The Other Compelling Reasons

You can find many articles about compelling reasons in the Baseline Selling Tip archives.  In nearly all of the articles, the focus is on identifying the prospects' compelling reasons to buy from you.  Do you remember the promotion that the Pork Industry used to run? - The Other White Meat.  Well this article is about the Other Compelling Reasons - their reasons NOT to buy. 

Uncovering their compelling reasons NOT to buy takes place between 2nd and 3rd base, as opposed to the compelling reasons TO buy which take place between 1st and 2nd base. Your prospects do not directly bring up their compelling reasons NOT to buy so you don't usually know what they are.  So, like their compelling cousins, you must identify them or you won't be able to address them.  These compelling reasons hide behind questions and objections, which they use as smoke screens to inadvertently hide them from you.  Your job is to use the Infield Why Rule to learn the reasons for their questions and objections - their compelling reasons.

We had an example of this in last week's boot camp.  The salesperson was selling an event service to membership organizations.  The prospect asked, "have you had other successful implementations?"

Prior to the boot camp the salesperson always answered that question; but what did he learn as a result?  Nothing. And is a 'yes' answer what the prospect feels compelled to discover?

If the salesperson asks, rather than answers that question using the Infield Why Rule, the question might sound like this one: "Of course, but why are you concerned about that?"

The prospect answered, "Because I'm afraid of running an event that fails".

And the salesperson responds with, "What are you afraid of?"

And the prospect said, "Embarrassing myself."

So the prospect's compelling reason not to buy is fear of embarrassment.  If you know both their compelling reasons to buy as well as their compelling reasons not to buy, you can address both sets of compelling reasons when you are running home and presenting your needs and cost appropriate solution.