Keep A Symptom Diary
The title of this post was the number one of six tips for patients I recently read from an insider on how to make the most of your ten-minute slot with a doctor on a fresh ailment.
Fortuitously relevant for a prospect that is experiencing business pain, here are a quintet of readily transferable details onto our solution sell purpose.
Ask prospects to track when the symptoms started, what they are, how they have progressed and what, if anything, made them better or worse.
Get them to note the ways it’s affecting their worklife. Eg, what is it interrupting, preventing or creating delay and friction around. As well as any up- or down-stream tension being caused.
Have a place worked out where you record symptoms and their effects. Use words that describe the 'pain'. Flag whether it's persistent, sporadic or 'come and go' in nature.
Try and determine both symptom source and where it gets spotted, where it reveals itself, as well.
Take photographs if applicable of unpleasantness caused, havoc wreaked. Or at least something visible like a screenshot. And see if you can also track how it has changed over time. In which such light the before/after treatment can also prove most handy.
I actually think the label 'symptom' for such diary is a decent one we could also use. It might make it easier for certain prospect personalities to get behind. Slightly disarming and without tacit stigmatising of blame.
Which also suggests that the very agreement of a prospect to conduct such a diary (which we might want to put a finite time span to) is a potential high-value qualification tool too.