"Problems are facts, pain is feeling." This mantra is tattooed on my brain for a reason.

I recently reviewed a sales call where a service provider uncovered a complete train wreck of a client situation. The prospect agreed with every single finding, yet still refused to pay to fix it. Why? Because the seller was pitching problems, not pain.

In this episode, I explain why clients can acknowledge a problem but still refuse to solve it. I’ll show you how to connect the dots between technical facts and the emotional or business impact that actually drives a purchase. If you’re presenting logical solutions but still losing deals, this is exactly what you need to hear.

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Welcome to Repeatable Revenue, hosted by strategic growth advisor , Ray J. Green.

About Ray:

→ Former Managing Director of National Small & Midsize Business at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he doubled revenue per sale in fundraising, led the first increase in SMB membership, co-built a national Mid-Market sales channel, and more.

→ Former CEO operator for several investor groups where he led turnarounds of recently acquired small businesses.

→ Current founder of MSP Sales Partners, where we currently help IT companies scale sales: www.MSPSalesPartners.com

→ Current Sales & Sales Management Expert in Residence at the world’s largest IT business mastermind.

→ Current Managing Partner of Repeatable Revenue Ventures, where we scale B2B companies we have equity in: www.RayJGreen.com

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This is tattooed on my brain. It is: Problems are facts, pain is feeling.

And if you were only selling facts, you were going to lose. I don't care if you're selling IT services, marketing consulting, whatever it is. If your prospect sees all of the problems that they have and they're still not buying from you, it's because you haven't identified pain.

I'm going to share what I mean here. Now, real quick, if you like reading this type of stuff and applying it, that's what my email newsletter is for. You can subscribe to that; it's at raysemail.com.

So, all right, so I'm reviewing this sales call from someone who's selling IT services. And they've done a network exam—you know, so they go in, they look at the infrastructure during the sales process, they find all sorts of problems. The IT was a complete train wreck, right? And so they bring these findings to the proposal call, and they present all the problems. The prospect sees everything, doesn't argue with it. Like, "Yeah, I get it. Okay." It's all accurate. So, accepts that they have all of these problems.

At the end of the call, they still thought $2,000 a month was too much. Even with vulnerabilities, even with risk to the network, redundancies, inefficiencies—like, all the stuff that was presented—the $2,000 a month was still too expensive.

And the seller was like, "So, what gives here? Like, they look at it... why are they not buying? They clearly have fucking problems."

When your prospect sees that they've got those problems and they don't want to fix them, what's happening is you've identified problems; you haven't identified pain.

Back to the beginning: Problems are facts and pain is feeling.

So, let me give you a different example. Say I break my shoulder riding down the hill on my bike. Like, that's a problem. That's a fact. That's what actually happened. But the pain? The pain is that excruciating feeling I've got in my shoulder now, like when it happened. But it's also... there's emotional pain, you know? Like, what if I've been training for an Ironman for three or four months? And I ride down the hill, I break my shoulder, I now look at this: I'm not going to be able to race. I'm frustrated, I'm disappointed. I feel like I've wasted the last several months on all this training. I've got physical pain; I've got emotional pain.

The problem itself—the fact—is different than the pain.

And in the business world, or in the sales world, this plays out all the time. Because you go through, and as a seller, you identify all of these problems. Right? So with IT, it's, you know, cracked passwords, and too many admins on 365, and they've got vulnerabilities, and you know, they're not training their employees on how to avoid phishing scams, and... shit all over the place, right?

Okay, great. You've told me what the problems are, but you haven't really clarified how that impacts me. Like, what is the business impact of that problem? Why should I care? Why does that create a pain for me?

And if you tell me I've got too many admins or you tell me I've got cracked passwords, but it's not obvious to me what the symptoms I'm going to experience as a result of that are... like if I'm not complaining about those things, then you've got to help me understand that. You've got to help me connect the dots. How does that problem create pain? How does it show or manifest itself into a symptom that I'm going to actually experience? Like something that I want to go away.

Because if I don't understand how that problem creates pain, it's not going to be a priority for me to fix it. Then I'm not going to want to spend money to fix something that I don't fully appreciate is causing me any pain.

And to me, like, this is just the perfect example of why you end up with so many people selling services and they're like, "Hey, this person's situation is a train wreck." And not just IT—like, I see this with all kinds of services—and people still, prospects not being motivated to actually move forward.

And it's because, again, if I don't feel the pain, I'm not motivated to invest money, invest time, invest effort, deal with the cost of switching, deal with the perceived risk of trying something new. None of those things... if I don't have a symptom that I necessarily want to go away.

Once you connect the problem to the pain, the decision for the prospect gets a hell of a lot easier.

Problems are facts. Pain is feeling. And pain sells a hell of a lot more than problems. Hope it helps. Adios.