Whether you’re selling hypoallergenic moisturizer or an e-bike with GPS features, your products offer customers useful benefits that address a particular need or pain point. When you build your sales and marketing strategy, you can focus on customer pain points to naturally highlight how your offerings are a good fit.
This style of selling is what the Sandler Selling System is all about. In 1967, educator and business coach David H. Sandler developed the system as a seven-step sales strategy focused on building rapport with your prospects through collaborative and consultative interactions. The seven steps of the Sandler Selling System include:
1. Bonding and rapport
2. Upfront contracts
3. Pain Funnel
4. Budget
5. Decision
6. Fulfillment
7. Post-sell
The third step of the Sandler Selling System, the Pain Funnel, is where you get to the heart of your prospect’s pain points. You can even use the Pain Funnel outside the context of the system to better understand your customers and improve your sales process.
What is the Pain Funnel?
The Sandler Pain Funnel is a selling method that involves asking a systematic series of open-ended questions to identify a prospect’s pain points and highlight how your business can provide a solution. It is the third step of the Sandler Selling System, a sales method designed to help sales reps build rapport with prospects and develop an emotional understanding of the prospects’ needs.
By asking direct and probing questions about frustrations a potential customer is facing, you can provide a solution by highlighting the benefits of your offerings, ultimately leading to more deals and a better connection with your customer base.
How the Pain Funnel works
The Pain Funnel involves asking increasingly specific questions separated into three stages:
1. Problem identification
The top of the funnel involves asking questions about the problem the prospect is facing. At this stage, gather as much information as possible about the prospect’s current situation and issues.
For example, if you’re selling a product like a cookware set, you could ask a potential customer to provide specifics about the durability and convenience of their current cookware. Through that inquiry, you might discover that the potential customer is frustrated with how long it takes to clean their pans. Some of the questions you can use at this stage include:
- “Can you tell me more about that?”
- “Can you give me an example?”
- “How long has that been a problem?”
2. Cost implications
The second stage in the Pain Funnel relates to the exact cost of the problem. By asking even more specific questions, you start a conversation with customers about the consequences of the issue they’re currently facing.
Imagine you sell a customer relationship management (CRM) software that helps other ecommerce businesses manage relationships with customers and leads. Using the Sandler Pain Funnel method, you could follow up with questions about how much time they spend manually inputting leads and what that time costs their sales team. Here are a few examples of Pain Funnel questions in this stage:
- “What have you tried to do about that?”
- “How did it work?”
- “How much do you think this problem has cost you?”
3. Emotional impact
In the third and final stage of the Pain Funnel, dig a bit deeper into how the prospect feels about their problem and what emotions they have toward the costs of the issue. The purpose of this stage is to make an emotional connection, discover how the potential client or customer feels about their losses, and empathize with their emotions.
For example, if you run a sustainable business vegan shoe company, you could ask potential customers about the emotional impact of buying products without ethical sourcing or manufacturing. Here are some specific questions you might ask at this stage:
- “How do you feel about that?”
- “Who else in your life or organization is affected by this?”
- “Have you given up trying to deal with the problem?”
Best practices for using the Pain Funnel
The Pain Funnel is most effective when you use it in conjunction with the rest of the Sandler Selling System. Here are three more key concepts of the system:
Set expectations upfront
Before digging into your increasingly specific Pain Funnel questions, first build rapport and set clear expectations about what you’re selling, what it costs, and what the objective is for your sales call or meeting. By setting clear expectations about what your goal is, you can avoid a negative response later in the sales process when potential customers are suddenly surprised about the purpose of your communications or what exactly you have to offer.
Summarize what you hear
When using the Pain Funnel method, pay close attention to the words your prospect uses to describe their pain points. Develop a habit of repeating back to the prospect what they’ve communicated. Then ask if your summary accurately describes their situation and feelings. By doing this, you can avoid misunderstanding their problem while simultaneously building trust through active listening and empathy.
Clarify budget needs
Follow up your Pain Funnel questions with specific questions about your prospect’s budget to determine whether your potential solutions are a good fit for the resources they have available. Asking what your customers are willing to spend can help clarify your prospect’s decision-making process and ultimately save you both time. There’s no point in moving forward if your products or services are outside of a prospect’s budget.
Pain funnel FAQ
What are the stages that make up the Pain Funnel?
The three stages of the Pain Funnel involve identifying a problem, exploring the cost implications of that problem, and finally, asking about the emotional impact of the problem—all with open-ended questions that increase in specificity as you move down the Pain Funnel.
What comes after the Pain Funnel?
In the Sandler Selling System, the next step after the Pain Funnel is to discuss the prospect’s specific budget to determine whether the solution you’re offering is within the right price range for that potential customer or client.
How is the Pain Funnel different from traditional sales practices?
The Pain Funnel uses an inquisitive and collaborative approach to help prospects identify and understand how your offerings can solve their pain points. This is in contrast to traditional sales practices, which place an emphasis on closing sales versus building an emotional connection.
