Sales Masterclass 4: Understanding Customer Pain Points: A Guide to Better Sales Conversions

Find out how to structure discovery calls to uncover the most urgent pain points - and how to demo like the top 5% of SaaS salespeople.

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Episode highlights:

You’re on a prospect call. It’s looking good:  they’re listening closely to your pitch, keep their camera on, and don’t seem to be tabbing out during your demo. But after the call, they mysteriously vanish, leaving you wondering where everything went wrong. 

If this describes your experience in sales, it might be  time to hone in on the art of client discovery. 

In this masterclass, we'll dive into the discovery stage of your sales cycle, centered around understanding your potential customer's pain. We’ll introduce straightforward, practical frameworks that will transform initial conversations into solid foundations for future relationships. 

What you’ll learn:

• How to dive into your customer’s pain

• How to structure your discovery conversation

• How to demo like the top 5%

Meet the expert:

Or Biderman is a lifetime salesperson, and is the Co-founder and CEO of Novacy - which provides audio, text, and body language analysis of sales calls. He is also the resident  sales mentor at Fusion VC. 

The Starting Point: 4 Truths About Your Prospects 

During discovery calls, there's a natural inclination to seize upon the first hint of a problem and proclaim, "We have the perfect solution for you!" But this eagerness can be premature. The deeper your understanding of a customer's pain, the smoother the path to a sale becomes.

Your customers’  pain points follow in various timelines: 

• Immediate crisis: "If I don't boost sales now, my company is doomed." 

• Future crisis: "If sales don't increase by 20% in four months, I'll have to let go of 20% of my sales team", 

• An aspirational future: "Increasing sales could lead to my promotion"). 

If you identify which timeline your prospect is living in, you can tailor your sales approach accordingly. The ideal is obviously a current and urgent problem, which reduces friction in the sales process and puts you in a better position in pricing negotiations. 

Every sale alters the customer's world. Change requires effort and adaptation and is therefore scary. You must thoroughly understand their pain and articulate how your solution minimizes friction to make a compelling case that the discomfort of change outweighs the relief it brings. This applies to the person you’re meeting right now, but also to every  other person involved in the buying decision. You must equip your ambassador with the tools to advocate for the change.

Moreover, sales have an emotional aspect. People don't just buy solutions; they buy better versions of their world. A deep grasp of the customer's pain lets you touch directly on their core issue, applying enough pressure to forge an emotional bond with your solution.

Lastly, before stepping into any sales call, remember that the world doesn't revolve around your product. People are focused on their jobs, and your product is a means to an end. Rather than clinging to a limited MVP or a prototype, you should anchor your pitch in their pain, painting a vivid picture of how their  world will look like once it has been transformed by your solution.

Uncovering the Pain with Sandler’s Pain Funnel

The Sandler pain funnel is a framework you can  use on your first sales call to dig deeper into the pain. It starts with the current problem. Let’s say the problem is that salespeople are not reaching their goals.

1. "Tell me more about that." - gives the stage to  the prospect to unveil a more detailed landscape of their problem, and encouraging  deeper self-reflection. ("Over the past four months, we've observed a consistent sales decline.")

2. "Can you be more specific? Give me an example." This shifts abstract issues into concrete challenges. ("Recently, even our top performer has been struggling to win against one of our competitors.")

3. "How long has this been a problem?" Encouraging the prospect to trace the issue's timeline stirs emotional engagement. ("The downturn began four months ago, but we haven't seen any positive shifts for over seven months.")

4. "What have you tried to do about this?" This query uncovers the prospect's commitment to solving their challenge. A lack of action suggests a potential misfit with your solution's value proposition. It they have sat idle so far, there might not be enough urgency to pursue a solution.. ("We've overhauled our sales strategy and intensified management oversight.")

5. "And did that help?" Here, the prospect's response can expose vulnerabilities in competing solutions, arming you with insights to distinguish your offering. ("No success; the issue seems to transcend our internal processes and points to the competitor's influence.")

6. "How much do you estimate this has cost you?" only some prospects will outright give you exact figures. Still, their earlier disclosures can help gauge the financial impact, reinforcing the urgency and relevance of your solution. ("A significant loss, to be honest.")

7. "How do you feel about that?" This question converts a business dialogue into an emotional journey. The keyword to look for here is “frustrated”, with which you can pivot the conversation towards the transformative potential of your solution. ("I’m frustrated by our inability to counter our competitor's moves.")

8. "Have you given up trying to deal with this issue?" This final probe gauges their willingness to make an effort, setting the stage for a mutual determination to tackle the challenge head-on with your solution. ("Far from it. That's precisely why we're having this discussion.")

Beyond Pain: BANT Qualification 

If there’s no pain, there’s no sale. But even when there is a pain, there can still be impassable roadblocks on the way to a sale. You want to find out about these early in order to disqualify irrelevant prospects.

The first call serves to uncover additional dimensions about your client.  Among the myriad frameworks and acronyms that guide this exploration, one of the most popular ones is budget, authority, need, timeline (BANT)::

• Budget: Has the organization allocated budget for solutions like yours?

• Authority: Can the person you're speaking with green-light this purchase? 

• Need: Is there a reason to buy? This is basically the pain point you're already probing. 

• Timeline: When does your prospect need a solution? Establishing a sense of urgency (or lack thereof) can influence your approach and negotiation stance.

There’s plenty of information online about BANT so we’re not going to dive too deep into it here. But for our purposes, you should remember that if you don’t have good answers to the questions we’ve listed above, it’s going to be very hard to get to a ‘yes’ and you should consider disqualifying the prospect.

Note that this doesn’t mean the  door is not permanently closed. If there’s a clear pain but no budget allocated, you’ll want to check in with this prospect in six months time; however, if now isn’t the right time, you probably have warmer leads to focus on.  Maintaining a pipeline that accurately reflects reality frees up time and resources for prospects who are  ripe for conversion (see our previous article to learn more about pipeline management ).

We've Reached The Demo, Your FAVORITE Part 

Many salespeople, especially founders, rush through the conversation to get to the demo part, a chance to sit back and breathe easily. However, remember you should get here after fully grasping the client's pain. And even then, your demo should be at most five minutes. Why? That’s right; no one is as invested in your product as you are.

Chris Orlob's insightful post outlines eight elements that make SaaS sales demos compelling, condensed in the F.A.V.O.R.I.T.E. acronym. We can distil the essence into three guidelines:

Firstly, align each feature you present with a specific pain point. There's no benefit in bombarding your counterpart with an array of irrelevant features to their challenges.

 Secondly, never assume familiarity with your platform. Take the time to guide them through the interface, explaining each element's purpose and positioning and ensuring they understand the flow and rationale behind the design.

Lastly, tell a story that resonates. Use your understanding of their pain and how your product offers relief to craft a story that begins with their current struggle, showcases your solution's value, and illustrates its transformative potential. Leverage any social proof or testimonials at your disposal to bolster your narrative, making it not just a demo but a compelling journey from problem to solution.