The answer to the question “what do you need?” gives you intellectual information. Typical answers might be “a chip that can store 2 terabytes of data”, or a “car that has a good safety rating”, or “a service company that is more reliable”. You need to know those things but that is not enough to get to the prospects pain. None of those answers is pain. However, if you follow up the what question with a why question you get a whole lot richer information including pain. I need a reliable service company because “my current service company did not show up and it put me in a terrible bind with a client. I was totally embarrassed and it almost cost me a client.” I need a chip that handles that much data “because the competition only can handle half of that and it is important to me to be able to beat them to the market.” That one may need another “why” question to get to the real pain. This is a simple concept but one that will pay huge dividends.
