How to Identify Prospect Pain Points for SDR Success

I got ghosted by 127 LinkedIn prospects in 2017. Then I discovered the pattern. So there I am... Fresh SDR me refreshing my inbox every 10 minutes hoping for responses. Little Morgan clearly getting cooked in the DMs. My messages were painful. "Hope all is well. My name is Morgan. We have mutual connections and I'd love to connect. Here's what we do..." Just terrible. I am sick even telling you all this. But when you start in sales, there aren't really guidelines. You get thrown in like "hope this works" and pray something sticks. I thought I wasn't good enough. Then I realized something huge: They weren't ignoring ME. They were ignoring my APPROACH. That changed everything. Here's the framework I developed after studying hundreds of messages: The AMP Outbound Formula: ↳ Observation (show them you know them) ↳ Context (why this observation matters) ↳ Pain point (what they're likely facing) ↳ Value prop/Power Move(how you help) ↳ Call to action (next step) You don't need all 5 every time. Sometimes just observation + context + question works. Quick example" Before: "Hope all is well..." (Almost barfed writing this) " After: "Saw you just expanded your SDR team by 5 people. Most VPs tell me onboarding at that scale leads to (insert situation). Not sure if this is relevant but how are you currently doing (x)?" (Now we are getting somewhere) But every successful message I've seen follows this pattern. As Samantha McKenna says "Show Them You KNOW Them" before you show them what you DO. When I follow this framework, response rates jump. When teams I coach use this from our LinkedIn Revenue Engine™ they book more meetings from LinkedIn. Your prospects are waiting for someone who gets them. Be that someone.

The moment I stopped trying to "convince" prospects and started helping them convince themselves, my close rate doubled. For years, I thought sales was about persuasion. I'd jump on calls armed with objection handlers, closing techniques, and compelling arguments. I was working harder, not smarter. What you need to realize: People hate being sold to, but they love buying. Instead of convincing them why they needed my solution, I started asking questions that helped them discover it themselves. "What happens if you don't solve this problem in the next 6 months?" "How much is this issue costing you right now?" "What would success look like for you?" When prospects verbalize their own pain points, they become emotionally invested in the solution. When they paint the picture of their ideal outcome, they're already envisioning working with you. When they calculate the cost of inaction, they're convincing themselves to buy. My job shifted from being a persuader to being a guide. I stopped presenting features and started facilitating discovery. I stopped handling objections and started preventing them. The prospects did the heavy lifting. I just asked the right questions. Sales became easier because I was working with human psychology instead of against it. Your prospects already know they have a problem. Help them discover why solving it matters. And before you know it, they'll have closed themselves.

Last month one of my students (an AE) was #2 in his company for closed MRR out of 30+ reps. 3 months ago he was an SDR. How did a recently promoted AE become the second best sales performer so quickly? I asked him, and here's what he said: 1. Prescriptive discovery Most discovery is shallow and doesn't get to the root of the problem. Average sales reps ask surface level questions - I call it "iceberg discovery." He asks 2nd, 3rd, and 4th layer questions until he gets to the core. Lesson: Just like a good doctor, probe before prescribing solutions. 2. Pain Mapping: Whenever he hears pain, he always asks for more detail about a) the pain and b) the process. Doing this properly helps him map out the prospect's pain and gets them in "solve now" mode. He'll ask questions like: → "How much time have you spent on that?" → "What have you tried so far to address this so far?" → "How much time does it take to do X?" Lesson: Ask status quo related questions that help paint the whole picture. 3. Uncovers urgency (not create): The only "creation of urgency" I've seen work is when it's artificial. When you're dangling a no-brainer offer (e.g. a discount) the prospect wants the discount, not the product. Instead, uncovers urgency that already exists. And once he finds out, he presses on it. For example, he'll find out if they: → Have campaigns coming up → New feature/product drops → Seasonal/busy time of year coming up Lesson: After finding the why, find out the why now. P.S. 5,000+ salespeople like this AE are mastering their discovery skills with these top 24 questions (for free): https://lnkd.in/eR69raD4