I have sat through more sales and marketing presentations from folks who are supposed to know something about sales than I can count. One of the common threads I notice with poor salesman and marketing pitchmen is they put too much of a focus on a certain products features and not enough focus on the products benefits.  Think of the last product you purchased. Did you buy it because of the features? Or did you buy it because of the benefits the features afforded you to realize?  Think about it. Given my background I look at all products that come my way through this lens. It is second nature to me.  Sadly I have discovered it is not second nature to most others in the sales and marketing arena.

Show up and throw up!

We all have experience in dealing with salesmen that pitch feature after feature after feature, hoping one of them will resonate with you.  It is at this point I usually begin wishing I was someplace else, not wanting to suffer even a minute longer with this person who has not the first idea what my needs are.   The last thing I want to do is give this person any more of my time much less my money!

People buy benefits, not features.

So here’s the deal, people don’t buy features – they buy the benefits!  Further, the benefit may differ from person to person. So if you are pitching benefits you better be sure you know what they are to the person you are talking to.

• Example: You are selling a (feature) four-burner toaster… so what? The benefit is it will save time if your customer is looking for more than two pieces of toast if time is important.
• Example: You are selling (feature) rubber wheels for a medical cart…so what?  The benefit is your cart will be quiet as it rolls down the hallway and will not disturb your customers’ patients at rest.
• Example: You are selling a cell phone with an (feature) improved antenna…so what? The benefit is your customer won’t have so many staticky or dropped calls!

Get the picture?  People buy benefits.  So when you are selling or pitching a product, never, ever, ever sell a feature without associating a relevant benefit to it. You will find that when you do, your sales success will improve significantly.  At the very least your audience will be less bored with you and may even invite you back for more.

Take my (feature) advice, you are sure to benefit through improved sales!

Happy Hunting!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 4th, 2010 at 11:54 pm and is filed under Sales & Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.