or how much money they’re going make? Emphasize the value proposition that is relevant to the person on the phone.
By the way, an easy way to remember the customer/user distinction is to think about children’s cereal. While a parent is the customer buying the kids’ cereal, the child is the user using the cereal. And cereal marketing teams have been totally aware of the fact that the tail will wag the dog, and the parent will buy whichever cereal the kid is amped about.
C) Qualification
What is Qualification?
Imagine this: you’re pitching a product to a prospect for 8 minutes. They’re patiently listening, rolling with you. You think you’re hitting every note… this is a one-call-close baby!! Then, at the 9-minute mark:
“that’s pretty interesting, well, I’ll have to tell the boss when she gets back”
“..the boss?”
“Yep I’m the receptionist.”
“…*audible sigh*”
Some people will legitimately not be the Decision Maker (the person with the buying power to purchase the product/service), legitimately not be a good fit for the product (it’s next to impossible to sell a super advanced software to someone who really, truly, wouldn’t benefit from the software), or legitimately not have enough money. Sometimes…it’s just not gonna work out!
This is why qualification is important: to weed out people who aren’t in a position to buy what you’re selling, as early as possible. This will allow you to move on to the next call and waste as little time as possible.
How to Qualify
In the world of sales, you’re either talking to a decision maker (DM) or you’re talking to everyone else. The decision maker, as the name implies, has the buying power to purchase the product or service. This is usually the owner of the business, and depending on the size of a business, sometimes the department head.
Qualifying for buying power is simple. Just ask.
Are you the business owner?
For our scheduled demo we’ll show you how our software will [value proposition]. Are you able to make a decision or should anyone else be joining us for our demo?
As you can see, it’s simple. You just have to remember to do it.
As for qualifying for having enough cash or being a good fit for your product or service, that information will probably come out while you pitch.
They might say they don’t have the money, which you should initially push against. If they truly don’t have the money, they’ll repeatedly insist that they don’t, and though you can’t verify if they’re actually telling the truth, you’ll just have to move on. Follow the same procedure for someone who says they’re not a great fit for your product or service. Insist that they are a good fit for reasons 1, 2, and 3, and if they continuously resist, cut the loss and move on.
Terrific — the Open Stage is complete. You’ve captured their attention, gave them a simple and relevant glimpse of your product or service, and you’ve determined you’re pitching a DM that’s actually worth your time talking to. Now onto the Problem Stage.
Step 2: Problem
The Problem Stage is 2 steps: Exploring the Situation and Aggravating the Problem.
A) Exploring the Situation
Why Explore the Situation?
A lot of our actions are governed by a phenomenon called the Pain-Pleasure Propulsion System. This fancy phrase just explains that us humans will do what we can to escape pain and find a pleasurable state as often as possible. We get hungry, we find some food to eat. We get chilly in our home, we turn the heating on. We realize our [insert item here] doesn’t look as swanky as the one in the commercial, we go out a buy a new one. We are constantly finding ways to avoid pain, and find pleasure.
How do we recreate this phenomenon in the sales process? Simple! We make them feel pain. We tactfully explain to them how bad their current situation is. We help them understand the kind of money and time they’re losing by doing things the way they’re doing now. We convince them they’re better than that, and that they deserve more...
They can buy what you’re selling!
Getting them to feel the pain is a two-step process:
- First, we ask questions about what they’re doing currently. This I call “exploring the situation”. This will tell us where the inefficiencies are in their current process. We’ll keep a running tally in our mind of ways our solution solves the current process’ problems, for later.
- Next we essentially tell them how much their life sucks because of their current situation. I call this “aggravating the problem.” We’ll push them closer to pain so the Pain-Propulsion System kicks in, they are in pain-avoidance, pleasure-seeking mode, and your solution is conveniently nearby to improve their current, shitty, situation.
We’ll get to aggravating the problem in a moment. I do want to drive a couple points home regarding exploring the situation.
Your product or service is, presumably, an improvement to some existing process. Maybe it’s software that automates a previously manual process. Maybe it’s hardware that helps you do more in a shorter amount of time. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling bits and bytes for a monthly fee or multimillion dollar construction equipment, you’re selling some sort of improvement upon an existing process.
Exploring the situation entails figuring out what that existing process is. Only then can you, in your head, understand how your product or service is going to overhaul the hell out of the current process. It’s only by understanding the prospect’s current process/situation that you can learn how it’s a slow, resource-intensive, expensive, ugly, or just plain stupid process/situation.
Now, let’s look at how to explore the situation.
How to Explore the Situation
Exploring the situation is done by asking questions.
Let’s review the two types of questions — open-ended questions and closed-end questions.
Open-ended questions encourage customers to talk. These questions often begin with words like what, why, how, where, when. These questions are used earlier on to, again, get an understanding of what a customer is doing. They can’t be answered in one or two words.
Closed-ended questions can typically be answered with a “yes,” “no,” or a one or two-word phrase. These are used to clarify or confirm something they’ve said. These questions prompts a firm, definitive answers from the prospect.
Here’s what these questions sound like in a sales call. Let’s say you sell a marketing software, WidgeSheprd. WidgeSheprd saves customers on unit-processing costs— they save customers $3 in processing for each unit. Furthermore, the time for processing the units is cut dramatically because a process that was once manual is now automatic.
Here are some open-ended questions for this sort of sale:
“How are you processing units now?”
“How many units are you processing now roughly?”
“What software are you using to process units now?”
And, here are some closed-ended questions:
“Are you processing units one-by-one right now?”
“You said you were processing more than 1,000 units per month?”
“So this is a manual process, is that right?”
These open and closed-ended questions should provoke answers that tell you what the prospect’s current situation is like. This information is gold. Remember their answer word for word. Literally. Listen to them describe their situation with total, absolute, full attention. Remember their answer word, for, word. This information is super important to the sale for 2 reasons.
1. Restating their Situation will convince them you understand
You’re calling a random stranger you just met a couple minutes ago. They’ll assume you couldn’t possibly understand the business they’ve been running for the better half of their life. As you’ll read in the How to Build Rapport section, it is possible to trick the prospect into thinking you do understand them. By using the exact words they use, you can convince them you’re listening, you understand, you’re on their team, you care, you have their best interest at heart. Which is some serious goodwill.
2. Understanding their Situation means you know the prospect’s weak spot
Knowing the prospect’s situation means you know the problems/weaknesses is in their process, meaning you know exactly how your product or service will solve the problem they don’t know they have yet (but you’re going to remind them about when you aggravate the problem in the next step). In this sense, knowing the prospect’s situation is literally the key to the sale. This is where you learn the needs of the
For these reasons, it’s critically important to keep their answers in mind and use them in our next stage, aggravating the problem, ultimately leading to the solution you’ll share later.
Prospects unwilling to speak
Keep in mind: sometimes the prospect will not respond to your questions. They’ll explain away their lack of a response because they’re “protective.” Or they’ll say they “I don’t know.” The fucking department head doesn’t know the answer to a question an intern could answer…yeah right.
In these cases you must be assumptive about their situation and continue. If they don’t want to be forthcoming and allow us to show how we can help them, we’ll be assumptive and ram the value proposition down their throat:
Say you’re a mid-size company, and you’re doing 10,000 a month, we’ll be easily saving you about $30,000 per month, which is going to $360K per year.
If they gave me an “I don’t know” and I sense they’re bullshitting, I’d be more pointed about it and see if I could squeeze an answer out:
You work in [department], surely you know how many units you’re processing…
If they’re still denying they know anything, I’m going to slap them around a little.
Most [department heads] I talk to, at a bare minimum, the number of units they’re dealing with — are you out the loop ooooor…
From here, the next stage is aggravating the problem which will ultimately leading to the solution you’ll share later.
Mixing it up after the Exploring the Situation
After you’ve explored their situation, From here you can go a couple ways — you can go move onto aggravating the problem, ultimately leading to the solution (you explaining how your product or service will help them). Or you can hit them with another value proposition. For example, try taking their answer and whipping up a quick hypothetical for how the solution will help them their specific process:
Ok — so if you’re processing 4,000 a month, we’ll be easily saving you about $12,000 per month, which is going to $144K per year.
This value proposition involves two cognitive tricks called future projecting and aggregating, which we’ll go later in the Cognitive Tricks section.
Regardless of the direction you go in, the next step is to aggravate the problem, ultimately leading to the solution (you explaining how your product or service will help them).
B) Aggravating the Problem
Why Aggravate the Problem?
Great — we’ve explored the situation. This means we have an idea of what they’re doing now and know exactly how our product or service will improve their situation. Now it’s time to help them understand that it’s time for a change. We want them to realize how inconvenient their current process is. We want them to feel like they’re burning cash and wasting time every second they don’t buy what you’re selling. We want them to realize their needs aren’t being met. We want to motivate them to buy our solution to their problem.
Remember when I mentioned the Pain-Pleasure Propulsion System? It’s the phenomenon where us humans will do what we can to escape pain and find a pleasurable state as often as possible. Now it’s time to take advantage of this behavioral pattern by introducing some pain.
Pain is an ugly word, I know. I use the word pain because what you’re selling should be a Painkiller. It should remove a pain point in the prospect’s current process. But, the thing is, the prospect has to be aware of a pain in their process. Or else they won’t be motivated to make any change. They must understand how slow/expensive/inefficient/wasteful what they’re doing is. They have to be understand they’re BLEEDING money/time and being wasteful and that this must stop NOW. They have to understand their needs are NOT being met. When we explored the situation, we discovered the pain in their process. Now we must make them aware of their pain by aggravating the problem.
How to Aggravate the Problem
To understand how to aggravate the problem, let’s look at ways you shouldn’t aggravate the problem.
Them: “Right now we’re processing the units manually, we do about 40k units a month and it costs us $5 a unit.”
You: “Wow who the hell would pay that much…what a fuckin’ idiot!
I’m joking.
Them: “Right now we’re processing the units manually, we do about 40k units a month and it costs us $5 a unit.”
You: “No no no you’ve been doing it all wrong, total waste of money total waste of time, let me tell what you need.( Trust me: I’m a total stranger telling you have NO CLUE how to run your own business)”
Don’t be so harsh with criticizing what they’re doing, at least at the start.
It’s not easy to accept that one’s wrong, that one’s made a mistake — nobody likes hearing “toldya so.” While the truth is that they are wrong and they did make a mistake by adopting their current process, they won’t accept their misstep if you rub it in their face. As legendary people-person Dale Carnegie said, let them save face when they’re wrong.
Them: “Right now we’re processing the units manually, we do about 40k units a month and it costs us $5 a unit.”
You: “Ah! Well we can save you $x every year, not to mention free up loads of time so you can focus on growing your business instead of on processing units”
This is going straight to the solution, which is better than the other routes we talked about so far…but where’s the pain? When are you more likely to buy a new car…when your car is just working fine, or when your car is working kinda alright but it does make that weird sound when you start it up, and the upholstery is getting a little dingy, and it’s kind of getting in the way of your everyday life.
There’s a better way to do this where they feel the pain of their current process, where they’re more likely to realize they have a problem and need a solution to their problem soon. Try this out:
Them: “Right now we’re processing the units manually, we do about 40k units a month and it costs us $5 a unit.”
You: “I’m hearing you, 40k a month, $5 a unit, manual, so that’s a popular setup, a lot of people starting out are working with a setup like that. But the thing is, as your business grows, that setup doesn’t grow with you. That’s 30 minutes a day — about 3 hours a week — you’re wasting just processing units, NOT growing your business, NOT getting new clients, NOT doing things that make you more money. Plus, you’re spending 40k a month — 480k per year — where you could be spending loads less. You’re losing time, you’re losing money, and it’s ruining the bottom line. That’s where we can help…
See how negative that sounds? We’re painting a bleak picture of their current situation. We’re aggravating the shit out of the problem.
We’re also playing with some cognitive tricks here, something we’ll discuss later in the Cognitive Tricks section.
For example, we’re aggregating. Remember: our product saves people time and money. That means that they’re spending time and money now that they don’t need to spend. It might be a small amount — maybe it takes 20–30 minutes a day to do something every day. But by aggregating the pain, we’re adding up the pain across a longer period of time so it’s NOT just a couple minutes a day…it’s 3 HOURS a WEEK. I can’t do much with a couple extra minutes, but 3 hours?? That’s a lot of time. That’s a lot of pain.
That’s just one of a couple tricks we can use to aggravate the problem. You can learn more of them in the Cognitive Tricks section. It’s important to do this nice and strong…if they’re not convinced they have a problem, why the hell would they change anything? Why would they buy your solution?
We’re at the end of the Problem Stage. You’ve asked questions to learn about their current situation and you’ve brought the problem to the top of their mind. Next, we will show them the light to a better future, in the Solution Stage.
Step 3: Solution
The Solution Stage is 2 steps: Connecting the Solution to the Problem and Temperature Check.
A) Connecting the Solution to the Problem
Why Connect the Solution to the Problem?
Now that you’ve made them feel the pain of their current system, it’s time to show them the medicine that’s gonna take away the pain. This is when we dazzle them with the brand-spanking new, shiny solution. But it’s not as simple as saying “here’s WidgetGram and it makes you money” and them handing the money over. There’s a smarter, more persuasive way to do this.
How to Connect the Solution to the Problem
Remember how I said how important it was to memorize the prospect’s decription of their problem? I said this information was gold. I suggested remembering their answer word for word. I advised listening to them describe their situation with total, absolute, full attention.
This is why: Your Solution MUST be tailored to the prospect’s Problem.
Your Solution MUST be tailored to the prospect’s Problem.
It is critical that the solution is custom-made for the prospect’s problem. This works for the same reason we restate the problem to the prospect: tailoring the solution to the prospect’s problem will convince them you know exactly what they’re doing and that you’re able to help them. It’ll show that you care for the prospect and have their best interest in mind. You’re not a salesperson trying to pull fast one…you’re a consultant working with them, to solve their problem.
We do this by selling benefits.
Don’t sell features. Don’t sell advantages. Sell Benefits.
A feature is a fact about your product or service. For example: “These shoes have a 4-layer sole.” To anyone who isn’t a shoe nerd, it’s a dry, unpersuasive fact. Stating a feature is not persuasive because it’s completely disconnected from the prospect’s needs, and so, their problem.
An advantage is what your product or service enables your prospect to do. For example: “This shoe helps athletes change directions fast with its 4-layer sole.” It’s definitely better than a feature — at least it mentions one way it could help a person. Someone. Somewhere. But, it’s still not persuasive because it’s still disconnected from the prospect’s needs, and so, their problem.
A benefit is what you need to be selling. A benefit utilizes the information you gathered when Exploring the Situation to connect your solution to THEIR need, and so, their problem. For example: “You mentioned you played football…I know it’s important for you to stay quick on that field: these shoes are gonna help you change directions fast with its 4-layer sole.”
Much better! The prospect doesn’t give a fuck that your product/service does this, does that, helps some people do this or that…they really don’t care about what you’re selling. They care about THEIR needs and THEIR problem! And because you’ve brought to their attention that their problem is actually pretty inconvenient/costing them money/costing them time, they care about how your solution can help solve THEIR problem, and how you’re going to meet THEIR needs and solve THEIR problems!
That’s why it’s so, so important to Explore the Situation and Aggravate the Problem. And it’s why I mentioned you should store this info in your head word-for-word for later: the prospect is literally giving you the answer key in this stage!!
Here’s how connecting your solution to the problem could look like:
“We’re definitely going to be saving you a ton of time with our software. You mentioned you’re spending 30 minutes a day manually inputting data using Shitstrm. With our software, you’ll be cutting 30 minutes down to 1 minute. That’s because our software is totally automatic. After setting up your integration, your order processing will become totally automatic. Our [feature], [feature], and [feature] makes [process] a breeze. It’s literally set it and forget it, saving you a ton of time.
In this, we go back to their situation and how it’s not meeting their needs, and show them how our solution addresses their needs. It’s as simple as that. Restate their situation in their own words for extra points. They’ll trust you know what you’re talking, because you used their words, so you must be just as smart as them. 😉
Here’s what I did above, but as a formula:
“We’re definitely going to be [general value prop]. You mentioned you’re [current shitty process/situation]. With our software, you’ll be [repetition of general value prop]. That’s because our software [benefit]. After [how they implement your solution], [sexy effect of implementation]. Our [feature], [feature], and [feature] makes [current shitty process/situation] a breeze. It’s literally set it and forget it, [repetition of general value prop].
Interesting look behind the curtains, huh?
This stage of the sales process is what most people think of when they think of sales…it’s when we show off our product or service, but in a way that addresses their problem. It’s really important to get this right the first time. Most people’s attention spans are not great, so we need to impact their brain with how incredible our solution is the first time. Read up on the Cognitive Tricks section to learn even more advanced ways to sell your solution.
B) Temperature Check
Great, you’ve told them how you know you can help. But, do they believe you can help? Do they have any interest in your product/service? Or do they think it’s a waste of time?
This is when the Temperature Check comes into play. It’s nothing more than a quick check for their buying temperature, a term for a prospect’s willingness to buy.
There’s only one line I prefer when checking a prospect’s temperature. Here it is:
Are you following me?
As is the case with the entire call, the intonation needs to be right with this. You’ll want to take a look at How to Build Rapport for tips on mastering your voice, including tonality for this line.
I only ever use “Are you following me?” for a couple very good, very specific reasons. Before I go into them, let’s look into why other lines aren’t as awesome. Like, what about:
Sound good?
How’s that sound?
The problem with these lines is if they respond negatively to them, they’re saying they’re not interested in the product. I learned this the hard way by asking questions like these too early and getting shut down hard. Phrases like “Sound good?” and “How’s that sound?” are questions that signal the salesperson is trying to close pretty soon. It’s like saying “Wanna watch a movie at my place?” before your drinks have arrived.
The purpose of the temperature is just to check their interest level. We don’t want to force them to make a decision until later.
Now, what about these lines:
Does that make sense?
Do you understand?
If they respond negatively to the these questions, you have two problems.
First, they can blame you for the fact they didn’t understand, implying you failed to explain your product/service well. Then you’d have to repeat it, which you should do on your own terms rather than on the defensive like in this situation.
Second, they could feel stupid saying they didn’t understand it and be too intimidated by it to try it out. This is slightly better than the other scenario because at least you’re the authority and you’re smarter than them. But it still runs the risk of them feeling overwhelmed.
But, what about this line:
Are you following me?
In this frame, you are the leader and they are literally following you. If you can create and maintain this relationship dynamic all the way through the call, they will literally be thanking you for selling them. We’ll talk about this more in our discussion of Frame Control.
Now what if they respond negatively to this question? If they say “no,” they don’t follow you? Well…they’re the follower and you’re their leader so it’s sort of implied they failed to follow you. The problems from the other questions don’t exist — you won’t be blamed for failing to explain the product/service and you won’t force them to make a decision. Yes, we do run into the “they feel stupid and possibly intimidated” possibility. But, remember, you’re the leader to a naive follower, you know more than they do, and you’ll be happy to lead them to your solution.
Now you know how to properly Connect the Solution to the Problem and check if they’re on board with it all. The next step is the Close.
But remember: objections can come at all stages of the sales process. Next to the Open Stage, objections are most likely to be shot at you at the Solution Stage of the call. While you’re telling them how awesome your product or service is, you can bet they’re mentally poking holes in your vision. After all if you’re saying they can do better than how they’ve been doing it, that means they were wrong all along… Be prepared for push back by reading up on Objections.
Step 4: Close
Finally, we reach the Close. Here it is! Where you “close” the deal.
There are many types of closes, and the definition of a “close” varies significantly depending on your job. Maybe it’s getting a credit card number, maybe it’s setting a demo, maybe it’s a warm transfer to someone else. As a result, any advice I offer on what to say during close won’t be helpful for a lot of folks. What is universal, however, is the inner game you should be maintaining at this stage of the call.
We’re going to dive deep into inner game on a later section dedicated to the topic, but it doesn’t hurt to start talking about it now.
A) Strong Inner Game
Inner Game refers to the mental tools necessary to make a sale. It is your confidence, self-assurance, lack of fear, conviction…the mentality that will significantly help you make a sale.
Inner game contrasts sharply with everything we’ve learned so far. We’ve been learning what to say, how to say it, what to do when you’re in a particular situation..it’s all been external so far. All of those lessons are a part of what you could call (you guessed it) “outer game.”
Your inner game needs to be tight throughout but you’re going to need a shit ton of confidence at the close. It’s not enough to have confidence for only one person, you’re going to need enough for you and the prospect. Why? Two reasons:
1. You’ll need enough confidence for the prospect because they need to know they’re not making a mistake trusting you.
Think about how much control the prospect is giving you if they do what you ask. Maybe they’re giving you their credit card number, or scheduling time to see a software demo, or giving you their contact information. At the close, the prospect is going to be giving you their time or money and they want to know damn well they’re not making a mistake.
If they get the slightest whiff of desperation, weakness, doubt, anything other than complete conviction, they’re going to second-guess you and your ability to deliver on your word. And it’s when they second-guess you that they’ll push back on you or disengage, resulting in more objections to manage or a lost sale. All because you didn’t come across as “strong” to the prospect, and they had doubts that it was a good idea after all.
2. You’ll need enough confidence for yourself because it’s easy to get nervous at the close.
Think about how many times you get to practice the Open. You’ get to practice the first step of the Open on 100% of your calls. As long as they don’t hang up in like 5 seconds, you’re going to get to introduce yourself.
The later stages though, you’re going to have less practice with. Maybe you learn the prospect is not qualified, and the call’s over. Maybe they throw you an objection that you can’t manage, call’s over. Maybe the call drops, call’s over. Calls end without a close most of the time. Meaning you only have a couple opportunities to practice closing.
But when the stars align and everything goes off without a hitch, you will get that opportunity to finally close, it will be a moment you’ve been waiting a long time for, it will be your very first time, and you will be nervous. And that is why your inner game needs to be absolutely on point.
How do you build strong inner game? Well…we read on to next situation.
Closing Thoughts
Phew…we finished.
Watching an inside salesperson do their job, you might watch 5–6 minutes of what seems like a typical conversation. But there’s a lot happening at once. The Open, Problem, Solution, and Close structure is not something I’ve made up, it’s THE sales structure for every sales effort in every country in every language and its worked since the beginning of time. It’s NOT a couple of cheap lines to make a sale. It’s powered by SCIENCE — the Pain-Pleasure Propulsion System — that motivates ALL of us to obtain a solution to an existing problem. Follow this general structure to make sure you’re taking advantage of this evolutionary phenomenon, and make it rain that commission cash.
Next up… we’ll check out how Strong Inner Game looks like. Coming soon..
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Jump to another article in this series:
Part 1: An Introduction to Phone Sales
Part 2: Open, Problem, Solution, Close
Part 3: Inner Game (In progress…)
Part 4: Objections and Frame Control (In progress…)
Part 5: Building Rapport
Part 6: Cognitive Tricks (In progress…)
