Whether you sell professional services or nuts & bolts, whether your customers are Fortune 500 companies or consumers, you still must identify what your prospect wants to improve, or what pain they want to relieve, in order to make the sale.

Scott Bailey, well-known Orange County licensee of Sandler Sales Institute, shared these key questions for getting your prospect in touch, at an emotional level, with the pain they want to get rid of.

1. What is the pain, and how do you uncover it? This is the interview process in which you discover what they may not know themselves. This is where you ask and listen, rather than try to sell.

2. How long has your prospect had the pain? If it’s been around a long time, there may be no urgency to get rid of it.

3. What have they done in the past to fix this pain? Their answer reveals their thinking process, and how much importance they place on a solution.

4. Why hasn’t what they have done in the past worked? Here you find out who else they’ve used, or what you’re really up against, or how they themselves might be sabotaging the solution.

5. How much is the problem costing them or their company? This is critical, because it will help you and the prospect understand the value of a solution, and put your fee for solving the problem in perspective.

Assuming your prospect isn’t fully aware of their pain, you may hear "an intellectual smoke screen" before you get to the actual pain. Listen for words like sick of, worried, concerned, frustrated, angry, afraid, etc. to know when you’re hearing emotion, the driving force behind buying decisions.

As Sandler puts it, "Once your prospect realizes his or her pain, money is no object in finding a cure.