# How to know you found the problem the client wants solved [Home](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en) › [Study](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study) › [Articles](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/study/articles) author: [Axel Jedlitschka](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/about) published: 2026-10-13 updated: 2026-10-13 language: en reading time: 5 min topic: Marketing & sales source booklet: [Selling in the Meeting](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/meeting-sales) A real problem leads to a sale only when the client wants it handled. The sign you found the right one is that their agreement turns straight into a purchase. Not every problem you spot in a client will bring them to buy. For there to be a sale, the problem must be one the client wants handled, and that condition filters out a lot. The sign that you found the right thing is clear: the client agrees this is what is ruining them, and signs up right after. You run this test before you build a proposal, and not after it. ## The test that filters out the most According to the source, there is a short list of marks that help you recognise the thing you are looking for in the client. The booklet arranges them as four tests, and one is sharper than the rest: if the thing were handled, would the client want it handled? It filters out a lot, because a person can have a thoroughly genuine problem that they do not want anyone to handle. What you hold then is an observation about the client, and no sale comes out of it. In a meeting it can look like this. An owner sees a striking problem in the client and builds the entire proposal on it. He is right about the problem, and the client does not buy, because the client does not want it handled. This test continues what the booklet demands in its chapter on the order of the meeting. It is not enough for the client to agree that the problem exists. They also have to see it as an unwanted condition and want it solved, and only then can you move on. Suppose an owner whose systems are completely chaotic and who likes them that way. The problem is real, and it will not bring him to buy. Now suppose it emerges that in the same business they are losing jobs because they cannot find old quotes. That one he does want solved, and from there the road to a sale is short. Both problems sit in the same business. Only one passed the second test, and only on that one can you build a sale. ## The sign you found the right problem One sharp sign tells you that you located it correctly, and the source describes it as a single movement. According to it, clients agree that this is what is ruining them, and then respond by signing up for the service. In other words, the agreement and the purchase are two parts of one movement. If you find yourself still persuading after the client agreed, what you heard was probably politeness, and the real agreement has not happened yet. Suppose a client who says yes, exactly, that is what keeps happening to him, and in the same breath asks what it costs. That is the sign. Now suppose another client who agrees it is true and changes the subject. He agreed about the fact. He has not agreed that it is his problem. This explains many meetings where the client nodded all the way through and did not buy. The nodding was about the facts, and the agreement that it is their problem never came. It links to what the booklet describes in its chapter on listening. When the client identifies for himself what is ruining him, in many cases he talks himself into the purchase while you nod. ## What happens when you build on the wrong problem According to the source, most people are not trained to examine themselves, so the client's first answer is almost always a symptom, with the cause hidden behind it. Whoever builds a proposal on the first answer without checking builds it on the symptom. The booklet gives a few examples. Suppose a consultant who asks for more leads. In the conversation it turns out he closes one in ten, and more leads would only have enlarged his frustration. Or a small garage owner who asks for marketing advice, when what is ruining him is that two mechanics leave every year and he keeps training new people. Marketing would have solved nothing for him. In both cases the client asked for one thing and needed another. A proposal that answers only the request leaves them with the same problem. ## Why you ask instead of announcing The source separates what you want to know from what you actually ask. You want to know what is ruining the person, but the question you ask them is a different one. The right question does not accuse and assumes nothing in advance, and it invites the client to word the answer himself. According to the booklet, that is also why it works: the client's answer about himself is worth several times your diagnosis of him. Your diagnosis is something he hears. His answer is something he says, about his own life, in his own words. The opposite case is familiar to anyone who has sat in a sales meeting: asking the client what he is looking for. That question invites a specification, and the problem stays hidden. You get a list of requirements and do not know why he needs what is on the list. The exact wording of the question is in the booklet, together with a business version and another phrasing. The booklet gives this chapter a table of the four tests, two exercises, one for analysis and one for building, and a self-check. A real problem the client does not want solved stays an observation, even when the proposal you built on it is good. A problem he wants solved, and agrees is his, is the point from which the road to a sale is short. - [Selling in the Meeting](https://theonlyaxelj.com/en/shop/introduction/meeting-sales): A whole meeting, from the moment you booked it to the signature. --- [עברית](https://theonlyaxelj.com/he/study/articles/is-this-really-the-clients-problem) · [Español](https://theonlyaxelj.com/es/study/articles/is-this-really-the-clients-problem)