The Importance of Creating Wants for Clients | Sales Management Training

Quick, write down something tangible you need. Now write down something tangible you want. Put a price tag next to each item. What you generally will learn is that most people’s wants are much more expensive than their needs. Your clients are the same way.

If you focus on analyzing needs, you have missed the most important element of selling: emotion. People decide to do things emotionally and then justify it with logic, not the other way around. Once you have discovered problems, you must ferret out the ones the prospect wants to solve. You are going to have much more success if you focus on his want rather than your logical analysis.

How to Create Wants?

How do you create wants? You must work with the prospect in a consulting manner to help her define the problems and needs, then to clarify the emotional and financial benefits available from solving the problems. A business owner with a net worth of $5 million might want to control his business and wealth long after he is gone. He might want to pay the minimum in taxes and preserve the most for his heirs. Another prospect, with the same financial profile, may not want to talk about his demise or mortality. He may want to maximize his results while living, but not face dying. Trying to force estate or succession planning on prospect number two will create major resistance.

The questions you ask will get the prospect to tell you what he wants from your service and how he sees it benefiting him or his business. Call these questions “benefit questions.” For example, ask, “How would it help you if we worked with you to provide some succession ideas for your company?”

You can ask about the benefits and then ask further questions about the implied benefits your prospect will receive from the solutions. For example, “If you had things planned out, how would that help your spouse? Or your children? Or your business partner?”

Conclusion

When the prospect says to you, “I want this,” or he says, “I need this” you are getting at the wants. It takes an explicit response from your prospect for you to satisfy his wants. That makes the sale.