The most basic rule of New School Selling is “no pain, no sale”. If you are unable to get a prospect to open up with you and share with you 
their concerns, fears and what is keeping them up at night, your conversation with them will be intellectual and will by default become one of talking about product, service and price. This sales technique is designed to help you begin to “peel the onion” by asking powerful, piercing and penetrating questions. Master this and you can become rich. If you don’t, master this you will continue to waste time with unqualified prospects and get your brains beat out. So, I hope you enjoy this example, and hope you learn from it. The most basic rule of New School Selling is “no pain, no sale”. If you are unable to get a prospect to open up with you and share with you their concerns, fears and what is keeping them up at night, your conversation with them will be intellectual and will by default become one of talking about product, service and price. This sales technique is designed to help you begin to “peel the onion” by asking powerful, piercing and penetrating questions. Master this and you can become rich. If you don’t, master this you will continue to waste time with unqualified prospects and get your brains beat out. So, I hope you enjoy this example, and hope you learn from it.
BTW – don’t make the mistake thinking that this sales technique will only work if you sell commercial insurance. The concept is valid, so put on your thinking cap and figure out how to apply this concept to your business.
Role Play of Sales Technique: How to Extract Pain
Kevin: Steve, I presume you use sub-contractors?
Steve: Sure.
Kevin: Painting, plumbing, all of them?
Steve: All of them.
Kevin: Okay.
Steve: Yeah, we sub everything out.
Kevin: Okay, so there’s a lot of payroll there that could or could not fall under your comp payroll?
Steve: Sure. These are people that own their own business so I’ll really consider that part of what we do. I’ll consider that part of our estimated payroll.
Kevin: ‘Cause they own their own businesses.
Kevin: Now, do you understand that if they get hurt on the job and workers’ comp is not in place or exemption is not in place, do you understand that your workers’ comp pays for them? (Develop credibility and trust by asking a question they don’t know the answer to)
Steve: I wasn’t aware of that.
Kevin: If they provide you with a certificate of workers’ comp and for some reason, those aren’t good, or they’re out of date and they have an employee injury, your workers’ comp is responsible. You’re responsible to pay for injury. Consequently, if the same thing happens and the certificate is not good and the exemption is out of place, they’re going to pick up that payroll. You’re going to be paying premium on that after the fact. Were you aware of that too?
Steve: I wasn’t aware of that. (more pain)
Kevin: When your agent came out to explain all this, and the massive changes just took place in the exemption process, what did you talk about? (assumptive questioning technique designed to drive a wedge between the prospect and his existing agent)
Steve: He hasn’t been out here. We haven’t had that conversation.
Kevin: I don’t understand how he couldn’t come out here when all you use is sub-contractors. You got so much exposure. Your premium could be five times higher. I can’t understand why he wouldn’t come. (driving the wedge deeper)
Steve: Well, yes, he told me not to worry about it.
Kevin: And do you agree? (driving the wedge deeper)
Steve: I don’t know. Beginning to wonder right now. (now he is doubting his agent’s competency)
Kevin: Nothing to worry about on his end, but what about your end? You’re paying 12,000 in premiums? It goes sixty, is that something to worry about?
Steve: I’d be pissed off if that happened. (more pain)
Kevin: You can be pissed off all you want but you’re going to owe it.
Steve: So, what can you do?
Kevin: I don’t know. I’ll tell you what I would’ve done. I would’ve been out here ahead of time explaining this to you. It’s water under the bridge. He wasn’t out here explaining what you should’ve done. We’re here now trying to help you. But he wasn’t out here the time he needed to be out here. Right? Wrong?
Steve: That’s right, yeah.
To help you understand how to implement this powerful sales technique, I created a role play. Since this was not recorded in a studio the audio leaves a bit to be desired. That said, the content is awesome and I thought you would want to hear this anyway. To listen to this powerful sales technique role play click here.