Identify Pain: questions to ask your prospect
Prospect qualifying questions for Identify Pain, from uncovering a business pain to tying it to the Economic Buyer’s priorities and a compelling event.
Grey: moving to yellow
Status: No business pain has been identified
Guiding light principle: Awareness. The prospect may be interested in your offering, but so far you have not been able to associate your capabilities with an important business pain.
- Tell me what you like about your current situation.
- Explain to me what you are most proud of.
- Describe to me the impact you have on Revenue, Cost or Risk (R-C-R).
- Tell me what you would change if you had a magic wand.
- Explain to me what you would address first, second or third.
- Describe to me what the business outcomes would be if you addressed those needs.
Yellow: moving to green
Status: An identified issue or opportunity we can impact, meaningful to the Economic Buyer (EB) or verified as a priority to the organization
Guiding light principle: Agreement. You have documented business pains we can affect and uncovered the consequences of those pains, and verified the pains with the contacts and/or positioned them relative to known priorities of the prospect’s business.
Note: the EB can still be at status grey.
- Tell me which areas you have identified where you think we can help.
- Explain to me which ones are most important.
- Describe which ones are most important to upper management.
- Tell me how you would rank them.
- Explain to me which ones are tied to existing initiatives for improvement.
- Describe to me what the EB is aware of.
- Tell me how you would educate the EB.
Green
Status: You have identified pain relative to the EB’s priorities and have identified a compelling event that is driving a sense of urgency
Guiding light principle: Action. In addition to the rigor applied to I = grey, you have also verified that the business pain we’re addressing is a priority for the EB to address. You have identified some event that is driving their timeline and urgency.
- Tell me who the “victims” of the current process are.
- Explain to me:
- Who benefits the most if you change?
- Who hurts the most if it stays the same?
- Describe to me who has to be involved to get this addressed.
- Tell me what is more important than this.
- Explain to me who cares about this.
- Describe to me the “consequences” of doing nothing.
Go deeper on Identify Pain
The business or technical shortage the customer must overcome, stop or change.