“Feel-Felt-Found” Technique: New Millenium Version

by Art Sobczak

This is about modifying the old “Feel-felt-found” technique to
               something more applicable to today’s sales situations. First, let me explain how I initially started thinking about this topic, which was actually several years ago.

Dallas is a great city, but I just didn’t really care for the Cowboys, especially in 1994, right after they won their second Super Bowl. Something about Jimmy Johnson, the coach at the time, and Jerry Jones, the owner, that made them both seem like lounge lizards in my mind.

That was until I read an article about Jones in “INC. Magazine.”  Prior to buying the team, he was sitting quite comfortably with over $50 million in the bank. He laughed in the face of logic and at experts who suggested otherwise, and put all of his own money into buying a losing football team, the Cowboys. (They were operating at a financial loss, also.) In just a few years, he turned the team around—on the field and at the bank—and has his entire initial investment back, and the return is compounding daily. That guy really has . . . (hmm, better use the synonym finder lest someone'll be offended) . . . chutzpah.

So I’m talking to a friend who says, “I hate the Cowboys. That Jones is such a schmuck.”

Then I used it, without even thinking: the “Feel-felt-found” tech­nique. (If you haven’t been exposed to some of the old school sales quips, you’re supposed to say, in response to an objection, “I understand how you feel, many others have felt the same way, but after they found . . . ”) I said to him,

“You know, he really comes across that way to lots of people. I felt that same way about him . . . thought he was your typical sleaze-bag owner, but then I found out something about him I didn’t know.”

“What’s that?”, he said, following the script perfectly.

 I went on to explain the story. “Wow! He really has (hmm, fortitude). I still hate the Cowboys, though.”

In analyzing the “FFF” technique, the psychological principles are pretty sound. You’re,

(1) empathizing with the person regard­ing their beliefs, therefore not accusing them of being wrong;

(2) letting them know their belief is also held by many others, and,

(3) providing additional information to help them doubt and question their belief, which is the best way to answer resist­ance. But used in its old form, it’s as moldy as green bread growing in the back of your fridge.

What’s also lacking in the old version are questions. Before you deploy this tech­nique, you should make sure you’re dealing with the reason behind the objection. Let’s give examples in each area.

Updated Version of the
Feel-Felt-Found Technique

1. Soften, Then Question the Objection.  

“I see. Is that what’s stopping you from using us as a secondary vendor?”

“Let’s talk about that. Aside from the lower rating, is there anything else that would prevent you from going with our propos­al?”

2. Feel

“I realize where you’re coming from . . .”

“I understand what you’re thinking . . .”

3. Felt

“. . . and I’ve heard that quite often . . .”

“ . . . and that’s the same thing a lot of my present customers told me initially . . .”

4. Found

“ . . . and you know, there’s something else here you might want to consider . . . “ PAUSE

“. . . but there’s a few other pieces of key information a lot of people aren’t aware of . . .” PAUSE

Practice these steps. The key is to make sure it doesn’t sound salesy.