Most of the salespeople I train don’t know the difference between a feature and a benefit and which to focus on when presenting their offer. At best they have a vague idea of what features and benefits are, however, very few salespeople are using features and benefits to effectively get their message across to the buyer.
As a sales professional you need to know your products and services inside out and backwards so that you can give the buyers you meet with good advice. You should be seen as a Trusted Advisor and an Expert Business Partner rather than just an “Average sales rep”.
If anything, it’s the overload of information that has demanded the need for salespeople to provide buyers with solutions to problems and to satisfy their needs.
All products and services have features and benefits.
Companies in business offer a range of products and services that have been created to satisfy specific needs that potential buyers may have.
The job of a sales professional is to establish the buyers needs / problems and then to provide a solution to satisfy the need or solve the problem. To do this, salespeople need to focus on selling solutions and not products.
This is achieved by focusing on benefits and not features.
A feature is what it is.
A benefit is what it does.
An airbag is a feature in a motor vehicle and the benefit of this feature is protection against injury in the event of an accident.
When buying a motor vehicle, the buyer does not buy the airbags, they buy the safety that they will get from having the airbags in the vehicle. I.E. the benefit.
People do not buy products and services; they buy what the product or service will do for them!
When you read a brochure offering a product or service the chances are good that you will only find the features listed and not the benefits those features offer. It’s the same when visiting websites. Very few companies focus on the benefits of their products or service but rather focus only on the features.
However, value does not speak for itself, only salespeople can create value during their presentation by focusing on the benefits.
Benefits = Value.
The more benefits you point out to the buyer the more they expect to pay for the product / service. They see the value.
Therefore, salespeople need to know the features but “Sell the benefits!”
Don’t assume that the buyer knows as much about the product or service as you do, show them!
Buyers are looking for what’s new and what’s different. They want information.
In today’s world of business, buyers expect salespeople to add value to their business, to satisfy their needs and to provide solutions to their problems.
As an exercise you can take one of the products you sell and write down all the features of that product. Then write out what the benefits are for each of the features.
This will help you to focus on benefits when presenting your offer. You can mention the features but always point out what the benefits are, what will it do for the buyer.
Buyers can sense when a salesperson believes in their product and is really enthusiastic about what they are selling.
They can also sense when a salesperson doesn’t really believe in what they are selling and is doing this just because they have to and not because they want to.
Don’t leave brochures for buyers to read, present your offer with enthusiasm and focus on benefits, not features.
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