Get prospects to the call and run it 15 of 25 in this group
SOP 241
Pull teeth until the answer is specific
What this page is for. Use it on a sales call when you ask a prospect about their problem and the answer comes back vague: "it's all right", "a little bit, probably". It carries what pulling teeth is, what a vague answer tells you before any offer is made, the questions that do the pulling, and what to do once the prospect finally gives you something concrete. How the call opens, and why its script stays short, is on SOP 238 — Open every call the same way and keep the script short.
SOP-241-Pull-teeth-until-the-answer-is-specific.md
1. What pulling teeth is
Where it comes. Pulling teeth follows the point in the call where you have found what is blocking the prospect and why things are not working. Finding that obstacle belongs to the pain cycle, which is set out on SOP 240 — Label the problem and run the pain cycle. Then you pull teeth, a step stressed as wildly important to grasp.
What it is. When an answer is vague, confusing or incomplete, you have to dig until you get the specific details.
2. What a vague answer tells you
How it sounds. Say you are selling to someone. You ask how that is working for them, and they say it's all right. You ask whether they think it has had an effect on the business, and they answer that they are not sure: a little, probably.
What to read from it. That answer, the view here holds, tells you they are not buying; put the offer in front of them and it makes no difference. An experienced salesperson, if that is you, can probably pick out the buyers before the offer is made.
The question that follows. From that comes a question: if you can tell ahead of the offer who is going to buy, why make it at all unless you know this prospect will? That is where pulling teeth comes in.
A rule on SOP 97 — Get permission before getting real, section 6, points the same way: ask for the sale only when you think you have them.
3. Ask for an example, again and again
The move. It is kept bare: say "okay, cool", then ask the prospect for an example of it. That is the whole move.
How it runs. In one example the rep and the prospect go back and forth like this:
- The rep asks whether they think this has hurt the business. The prospect says probably.
- The rep says "cool" and asks for an example. The prospect says sales have dropped from where they were.
- The rep asks for an example again, and asks the prospect to say more about it.
Keep asking. You simply ask for more, or for an example, again and again, until in the end the answer turns concrete. In the example it is last week: the lowest week of sales they have had in a really long time. The rep says that sounds like it hit hard; the prospect agrees it was bad. That is specific.
When to stop. Keep going until the prospect gives you a specific.
4. Then offer a fix for that specific problem
The offer and the check. In the example, once the prospect gives a specific, the rep puts forward a solution aimed at it and asks whether they think it would help. The solution there is a meeting. The rep asks, in effect: if we could have you meet someone senior on our team, who would lay out what comparable businesses in your industry and of your size do today to reach far higher numbers, and show you step by step how that differs from your own approach, do you think that would help? The prospect says yes.
The point. What the example shows is that the prospect's pain comes out in the details.
5. What comes next
Right after pulling teeth come the moves that follow: recap, label, confirm, then repeat. Those moves are carried on SOP 240. Mapping each pain to the offer and asking for the sale follow later, on SOP 242 — Map each pain to the offer and name the price. A related move, drilling into what the prospect has tried and how it went, is in section 5 of SOP 147 — Make new customers consistent — advertise.
6. What this page does not decide for you
- How many times to ask. The instruction is to keep asking until the answer is specific. This page gives no figure for how many times to ask.
- What counts as specific enough. The example given is a bad week of sales. Beyond that example: Not established on this page.
- A prospect whose answers stay vague. What to do if the answers never turn concrete: Not established on this page.
7. The checklist
| Step | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1 | Listen for answers that are vague, confusing or incomplete |
| 2 | Treat a vague answer ("it's all right", "a little bit, probably") as, in the view here, a sign they are not buying |
| 3 | Ask for an example ("Can you give me an example?") or for more ("Can you say more about that?") |
| 4 | Ask again and again until the answer is specific |
| 5 | As in the example, offer a solution to that specific problem and ask whether they think it would help |
| 6 | Move on to recap, label, confirm and repeat (SOP 240) |
8. What this page does not cover
Why the prospect came, and the opening questions that find it, are on SOP 239 — Build pain before the ask and clarify why they came. Objection handling and the closes are not covered on this page; sorting an objection starts at SOP 99 — Classify an objection.
Terms defined on this page
- Pulling teeth
- When an answer is vague, muddled or incomplete, digging for specifics: say something like 'okay, cool', then ask for an example or for more, again and again, until the answer is concrete.