What is Gap Selling?
Gap Selling starts from one idea: a buyer pays for a change, from where they are today to where they want to be. Your job on the call is to understand both places and how far apart they are. That distance is the gap. The bigger it is, the more the change is worth to the buyer and the sooner they'll act.
How things work today, the problems in it, what causes them and what they cost.
How far today is from where the buyer wants to be. This is what they're buying.
Where the buyer wants to be once the problem is fixed, and what that would change for them.
Most of the call goes on the current state, because the future state only means something next to it. The method also asks you to know the problems your product solves, and their usual causes, well enough to spot them when a buyer describes their week.
What is the buyer's current state?
How the work gets done today and where it goes wrong: the process, the systems, the people who own it and the problems they live with. Ask about the setup only until you hear a problem, then follow the problem. You have it when you could describe their process and its problems back to them, and they'd agree with every part.
- How does this get done today, from start to finish?
- Where does it slow down or break?
- What have you already tried to fix it?
How do you find the root cause?
Buyers describe symptoms: the work is slow, or the numbers come out wrong. The root cause is what produces them. Keep asking what's behind a problem until you reach something a change could fix. If your product doesn't touch the cause, it won't close the gap, and the buyer will find that out after they sign. You have it when you can name what causes the problem and the buyer agrees that's the cause.
- What causes it to break at that step?
- What changed around the time this started?
- What makes those cases different from the ones that go through fine?
What counts as impact?
What the problem does to the business: hours lost, work that slips, customers who wait, targets missed. Gap Selling also counts what it does to the person you're talking to, because a problem that changes nothing for them won't get their effort. You have it when the buyer has put a size on the problem in their own units and told you what it means for them.
- What does the team have to do each time that happens?
- What gets pushed back while they fix it?
- How does it affect your own week when this goes wrong?
What is the future state?
Where the buyer wants to be once the problem is fixed: how the work would run, what result they'd see and what that would change for the business and for them. Get it in their words. A future state you describe for them is your picture, and they won't fight for it. You have it when the buyer has described what fixed looks like, with a result they'd measure.
- What would this look like if it worked the way you want?
- What would the team do with the time it takes today?
- A year from now, what result would tell you this is fixed?
Why does the size of the gap matter?
The gap is the distance between the current state and the future state, and it's the buyer's reason to buy. A big gap with a cause your product fixes is a deal worth working. A small gap, or one the buyer can't see, usually ends in "not right now", however good the demo was. Before you show anything, say the gap back in the buyer's words and check that they agree. You have it when the buyer agrees with your summary of where they are, where they want to be and what's in the way.
- What's standing between where you are today and where you want to be?
- What happens if this is still the same a year from now?
- Where does fixing this sit among your priorities this year?
What does Gap Selling sound like on a call?
Say you're on a first call with a head of operations at a software company. Each question builds on the answer before it, and each one serves a different part of the method.
Getting a new customer live takes us about six weeks. Most of that is waiting on their data.
You mentioned most of it is waiting on data. What holds the data up?Root cause. It goes past the symptom, a slow start, to what produces it.
Every customer sends it in a different shape, and one engineer cleans it all by hand.
You mentioned one engineer cleans it all by hand. What happens to new customers when that engineer is out?Impact. It asks what the cause does to the business, in their terms.
Everything stops. Last quarter two new customers waited an extra month.
If waiting on data weren't part of it, what would getting a customer live look like?Future state. The buyer describes what fixed looks like, in their own words.
Two weeks, maybe. And my engineer would be back on the product.
Now you have both ends in the buyer's words. Today it takes six weeks, one engineer cleans the data by hand and new customers wait. They want two weeks, with that engineer back on the product. Say that back and check they agree. Then ask about the gap itself: "What happens if it still takes six weeks a year from now?"
When the buyer said every customer sends data in a different shape, the rep could have shown how the product handles messy data. That would have answered a problem nobody had sized yet. The product can wait until the buyer agrees how big the gap is.
Where does Veracity help?
With the follow-up. While the buyer is still answering, Veracity puts one open question of 20 words or fewer on your screen, built on the impact, the cause or what happens next, using only facts the buyer said. As they keep talking, the question upgrades in place with their own words: "You mentioned…" Nothing on the card changes while you are talking.
Where does Gap Selling go wrong?
- Showing the product at the first problem. When the buyer names a problem you fix, it's tempting to demo it. You don't know the cause or the size yet. Ask "What causes it to break at that step?" first.
- Stopping at the symptom. "Onboarding is slow" is a symptom. Ask what's behind it until you reach something a change could fix.
- Asking about the future state too early. "What would good look like?" in minute three gets a wish list. Size the current state first, so the future state has something to be measured against.
- Leaving out the person. A business impact with nobody behind it waits in a queue. Ask "How does it affect your own week when this goes wrong?"
- Writing the gap for them. "So this is costing you a fortune?" gets a polite yes you can't use. Say back only what they told you, and let them correct it.