Selling toward the "Want"

In the book Rapid Sales Success the golden rule is “sell them what they want and deliver what they want and need”. The reason for this is contained in the definition of the two words.

Want = feel or have a desire for; want strongly
Need = require as useful, just, or proper

The book further states that a “perceived need” is a want – by the prospect. Selling to a ‘desire’ is always better, as opposed to trying to convert a need into a desire (want). It is just more efficient.

To accomplish this we created a Commonality of Issues Sheet (CIS) for our prospects, based upon actual surveys of previous buyers, by asking the previous buyer why they purchased. We came up with fifteen choice reasons for our test industry product/service, put them into a form that stated them as questions, and two boxes to be checked as “In Control” or “Needs Improvement” by each one. We then have new prospects fill out the newly created form and only address the ones that prospects tell us “Needs Improvement”. This is their reality level – these are their wants.

Prospects do know what they “want” when put into this encoded format.

We also developed a process called the Rapid Recall System (RRS) to address what I called The Evil Twins of Procrastination and Hesitation that we see in a lot of prospects. When someone has checked “Needs Improvement” on an item off of the Commonality of Issues Sheet, we address each of those items with this simple RSS question format. This generally addresses your last question also on ‘People who fear the risks associated with change’.