People tend to buy when they are in pain. This makes sense when you think about it, right? When you’re uncomfortable or lacking something, you’ll be a lot more likely to buy then when you’re feeling content and don’t think you need anything. That’s obvious and it’s a big reason why many sales strategies and techniques focus around finding and recognizing customer pain points.

However, what isn’t discussed as much is that nothing interrupts a person’s behavior programming like pain does.

All of us have things that we “always” do or that we “never” do. For instance, someone may “never” stay in any hotel but a Marriott. But when they’re stranded somewhere, tired, overwhelmed, and the only place to stay is a Best Western, they’ll book a room. 

Holly and I were on a vacation with the kids once. We’d been driving for a while and there wasn’t much around us, which was fine. It was actually quite relaxing to be away from the hustle and bustle for a while. Then the hunger struck. 

Anyone with children knows this scenario. It starts with a quick “I’m hungry!” from the backseat and soon these calls turn annoyed and aggravated and desperate. Yes, no one is actually starving in this situation, but try telling that to kids. They want food and they’re going to be miserable until they get it.

Then you start feeling miserable. 

Now you’re annoyed and your wife is annoyed and the kids are annoyed and what was a fun, relaxing vacation just a short time ago has now become a car filled with stress and anger. 

That’s exactly what happened to us—and then we saw the Golden Arches.

We never eat McDonald’s and it certainly wasn’t where we planned on having lunch that day, but you had better believe that soon it was Happy Meals and Big Macs all around. Here’s the thing, it worked! We stopped, ate lunch, and suddenly everyone felt better. The rest of the drive was back to being peaceful and enjoyable.

The reality though is that we never would have stopped at that McDonald’s if it wasn’t for the pain we were experiencing.

When pain is at its highest level, people will do just about anything to stop it, including things they’d otherwise “never” do. 

What does this mean for your sales tactics?

In the intelligence gathering process, discover the prospect’s pain point, then amplify it elegantly.

In the absence of pain, people will wait for the absolute perfect deal or situation, which never happens. What you’re offering may be very good or even great, but getting the perfect price, timing, solution and guarantee for a potential customer is nearly impossible. So, you have to be able to introduce pain. How do you do this? The Martinelli Sales Method gives you the information and guidance you need.