How long has it been since you’ve taken a walking tour at a new car lot with an automotive consultant, aka car salesman? Does this sound familiar?
“Oh, look at this one, it’s a beauty… Let me look at this sticker for a second and I’ll tell you what it’s got. OK, you get electronic stability control, parking sensors, Bluetooth mobile hands-free kit, active seats, soft-close doors, large-diameter low-profile tires, multi-function steering wheel, blind spot assistance, and asequential manual gearbox. How about this one?”
As you talk to people about the product or service you sell, you must realize just how powerful your words can be. Although you should realize that your sales presentation is not “the bomb”, it is important to become proficient using the verbalbuilding blocks that lead to closed sales. As elementary as it may sound, the two that are necessary to learnabout and practice regularly are features and benefits.
Features are characteristics or attributes of what you are selling and they are able to be seen and/or observed. Your services and products are comprised of multiple features, but when they are mentioned, their meaning and importance are not necessarily evident or immediately understood.
As an example, what do you think it means to a homeowner when a salesperson says, “Our hot tubs all come equipped with a cover butler”? What does that even mean? In order for your prospects to ‘get it’, and for the feature to be understood and become relevant, it must be linked to a benefit. Otherwise, your buyers will probably just scratch their heads and think or say, ‘so what’? You won’t get your point across as easily and you may not even be able to make the sale.
Benefits tell prospects what the features will do for them, and are really what cause people to buy. Benefits come in two types, logical and emotional. Logical benefits tell how the feature works, and emotional benefits tell how the prospect will feel, as a result of having or using them. You should learn to include both a logical and an emotional benefit for each feature you mention, to get the maximum impact.Remember the features only tell, because it’s the benefits that sell!
I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, which would be unsanitary, but the hot tub salesman would be more effective if he said something like this to hispotential customer:
“Our hot tubs come equipped with a cover butler, which is a handle or lifter that removes the lid
This is a better way to focus prospectsand buyerson the message you want to deliver, and will increase your odds of successfully selling your product or service.
Now the only thing missing is some role play in order to get comfortable verbalizing these components together.To position yourself to communicate successfully, consider the following exercise:
- Make a short list of the key features your product or service possesses.
- For each feature write a selling statement that explains it and be sure to include a logical and an emotional benefit for each one.
- Remember as you complete this exercise thata logical benefit tells “how it works”, while an emotional benefit describes “how the prospect will feel.”
Communicating in this manner will improve your closing rate while helping you be perceived as more professional, trustworthy, and likeable. What’s not to like about that?
In order to help your salespeople and/or colleagues improve their selling skills, like what we just discussed, encourage them to join the Selling Point family by subscribing to this weekly communication…for FREE I might add! It will only take 15 seconds right here.
©2015 Robinson Training Solutions, LLC
