December 5, 2024
Less is more.
When you talk less and listen more in sales, you engage your prospects, uncover their true pain points, and guide them toward the solution they need—without forcing it.
Sales isn’t about pushing your pitch but fostering meaningful conversations.
But if your sales calls feel like you’re doing all the talking while your prospect just nods along, it's a big red flag. Chances are, they’ve tuned out.
While identifying pain points and offering tailored solutions is key to making a sale, the reality is rarely this straightforward. In many cases, your prospect might not even fully recognize or even have a concrete understanding of their challenge(s).
So, how do you get there? The key is using the Sandler pain funnel.
By helping you uncover need and urgency, the Sandler sales methodology can help you foster a thoughtful conversation that doesn’t sound like yet another sales pitch.
Today, we will take a closer look at the Sandler method and explore how you can use the Sandler pain funnel in sales.
Before we dive in, let’s briefly overview its history.
The year was 1966 and David H. Sandler couldn’t take it anymore.
87 consecutive calls and 87 relentless noes; he felt trapped in a nightmare. The forced grins, the eager pitches, the pressure to close–everything felt hollow and hopeless.
One night, hunched over a cluttered desk, David decided he was done playing by the old rules which certainly didn’t work. If he wanted different results, he needed a different game.
Determined, he reached out to a clinical psychologist, and together they designed a ‘never seen before’ system that shattered stereotypes of pushy salespeople.
Together, they designed a system that shattered the stereotypes of pushy salespeople. It wasn’t about talking over prospects or closing fast—it was about listening, asking real questions, and treating prospects as partners, not targets.
And the Sandler Selling System was born.
What began with 87 noes sparked a revolution that changed the very heart of selling. Suddenly, sales shifted from a battlefield to a conversation built on respect.
The pressure vanished, and both the salesperson and the prospect could breathe.
Pain is a powerful emotion in sales. The Sandler method emphasizes uncovering pain to transform your sales approach. The pain funnel is a tool that helps you reveal a prospect’s pain in a structured way.
The funnel starts broad and narrows down to more specific questions, allowing you to move from surface-level issues to deeper, more impactful problems. It enables you to gather the right insights to help the prospect and avoid jumping to conclusions that could derail the sale.
Yes, it absolutely does. While some argue that it is outdated or even manipulative, its core principles (qualifying, relationship building, and addressing pain points) are beneficial.
Let's explore an alternative perspective to grasp the critical importance of the Sandler pain funnel in sales.
Consider this: Everytime you visit a doctor for consultation, you don’t exchange (scripted) conversations like these:
“Hey, how are you?”
“I’m great.”
“Glad to hear it! You’re good to go. Have a nice day!”
“Thanks.”
Right?
Neither do they start scribbling hastily on a prescription without listening to you or understanding your symptoms. That would be preposterous, making you question their expertise, trustworthiness, and lack of concern towards their patient. (And you aren’t consulting them anymore!)
But here’s what doctors actually do. Before sharing their prognosis (forecasting the likely outcome or course of action), they begin with, “What brings you in today?” and follow up with questions to pinpoint the exact issue. 6-10 questions later, they have made you talk about your symptoms, diagnose them, and suggest the best prognosis accordingly.
Similarly, in sales, rushing to offer solutions without fully grasping a prospect’s pain points can create a disconnect, making you seem indifferent and detached. Instead, dig deeper, get to the root of their problem(s), and diagnose it.
Here’s an interesting tidbit: David Sandler used the submarine metaphor to describe his sales strategy. Inspired by WWII movies where submarines shifted compartments to avoid flooding, Sandler saw a parallel in sales—salespeople needed to navigate conversations carefully, address key issues, and steer clear of objections!
At its core, the Sandler sales method covers 7 key steps:
This blog focuses on the third step: uncovering the true pain points.
One of the most valuable insights Sandler discovered was simple: pressure kills sales. He realized that reducing pressure for both the seller and buyer turned the process into a relaxed conversation about real value, instead of a relentless chase for the sale.
The Sandler pain funnel offers a different outlook to sales questioning. The ultimate goal is to maintain a natural dialogue, guiding the buyer through the unique and unpredictable paths of their specific business challenge.
Remember, people buy based on emotions and justify their decisions with logic. If your solution doesn’t address their pain, they won’t explore it.
The Sandler sales questioning technique unfolds in the below sequence:
Asking this can encourage prospects to elaborate on their problem statements, allowing you to gather more information about their current situation. It helps you move beyond surface-level information and understand the underlying issues more clearly.
This question can help narrow down the focus and allow you to identify the exact challenge that needs to be solved. It can also help you understand not just the general issue but how it manifests in real life.
By asking for specifics and examples, you encourage the prospect to provide concrete details that paint a clearer picture of their problem.
This question uncovers the duration of the issue, providing insight into how persistent and long-standing the problem is. Understanding the length of time the prospect has dealt with the issue helps you gauge the urgency and severity of their pain. Asking this can give you an opportunity to highlight how long the prospect has been missing out on a solution.
Asking about previous attempts reveals what the prospect has already tried to solve their issue. This gives you insight into what’s worked, what hasn’t, and where gaps might exist. This will allow you to avoid suggesting previously ruled-out solutions, and identify areas where they actually require support.
The result is a more informed approach, showing that you understand their efforts and can offer something new.
Asking this can help you evaluate the success of past attempts and help the prospect reflect on why those efforts fell short. It provides you with valuable information about their expectations and frustrations, highlighting the inadequacies of current solutions. The result is an opening for you to demonstrate how your offering can effectively address their unmet needs.
By asking the prospect to quantify the impact of the problem, you help them realize the true cost of their pain. This question also emphasizes the financial or operational consequences, making the problem more tangible. It also makes the pain feel more urgent and real, increasing the likelihood they’ll consider a solution.
Asking this can help you tap into the emotional side of the prospect’s pain, helping you connect on a deeper level. Understanding their feelings allows you to empathize with their frustration, stress, or disappointment. Moreover, you can humanize the conversation and establish your efforts and concern toward solving their problem.
The result is a stronger rapport and trust, laying the groundwork for a deeper connection.
Lastly, asking this question gauges the prospect’s level of frustration and commitment to finding a solution. It helps you understand whether the prospect is ready to engage in a solution or if they’ve mentally moved on. This creates an opportunity for you to reframe the situation and motivate them to take action.
Don’t simply go by the above script. Feel free to tweak it in order to build a genuine conversation with your prospect. If you have a different question that may uncover more about your prospect’s pain points or an effective sales script, you can use them instead of the above sequence of questions.
From a neutral standpoint, the Sandler pain funnel is essentially about radical empathy—a concept often discussed but rarely practiced. In today’s sales world, the focus has shifted so heavily toward transactions that we often overlook the core of the job: truly understanding people.
The key is not shying away from diving into the pain points in sales, so you can offer the right solution. Moreover, the pain funnel is just a part of the Sandler sales methodology.
To transition from the pain stage to the next one, consider reviewing your conversation(s) to pinpoint desirable outcomes or plan the subsequent steps.
Imagine saving hours of your time on this by simply adding Sybill to your calls. After each conversation, it automatically summarizes the next steps in a clear, concise format, ensuring no detail is missed. Fascinating, isn’t it?
While we are on that topic, Sybill also captures key takeaways, pain points, and interests from everyone on the call, giving you the insights you need to craft a more tailored and effective pitch. It's not just efficient—it's the smart way to close deals faster and more effectively.
Want to sign up for a free demo and test Sybill’s intelligence?
Less is more.
When you talk less and listen more in sales, you engage your prospects, uncover their true pain points, and guide them toward the solution they need—without forcing it.
Sales isn’t about pushing your pitch but fostering meaningful conversations.
But if your sales calls feel like you’re doing all the talking while your prospect just nods along, it's a big red flag. Chances are, they’ve tuned out.
While identifying pain points and offering tailored solutions is key to making a sale, the reality is rarely this straightforward. In many cases, your prospect might not even fully recognize or even have a concrete understanding of their challenge(s).
So, how do you get there? The key is using the Sandler pain funnel.
By helping you uncover need and urgency, the Sandler sales methodology can help you foster a thoughtful conversation that doesn’t sound like yet another sales pitch.
Today, we will take a closer look at the Sandler method and explore how you can use the Sandler pain funnel in sales.
Before we dive in, let’s briefly overview its history.
The year was 1966 and David H. Sandler couldn’t take it anymore.
87 consecutive calls and 87 relentless noes; he felt trapped in a nightmare. The forced grins, the eager pitches, the pressure to close–everything felt hollow and hopeless.
One night, hunched over a cluttered desk, David decided he was done playing by the old rules which certainly didn’t work. If he wanted different results, he needed a different game.
Determined, he reached out to a clinical psychologist, and together they designed a ‘never seen before’ system that shattered stereotypes of pushy salespeople.
Together, they designed a system that shattered the stereotypes of pushy salespeople. It wasn’t about talking over prospects or closing fast—it was about listening, asking real questions, and treating prospects as partners, not targets.
And the Sandler Selling System was born.
What began with 87 noes sparked a revolution that changed the very heart of selling. Suddenly, sales shifted from a battlefield to a conversation built on respect.
The pressure vanished, and both the salesperson and the prospect could breathe.
Pain is a powerful emotion in sales. The Sandler method emphasizes uncovering pain to transform your sales approach. The pain funnel is a tool that helps you reveal a prospect’s pain in a structured way.
The funnel starts broad and narrows down to more specific questions, allowing you to move from surface-level issues to deeper, more impactful problems. It enables you to gather the right insights to help the prospect and avoid jumping to conclusions that could derail the sale.
Yes, it absolutely does. While some argue that it is outdated or even manipulative, its core principles (qualifying, relationship building, and addressing pain points) are beneficial.
Let's explore an alternative perspective to grasp the critical importance of the Sandler pain funnel in sales.
Consider this: Everytime you visit a doctor for consultation, you don’t exchange (scripted) conversations like these:
“Hey, how are you?”
“I’m great.”
“Glad to hear it! You’re good to go. Have a nice day!”
“Thanks.”
Right?
Neither do they start scribbling hastily on a prescription without listening to you or understanding your symptoms. That would be preposterous, making you question their expertise, trustworthiness, and lack of concern towards their patient. (And you aren’t consulting them anymore!)
But here’s what doctors actually do. Before sharing their prognosis (forecasting the likely outcome or course of action), they begin with, “What brings you in today?” and follow up with questions to pinpoint the exact issue. 6-10 questions later, they have made you talk about your symptoms, diagnose them, and suggest the best prognosis accordingly.
Similarly, in sales, rushing to offer solutions without fully grasping a prospect’s pain points can create a disconnect, making you seem indifferent and detached. Instead, dig deeper, get to the root of their problem(s), and diagnose it.
Here’s an interesting tidbit: David Sandler used the submarine metaphor to describe his sales strategy. Inspired by WWII movies where submarines shifted compartments to avoid flooding, Sandler saw a parallel in sales—salespeople needed to navigate conversations carefully, address key issues, and steer clear of objections!
At its core, the Sandler sales method covers 7 key steps:
This blog focuses on the third step: uncovering the true pain points.
One of the most valuable insights Sandler discovered was simple: pressure kills sales. He realized that reducing pressure for both the seller and buyer turned the process into a relaxed conversation about real value, instead of a relentless chase for the sale.
The Sandler pain funnel offers a different outlook to sales questioning. The ultimate goal is to maintain a natural dialogue, guiding the buyer through the unique and unpredictable paths of their specific business challenge.
Remember, people buy based on emotions and justify their decisions with logic. If your solution doesn’t address their pain, they won’t explore it.
The Sandler sales questioning technique unfolds in the below sequence:
Asking this can encourage prospects to elaborate on their problem statements, allowing you to gather more information about their current situation. It helps you move beyond surface-level information and understand the underlying issues more clearly.
This question can help narrow down the focus and allow you to identify the exact challenge that needs to be solved. It can also help you understand not just the general issue but how it manifests in real life.
By asking for specifics and examples, you encourage the prospect to provide concrete details that paint a clearer picture of their problem.
This question uncovers the duration of the issue, providing insight into how persistent and long-standing the problem is. Understanding the length of time the prospect has dealt with the issue helps you gauge the urgency and severity of their pain. Asking this can give you an opportunity to highlight how long the prospect has been missing out on a solution.
Asking about previous attempts reveals what the prospect has already tried to solve their issue. This gives you insight into what’s worked, what hasn’t, and where gaps might exist. This will allow you to avoid suggesting previously ruled-out solutions, and identify areas where they actually require support.
The result is a more informed approach, showing that you understand their efforts and can offer something new.
Asking this can help you evaluate the success of past attempts and help the prospect reflect on why those efforts fell short. It provides you with valuable information about their expectations and frustrations, highlighting the inadequacies of current solutions. The result is an opening for you to demonstrate how your offering can effectively address their unmet needs.
By asking the prospect to quantify the impact of the problem, you help them realize the true cost of their pain. This question also emphasizes the financial or operational consequences, making the problem more tangible. It also makes the pain feel more urgent and real, increasing the likelihood they’ll consider a solution.
Asking this can help you tap into the emotional side of the prospect’s pain, helping you connect on a deeper level. Understanding their feelings allows you to empathize with their frustration, stress, or disappointment. Moreover, you can humanize the conversation and establish your efforts and concern toward solving their problem.
The result is a stronger rapport and trust, laying the groundwork for a deeper connection.
Lastly, asking this question gauges the prospect’s level of frustration and commitment to finding a solution. It helps you understand whether the prospect is ready to engage in a solution or if they’ve mentally moved on. This creates an opportunity for you to reframe the situation and motivate them to take action.
Don’t simply go by the above script. Feel free to tweak it in order to build a genuine conversation with your prospect. If you have a different question that may uncover more about your prospect’s pain points or an effective sales script, you can use them instead of the above sequence of questions.
From a neutral standpoint, the Sandler pain funnel is essentially about radical empathy—a concept often discussed but rarely practiced. In today’s sales world, the focus has shifted so heavily toward transactions that we often overlook the core of the job: truly understanding people.
The key is not shying away from diving into the pain points in sales, so you can offer the right solution. Moreover, the pain funnel is just a part of the Sandler sales methodology.
To transition from the pain stage to the next one, consider reviewing your conversation(s) to pinpoint desirable outcomes or plan the subsequent steps.
Imagine saving hours of your time on this by simply adding Sybill to your calls. After each conversation, it automatically summarizes the next steps in a clear, concise format, ensuring no detail is missed. Fascinating, isn’t it?
While we are on that topic, Sybill also captures key takeaways, pain points, and interests from everyone on the call, giving you the insights you need to craft a more tailored and effective pitch. It's not just efficient—it's the smart way to close deals faster and more effectively.
Want to sign up for a free demo and test Sybill’s intelligence?
