Gap Analysis

By: Brian Tracy

Identify the Real Need of the Prospect 
As a salesperson, you are in the business of gap analysis. You are a "problem detective." Your job, somewhat like a police inspector searching for suspects, is to find problems for which your product or service is the ideal solution. In a way, your product or service is a key. You make calls looking for locks that your key will open. In the prospecting phase, you insert the key and find that it fits. In the presenting phase, you twist the key and open the lock. In the closing phase, you turn the handle and push the door open. 

Use Questions As Sales Tools 
Like a verbal detective, the tools of your trade are questions. You use them to get appointments, uncover problems, and discover gaps between where the prospect is now and where the prospect could be by using your product or service. You then show the prospect how much better his situation could be by owning and enjoying what you are selling. 

Clarify the Need  
There is an old saying, "No need? No presentation!" Before you begin your presentation, it must be clear to the prospect that there is a distance between where he is and where he could be. The prospect must recognize that he has a need that is unsatisfied or a problem that is unsolved. The prospect must also feel that the gap between the real and the ideal is large enough to warrant taking action. 

Build Buying Desire 
Buying desire is in direct proportion to the intensity of the buyer's need on the one hand, and to the clarity of the solution represented by your product or service on the other. This process of taking the prospect from cold to luke warm to hot is accomplished by the skillful use of questions that uncover the gap and then expand it to the point where the customer is ready to take buying action. 

Putting These Ideas Into Action
Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, ask good questions aimed at uncovering the real need or problem the customer has. Listen attentively to the answers. Never assume that you know already. 

Second, the larger the gap the customer sees between where he is today and where he could be by using your product or service, the greater is his desire to buy. Show him continually the size of this gap.