Brian LaMannaAE @ Gong | Closed Won 🦙 | 7x President’s Club

Selling Pain Over Selling Gain

10 Apr 2025 · 1 min

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1:16

Brian LaManna argues that framing offers around the audience's "pain" (cost of inaction) is more than twice as effective as selling potential gains. He gives two concrete examples: (1) instead of saying "double conversion rates" and noting it’s worth $1M, reframe as "we're losing $1M every month we fail to hit attainable conversion rates," and (2) instead of saying "grow 50 leads per month," reframe as "we're leaving 50 leads on the table monthly and they may be going to competitors." He recommends using this negative-impact framing during discovery and when pitching internally (e.g., to a CFO) and to prospects so stakeholders can feel the cost of not solving the problem.

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Selling pain is over two times more effective than selling gain. And there's a really easy way to incorporate it. You just have to flip it around. Here are two different examples. First, the bad way your goal is to double conversion rates. And you know that's worth a million dollars in total revenue. A better way to position this is by not achieving the conversion rates you know the team can achieve. We're leaving a million dollars and losing that actively every single month that we don't make it a reality. Second example, we want to increase our overall lead generation, presenting an opportunity to grow 50 more leads per month. A much better way to frame this would be to say by not improving our marketing, we're leaving 50 leads on the table every single month and they're likely going to our direct competitors. Imagine how the CFO will go about approving your must have and needed tech. Go about your discovery the exact same way with your prospects. Flip the framing to a negative impact and put some real emphasis on it too, so they can feel the cost of not solving this problem and what they're leaving on the table every single month.