Finding the customer’s pain point is crucial to understanding how to structure your sales pitch. A pain point is what your prospect, client, or customer worries about on a daily basis, and what causes their job to be difficult. Generally, the better you can solve or eliminate pain points for your customer, the more successful they will be.

Solving pain points can be the most influential driving force behind a decision to purchase your product or service since it is directly relatable to their ‘pain’ and barrier to success.

Here are some of the most common pain points and challenges by title to start with:

Common Sales Leader Pain Points

• Forecasted deals slipping–
  66% of sales reps miss assigned quota targets
• Not enough new pipeline growth–
  Less than 50% of all forecasted deals close
• Need more sales reps to perform–
  Top 20% of sales reps bring in 80% of revenue
• Sales reps wasting time–
  Less than 30% of sales reps’ time is spent interacting with customers

Tip for engaging Sales Leaders: Focus on sales rep productivity and forecasting.

Common Marketing Leader Pain Points

• Difficulty generating consistent qualified lead flow–
  55% of CMOs struggle with the changing dynamics of buyer relationships
• Lack of visibility into content usage, effectiveness, and engagement–
  70% of marketers created more content than last year, but only 21% successfully tracked ROI
• Capturing buyer attention through the noise–
  57% of buyers have already decided on a solution before speaking to sales
• Demonstrating marketing impact on revenue–
  61% of CMOs are pressured to prove value of marketing
• Shrinking marketing budgets–
  23% of CMOs cite their top challenge as lack of budget for marketing campaigns

Tip for engaging Marketing Leaders: Focus on pipeline generation and content effectiveness.

Common Sales Ops or Operations Pain Points

• Poor pipeline accuracy leading to missing sales forecasts–
  Only 6% of sales leaders are confident in their current sales forecasts
• Lack of visibility into sales opportunities due to inconsistent self-reporting by reps–
  33% of sales reps are more likely to outperform in a well-defined sales process
• Existing sales technology not optimized for sales–
  Less than 59% of sales reps are effective at qualification
• Poor lead qualification–
  Top sales performers are 250% better at qualifying leads than the average rep

Tip for engaging Operations Leaders: Focus on improving sales processes.

Techniques for identifying pain points specific to your customer:

• Initiatives and Plans. Reference issues you have encountered with other leaders in similar industries. For example, use the following script when speaking to a VP of Sales and Marketing: “In talking to Sales and Marketing executives, we consistently hear about challenges in improving rep productivity, improving sales forecasting accuracy, and content effectiveness. Are you dealing with similar challenges?”Follow that with a questions about how they have addressed or attempted to solve the issue: “Are you considering or you do you have technology solutions addressing these issues?”
• Size, Structure, and Growth of Company. Are they experiencing growing pains while attempting to scale? Are there organizational challenges, what do their processes look like and how can they be improved?
• Sales Cycle. What is their average sales cycle length and deal size? What are the key factors that drive deal size and sales cycle?
  Sales cycles can give a lot of insight into bottlenecks and challenges faced by leadership and give you a baseline of their overall business.
• Technology Stack and Infrastructure. Does their company have a CRM system …which one? How does the company store and manage content across Marketing and Sales? Do they use web conferencing or online presentation software?
  Technology can solve problems, but it can also be a major pain point if not implemented or leveraged effectively.
• Decision-makers and Influencers. Who across the organization is involved in decisions about new technologies or processes?
  Often it is the VP or executives who make the decision, but they may be leaving it to the managers to investigate and promote solutions. Know who you should speak to for the different stages of assessment.

ClearSlide can give you insights about your customers and help you find their pain points before you even call them. Through detailed engagement analytics and email tracking, you can better understand your prospects and customers. Try it free today, or request a demo with one of our friendly sales reps.