There isn’t anyone question that will always uncover the presence or absence of pain in the prospect’s world.

There is, however, a good sequence of questions that can usually serve as a viable entry point to a productive discussion about pain. If you master only this one concept, you’ll be well on the way to discovering pain, or the lack of it, in your prospect’s world.

One way to get a good conversation rolling after you’ve built rapport, bonded, and had a meaningful discussion about goals and problems, is to ask prospects directly, “What is the impact of this situation on your company?”

Although the responses you receive about the company are usually intellectual, that’s OK. You’re really priming them to speak about the emotional pain they themselves experience. In other words, this question is a stepping-stone to going deeper into your prospects’ worlds.

Next, you’ll seek to discover what the situation’s impact is on the individual prospect. Ask, “I’m curious-what is the impact of this situation on you personally?”

Once you make it more personal, you’ll start to get to the real pain (if there is any). This is when prospects will start using words like “frustrated,” “uncertain,” “doubt,” “worry,” “angry,” “concern,” or “anxious.” The acronym for these powerful emotion-driven words is FUDWACA. It’s a strange word, but believe it or not, it will help you know when you are uncovering real pain-not just pain indicators.

Pain indicators are symptoms that indicate there may be pain. For instance, a pain indicator might be, “My computer is running slow.” But, that’s not pain. Pain sounds like this: “I’m frustrated. Technical support is a week behind in fixing my computer, so I’m way behind on my work because it’s taking five times as long to finish something as it ought to take.”

Getting to real pain is imperative and is a core element of mastering the Sander system. Once you know how to get to pain, you’ll dramatically increase the number of deals you close-and spend less time with people who were never going to buy from you anyway.

The Lesson: Uncover the impact, uncover the pain. For pain is why people buy.