How long do you wait before you see a dentist when you have a toothache?

A lot of people will try to tough it out for a couple days and see if it’s going to get better and magically go away. In most cases, it doesn’t. Soon enough the pain becomes so great that you do something about it—and you do it with urgency.

You don’t have to think about it. You don’t have anything more important or any competing commitments at this point. Your pain places this decision right at the top of your list.

Now, let me ask you this: What is the pain your prospect has?

Chances are, unless you are selling something in the medical field where real physical pain is driving the decision, the pain your client feels is something that makes life difficult for them. In these cases, they often think they can live with for a few more days, weeks, or even months.

So, what can you do to get them to make the decision and take action?

Influencing your prospect into taking action starts and ends with the questions you ask. In the intelligence gathering phase of the sales process, you have to have questions that make the client aware of their pain and the future pain of indecision.

For instance, ask them to share the natural progression of their situation. Get them to think about the likely results of putting off their decision. This can go a long way towards bringing the need for what you do to the forefront of their thinking.

Have them share the ways they micromanage their team or process, or how much of their time and creative energy is wasted by trying to manage things. This can influence them to make a decision since they’ll really begin to think about resolving their problem now rather than waiting.

There are costs to delaying a buying decision. There is always a trade off for indecision. You need to understand what those costs are and make your prospect aware of them. 

Today would be a great day for you to take some time and really think about the costs of your prospect’s indecision. Then create an elegant language pattern for how you will bring it into their awareness. Here’s an example:

“What needs to happen for this to get so out of control and so unproductive that you will be forced into making the decision you know you need to make? I don’t want you to be in a space where you go from wanting to resolve this to where you have to resolve this. Why don’t we get started today? In no time, this problem will be solved and you can go back to working on your business instead of in your business.”

Remember, experience is your best teacher. The sooner you work on solving this problem, the sooner your clients will begin to solve theirs and then everyone wins.