This post is Part I of our Steve Weyl series. Click here for Part II!

Time kills deals.

If you don’t give the buyer a reason to buy today, they won’t.

As soon as you leave after giving a bid, your customer holds all the cards. They can discuss the price with friends, call up other local contractors to compare bids, or dive into a Google search for other potential options.

So, how do you get someone to buy today? We sat down with Steve Weyl, a nationally renowned sales trainer who grew his roofing company from $0 to $105 million, to find out.

His answer? Find your buyer’s pain point and use it.

How to uncover pain

Whether it’s fixing a roof or remodeling a kitchen, home improvement buyers are motivated by a combination of two factors: pleasure and pain. On the surface, remodeling a kitchen seems like a pleasure purchase and fixing a leaky roof seems to be motivated by pain.

But when there’s pleasure, there’s also pain — and without pain, there’s no sale.

Through his decades of selling to all types of buyers, Steve has learned that pain is always more motivating than pleasure. This means that while a buyer may want to get a new roof, they want to avoid additional leaks and money wasted even more.

When you uncover a buyer’s pain, you uncover a reason to solve that problem today.

Here’s Steve’s 3-step process for uncovering pain:

1. Ask questions about the project. Consider a buyer who wants to remodel their bathroom. On the surface, the customer may seem to be motivated by pleasure. But if you dig a bit deeper and ask questions like, “Why are you choosing to remodel now?” or “What do you dislike about your current bathroom?”, you’ll begin to uncover pain.

2. Hone in on their pain points. If your buyer admits that they’re remodeling the bathroom to avoid embarrassment at their upcoming family reunion, ask them why they’re embarrassed. They might mention that they have wealthy relatives who would judge their dated, 1970s-style bathroom. NOW you have pain.

3. Emphasize the need to act now. When your buyer realizes their pain, the need to find a solution will become more urgent. You can help the buyer commit by saying something like, “I’m ready to help you fix this problem and have a beautifully remodeled bathroom by the time of the reunion. Are you willing to solve your problem today?”

Remember: don’t use pain to confuse or manipulate your customer — use it as a tool to help your buyer understand the ramifications of not making or delaying a decision.

What if a customer still can’t commit? How do you create pain during a tough sale? Steve has the answers to these questions and much more. Check out his proven sales playbook in Hearth’s Sales and Business Builder Webcast.