A top 40 hit in 1979 included the chorus:
Cruel to be kind in the right measure
Cruel to be kind it's a very good sign
Cruel to be kind means that I love you
Baby, got to be cruel, you gotta be cruel to be kind
In selling, there may be some truth to these lyrics.
But no one wants to be cruel, and sellers often shy away from talking to buyers about pain points for this very reason. What they miss by avoiding the questions that would reveal and perhaps magnify pain, is that they are not being kind.
Let me give you an illustration of how the “cruel to be kind” principle works. A few months ago, I witnessed a little girl, age 3 or 4, and her mother walking out of a grocery store. The mom’s hands were full, steering the grocery cart and dialing the cell phone. The little girl was walking alongside her mother until she spotted another woman (perhaps an aunt?) that she knew. When she saw the other woman, she smiled, called out to her and ran towards her…right into the path of an oncoming pickup truck.
Fortunately, the truck squealed to a stop within inches of impact. The mother grabbed her daughter by the shoulders, looked her square in the eye, and told her, “You could have been killed. Do you know what would happen if that great big truck hit you? You would be smashed flat like a pancake and you would never, ever be able to walk again or to play with your friends. Never, never run in front of cars! Do you hear me?”
The little girl started crying. The other woman scolded the mother by saying, “Stop it! You’re upsetting her!”
The mother was trying to make an impression. She wanted to upset her daughter. She was being cruel to be kind.
What if the mother had not scared her daughter? What if she had focused only on the pretty blue sky and the fun they’d have in the park that afternoon? What if she’d treated the near accident as a non-event, no big deal? What if, by avoiding the risk of upsetting her daughter, she set her up to be right back in that same situation another time…perhaps another time with a different outcome?
By scaring and upsetting her daughter, this mother quite likely helped her daughter to avoid a consequence far worse than being upset or scared. As a parent, after all, it is her responsibility to teach her child how to stay safe and avoid big dangers.
Many sellers take the stance that the other woman did. They are so intent on being kind that they end up being cruel. They allow their prospects and customers to make egregious mistakes because they don’t want to upset or frighten them.
Buyers want sellers who tell them the truth, who challenge them and show them new ways of looking at old problems. Buyers aren’t afraid of the tough questions; sellers are.
The tough questions are the ones that surface latent pain and shine a spotlight on known pain points. Until pain is known and understood by the buyer, the seller is not helping the buyer resolve that pain. Questions that get to pain may include:
- What will happen if you do not reach your goal?
- What is the downside of not making a change?
- How much are you losing currently? If this continues, how much more can you afford to lose?
- How are you, personally, affected by this?
- What are the consequences of inaction?
There are some sales training courses and books that focus entirely on exposing and magnifying pain. These programs rightly point out that fear of pain or consequence is a strong motivator for change. Getting buyers to see the potentially painful reasons for not sticking with the status quo is the aim of these programs. It makes sense.
But a well-rounded approach has merit. Helping your buyer to see both the pain and the gain is essential. Motivating them to avoid pain AND to reach an improved state is real solution selling. When you can do both, you become a trusted resource. This is kinder than any other option.
