Gap Selling
Gap Selling
Gap Selling:
Focusing on Customer Problems
Gap Selling is a simple but effective sales method that really seems custom-made for the home service industry. This method was created by sales guru Keenan who wrote an entire book on the subject where he teaches you what it is and how you should use it. But, if reading through an entire book cannot fit on your to-do list, then allow The Service Strategist to give you the rundown of this effective sales tactic. In short, Gap Selling moves away from showcasing the features and benefits of products and instead tries to discover what problem the customer has and how your product solves that problem.
Or, the customer is at point ‘A’ living with their problem and they can see point B, a future with their problem solved, and your product is the bridge between those two points, a bridge to a more comfortable future.
How large the gap is between A and B determines how motivated the customer is to buy your solution.
Your role as a sales consultant is to get the customer in the mindset of seeing their present problem and the future they could be living. Your sales tactics are not to pressure them to buy your product because it’s so great, but to realize that it is the product they actually need to start living a better tomorrow.
The 3 Places of Gap Selling
Before we jump into some of the finer details of Gap Selling, let’s make it crystal clear how this three-stage process works at each of its locations. Gap Selling has three places, The Current Location, The Destination, and The Gap.
The Current Location
The customer is currently here. You want to find out the literal and physical environment they are in. In the case of home services, it would be somewhere in their home, like a specific room.
- What problems are they dealing with in the home and how is it impacting their day-to-day life?
- Finally, how do they feel emotionally about that room, are they indifferent, annoyed, or somewhere in between?
The Destination
This is the end result, but it is important to get the customer to look into the future and help the customer see themselves there.
- What is the literal change they want to see or feel?
- What does their new physical environment look like?
- How would they feel in the future if the physical environment shifted?
The Gap
The Gap is the hurdle in the mind you are helping them get over and your product/service bridges their current state of mind over the gap.
- How big is the space between the current location and the destination? Is it a new filter or a new system?
- Is the gap big enough to make the customer even consider something worthwhile?
- What is the cost? Think: Time, money, and labor?
- Is the cost worth bridging the gap to their ideal destination?
You need to form your own questions that mirror the ones above. Your goal is not to ask the customer how much the solution is worth to them, but to make them see living without your product is more painful. By digging up the pain points, you make the destination a more desirable place to be.
How to Gap Sell
First, be an expert in your trade but remember you are not there to brag about how knowledgeable you are to the customer. Instead, you are on a fact-finding mission to discover the root cause of the customer’s problem. Even if you know the problem, your goal is to make them see it clearly by guiding them there.
Get inside the head of your customer, and then help them imagine where they are now and where they could be. With these sample questions, we are setting the groundwork for discovering their Current Location.
- Are there any rooms too cold in the winter? Too hot in the summer?
- I felt your bedroom upstairs was rather hot, is that a guest room?
- How comfortable are you sitting in your home office? Do you work from home?
- How old is your furnace? Was it there before you moved in?
Be ready to pivot, and follow their lead, if they mention the air conditioner, maybe you ask what that air smells like. So, it smells kind of musty you say, “Let’s take a look at the ductwork maybe a cleaning needs to be done rather than a whole new AC unit.”
From the home service point of view, Gap selling is a conversation about the home and if they are comfortable with every room. Your goal is to reveal where the customer is, where they could go, and what they feel in each of those places.
Success Factors of Good Gap Sellers
- Continuous Personal Growth: Your industry changes every day in some small way, and before you know it you are a year behind your competitors who always seek the smallest of edges and percentages. All of it adds up to a win.
- Listen: Don’t let your sales staff talk the ears off the customer. Think of it as a 60-40 split, the customer talks the 60% by the way!
- Questions Are Key: Ask them mostly questions so you can narrow in on the why of their problem. Come up with a list of questions for each home service product you sell.
- Solve Problems: Do not list features they barely understand or care for. Explain how the home service fixes that one room or element in the home they are unhappy with. You are fixing their problem not simply providing a strategy for them to use on their own, you are doing it.
- Have an Open Heart: Connect, and develop a genuine, but professional, relationship with the customer. A Trades Company calls them clients!
- Never Stop Learning: Put your ego aside and ask those around you for feedback. If you’re the sales manager nit-pick every detail during the debrief but let your sales consultant know it’s just for their growth and not a reprimand.
- An Eye on the Future: Look into the future and think about what their home may need in the upcoming season. You’re here in the winter, why not in the summer too!
We have only peeled back the top layers of Keenan’s book. A Trades Company makes this book required reading for our sales staff.
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