Identifying Pain

1Session at a glance

2Open (0:00, 4 minutes)

• Write the three levels on the board now, as three empty lines, and leave them up for the whole session. Surface problem. Reason behind it. Personal impact.
• Say the one thing that makes this company-wide: everybody here takes in complaints, on the phone, in a ticket, in a hallway at a client site. The three levels are what you do with one.

3Concept (0:04, 22 minutes)

What pain means here, and why we try to disqualify (5 min)

• Define it in the sentence you first use it: pain is the compelling reason a client has to do something about a problem. It is a term of art in this method, borrowed as vocabulary, and it is not a claim that clients are upset or that we want them to be. A client can describe a problem in a flat voice and still have pain. A client can be visibly annoyed and have none, because they have decided to live with it.
• Say the consequence plainly, without the slogan version: an opportunity where the client has no compelling reason to act does not close, and everything spent on it is gone.
• Then the part people resist. In this step the job is to try to disqualify the prospect, not to persuade them, and if you look honestly for the reason this is not a fit and cannot find one, you have qualified them. Persuading produces a client who agreed to something they did not want.
• Write the two conditions on the board. One, we tried to disqualify and could not. Two, the person we are talking to is in a position to say yes or no. Both have to be true before we commit time to an assessment, a proposal or a presentation.
• Answer the objection before it is raised: this is not about turning away work. Time spent on somebody who will not act is time not spent on somebody who will, and disqualifying finds that out in one meeting rather than four.

The four buying motives (4 min)

• Give the four in order with an example each, and let the room supply examples where they can. A problem now: the front desk cannot get through a morning without rebooting. A problem coming: their line of business application stops being supported on the current Windows version and they know the date. A gain now: a second location open by spring. A gain later: the business worth more once the compliance work is done.
• Say which one to look for first and why: a problem now is the strongest, because the client is already paying for it every week and the cost can be counted. The other three all require the client to believe a forecast.
• Be honest about the gain motives. They close, but a gain later needs a track record first. A client who has watched us deliver twice will act on one. A prospect in a first meeting will not, and a proposal built on one is built on their optimism.
• Practical instruction: when a prospect opens with a gain, do not argue with it. Note it, then go looking for a problem now underneath it. There usually is one, and it is why they called.

The three levels, on one complaint (6 min)

• Work the example before naming the rule. Use the one on the board, or the worked example in section 5 of the Learner Guide, which is a practice manager at a medical practice saying the computers are slow.
• Level one out loud: that sentence is the surface problem, the thing the client leads with. It is a symptom, and it is where almost every conversation stops.
• Level two out loud: it is not every computer. Six machines at the front desk, only with the practice management system open, only in the morning, starting four months ago when the software vendor moved that system to a hosted server and nobody changed the internet connection underneath it.
• Level three out loud: she is the one the front desk complains to, she comes in early to reboot machines before patients arrive, she raised it twice and was told to get quotes, and she is the one who will be asked why it is still like this. That is the level that decides whether anything happens.
• Now name the rule as what you just did: the surface problem, the reason behind it, and the personal impact on the person in front of you. All three have to be clear before this step is finished.
• Do the arithmetic on the board and say out loud that the figures are a model example rather than a real account. Six people, about 15 minutes a day each waiting: 6 times 15 is 90 minutes a day. Across 5 days that is 450 minutes a week, and 450 divided by 60 is 7.5 hours. Over four weeks, 7.5 times 4 is 30 hours a month. Say what the number is for: it is hers, in her units, and it is what a price gets compared against later.
• Close the block with the working rule: the problem a client names first is rarely the one that has to be solved. Quoting six laptops against level one would have been quick, and it would have billed the client for the wrong job.

Getting from a complaint to the impact (4 min)

• Walk section 6 of the Learner Guide, which is our question list grouped by the three levels. Read three or four out loud rather than all of them.
• Say what the list is not. It is not a script to run top to bottom. A fixed sequence of questions read at a client sounds like a form being filled in, which is the fastest way to stop somebody talking.
• Teach the one habit that matters more than the wording: ask, then stop talking. The answer that gets you to level two usually arrives after a silence that feels too long to you and does not to them.
• Name the two questions a technical seat can use tomorrow. What changed around the time this started. What does it stop you doing.
• Say why listing what we do is the wrong move here: naming our stack before the cost of the problem is known hands the client a specification to compare, and the comparison then happens on price, somewhere we are not in the room.

Reviewing and summarising pain back (3 min)

• Give the five parts in order, with the room following in section 8 of the Learner Guide: every problem back in their words, what it is costing in their numbers, what continues if nothing changes, a direct question asking whether that is complete, and a spoken confirmation.
• Be specific about the last one. A nod is not confirmation. The words to use are "have I got all of it, or is there something I have missed", and then wait.
• Say what a correction here is worth. A correction here costs the rest of the sentence. The same correction after a proposal means rewriting the proposal.
• Say where it goes: written into Nutshell in the client's words, so the proposal, the agreement in PandaDoc and the first BTR all use the same sentences the client used.
• Hand off in one line: only when the summary is confirmed do you move to money, which is session 06.

4Show (0:26, 10 minutes)

1. Set up the role play. Name your volunteer and give the rules out loud so everyone hears them: they are a practice manager, their opening line is that the computers are slow, and they answer honestly but volunteer nothing.
2. Start with the up-front contract from session 03, in one sentence. What this conversation is for, how long it runs, and what happens at the end of it. Skipping it in a demonstration teaches the room that it is optional.
3. Work level one. When does it happen, when does it not, how long has it been going on.
4. Work level two in front of them. What changed around then, what has already been tried, what that fixed and what came back. Write the answers on the board under the second line.
5. Work level three and slow down. Who ends up dealing with it, what it stops them doing, what happens to them if it is the same in six months. Let the silences sit, and let the room watch you not filling them.
6. Ask for a number and do the arithmetic on the board with whatever the volunteer gives you, so the room sees a count rather than an estimate.
7. Summarise it back and stop. All the problems, the cost in their numbers, what continues if nothing changes, then "have I got all of it, or is there something I have missed". Wait for the answer.
8. Debrief against the board. Ask which question moved it from level one to level two, and which one got to level three. Take answers before giving yours.

5Do (0:36, 13 minutes)

1. Pair off and pick a real complaint each. A live prospect for the two sales seats. For everyone else, a real sentence a client has said in a ticket, on the phone or at a site. No made up scenarios.
2. Five minutes each way. One person is the client and answers as that client actually would. The other asks, using the list in section 6 of the Learner Guide, and is trying to reach level three. Call the swap out loud so nobody runs over.
3. Everyone writes a card. Four lines: the surface problem in the client's words, the reason behind it or "do not know yet", the personal impact and on whom, and one number with its arithmetic next to it if a number came up.
4. Two pairs read theirs out, one of them a ticket rather than a lead. Ask each reader which question got them to level three.
5. Cards go with the person. Sales seats put the summary into the Nutshell lead record before the end of the day. Everyone else puts the two answers on the ticket.

6Check (0:49, 7 minutes)

1. A prospect says they want to move to Microsoft 365 because the practice down the road did it and it looks modern. Which of the four buying motives is that, and what do you do next?

   Answer

   A gain, and as phrased, a gain later. It is the weakest of the four to build on, because it asks them to act on something they expect rather than something they are already paying for. Do not argue with it. Note it, then look for a problem now underneath it by asking what happens today that they wish did not happen. If there is no problem now and no problem coming, the opportunity gets parked rather than proposed on.

2. A client says their email keeps ending up in the recipient's spam folder. Give one question that gets you to level two and one that gets you to level three, and say what each is for.

   Answer

   Level two: "what changed around the time this started", or "what have you already tried, and what came back". Those find the reason behind the symptom and what has already been ruled out, so we do not spend a week on something they tried in March. Level three: "who ends up chasing the emails that did not arrive", or "what does it stop you doing". Those find the personal impact, which is what tells you whether this person will act.

3. A prospect lists nine problems in the first meeting and asks us to fix all of it. Are they qualified?

   Answer

   Not yet. Nine surface problems is level one nine times over. Nothing there says what causes any of them, what any of it costs, or how it lands on the person in the room, and nothing says they will spend or that this person can say yes or no.

   The obvious answer is yes, and it is worth naming why it is wrong. A long list feels like a strong signal, and an account in that condition is the kind we are built to rescue. But a list that long usually means nobody has ever asked which one matters, and a proposal aimed at all nine is priced on assumptions we made ourselves. Pick the one with the clearest personal impact, take that one down all three levels, and find out whether they will act.

4. Name the two conditions that must be true before we build a proposal. Why is a person with a serious, expensive, well documented problem still not qualified if they cannot say yes or no?

   Answer

   One, we tried to disqualify the opportunity and could not. Two, the person is in a position to say yes or no. Without the second, the summary of pain gets delivered to somebody who cannot act on it and is then retold, secondhand and shorter, in a room we are not in. The cost we counted and the impact we found do not survive that retelling. Who decides and how is the subject of session 07, but the condition belongs here, because it decides whether this step's work reaches anybody.

5. A Syncro ticket reads "Outlook keeps crashing, third time this month". Give the two questions that move it past a surface description, and say what each one buys.

   Answer

   "When did it start, and what changed around then" finds the reason behind it, which usually shortens the fix and stops the same ticket coming back a fourth time. "What does it stop you doing when it happens" finds the personal impact, which turns a repeat ticket into work a client will fund and gives the account manager a sentence to read straight into the next BTR.

6. You have all three levels written down and you are ready to talk about money. Why summarise it back and wait for the client to confirm, when you already have the information?

   Answer

   The summary is for the client. It is the one point where the client hears the whole thing in one piece, in their own words and numbers, and either confirms it or corrects it. A correction there costs the rest of the sentence; the same correction after a proposal means rewriting the proposal. It buys a second thing: a client who has said out loud that the problem is real and costs what they said has agreed to the problem before any price exists, so the price gets compared against their number rather than somebody else's quote.

7Close (0:56, 4 minutes)

Work before the next session

• The practice steps in section 9 of the Learner Guide: one real client complaint taken down all three levels, on a live conversation rather than on paper.
• The four buying motives and the three levels, from memory.
• Chapter 4 of the Sandler Foundations workbook, in the reference folder, for anyone who wants the original including the pain funnel graphic.

Next session

05 - Questioning Strategies. How to ask so that people keep talking, what to do with a question you cannot answer without giving away the work, and negative reverse selling, which is deliberately taking the opposite side of what a salesperson is expected to push for in order to get the truth on the table.

Open items to settle

• Whether the two intake questions become standard on ticket creation in Syncro, and if so, whether the wording belongs in a ticket intake standard operating procedure, or SOP, in Notion rather than on this page.
• Where a confirmed pain summary lives on a Nutshell lead record, so it can be read without scrolling the activity history.
• Whether the three levels get a place on the BTR agenda, so an account review produces reasons and impacts rather than a list of symptoms.

8Sources

• Sandler Systems, Sandler Foundations, chapter 4, Identifying the Reasons for Doing Business (Pain): chapter PDF.
• Sandler Systems, Sandler Foundations: full workbook PDF.

The term pain as used here, the four buying motives, the three levels and the name Pain Funnel are Sandler's. The question progression on these pages, the medical practice example, the arithmetic and everything about how this applies at Hermetic are ours. The pain funnel graphic itself is in the chapter PDF and is not reproduced here.

9After the session