As we near the end of the semester, one thing we learned within the first few weeks stands out to me as essential to success in selling. In the words of Coach DiDonato, “Features tell, benefits sell.” During my sales internship, I was often tempted to try to persuade potential customers with the specifics of our e-learning products. As a new employee and inexperienced salesman, I found myself telling prospects things like, “Our product has over 1,000 videos” or “we have just rolled out 50 new animations in the new update.” I usually received one of two responses. Either the prospect would give me a blank stare or he would look bewildered by the information. I was confused; I had assumed that those numbers would be important to our customers.
Fortunately, it did not take me very long to learn from the more experienced salespeople with the company. Instead of listing facts and figures, the salespeople would explain, “This will save you time in so many ways. You will be able to spend less time grading tests and planning lessons, so you will have much more time and energy to help your students succeed.” When I observed these conversations, I noticed how much more positively prospects responded than they did to my feature-based pitches. Even the more reserved prospects would nod and even smile in agreement.
Ultimately, most prospects did not care about the numbers. Instead, they cared about their students and about performing their jobs as instructors well. By providing relevant information about benefits instead of features, salespeople can connect with prospects and what matters most to them. To me, this is a key takeaway from this class that all salespeople should use as a guiding principle throughout their careers. I hope to keep it in mind as I prepare to enter the workforce full-time after graduation.
BoweryJE22
Quality over quantity. This is a phrase that I think most sales people need to keep in mind. Most people want something that will genuinely help them, and/or their business. The price does effect things sometimes, but getting into that discussion is definitely a “at our next meeting” kind of topic.
This is a great way to demonstrate the difference between discussing the cause and effect in a sales conversation. The temptation is to use your belabored research to present to the client. In reality, they only care about what all those fancy features will provide for them. You can show them how they get from A to C without discussing all the features (B) in the middle.
Great blog post. Coach DiDonato’ s saying “features tell, benefits sell” is definitely something I will always remember. In essence, consumers will only purchase a product or service if it fulfills their needs and it’s up to salesperson to discover these needs.