The idea that features tell and benefits sell is pristinely displayed in the movie The Pursuit of Happyness. In this movie a salesman named Chris Gardner invests his life savings in a device that he is selling. He meets with very little success as he tries to push his medical device, repeatedly being rebuffed due to the fact that x-rays were only moderately less effective for a much lower price. He ends up losing his life savings and is forced to live on the streets with his son. He is lucky enough to land an interview with a stock broker and is forced to try to obtain the position in his dirty street clothes. Gardner pulls it off and soon learns that a lot of selling comes down to connection with the customer. He becomes wildly successful by focusing on relationships over numbers. He even lends money to one of his managers for cab fare at a time when he couldn’t even afford food for himself. He realized that sales wasn’t really about pushing the features of the newest device, people wanted to buy from someone that they trusted. By focusing more on the needs of the customer sales can become less of a fight and more of an opportunity. A salesperson can only offer a product to help a consumer if they know what that consumer actually needs. By focusing on the needs of the customer and the potential benefits of the product for that specific person, a sales person will certainly have a higher success rate. The world revolves around connections, overlooking the value of the person in a sales scenario can make all the difference.
BoweryJE22
One of my absolute favorite movies with Will Smith. It is very interesting because it focuses on the true story of a “salesman”, but it a very different light than what one would imagine a movie about a salesman would be like. It instead focuses on the relationship between father and son as the father is burden with these investments he made that he is trying to sell to make money. Great work!
Great post! You did a great job of showing the importance of the connection between a salesman and his customer. This was a great movie choice to demonstrate this!
I’ve never seen the movie, but I love the premise. Trust is so important in every transaction, and I know I personally love it when I feel I can trust a salesperson.
Focusing on pain is definitely the most important part of any sale. It’s also incredibly difficult to find a good pop-culture reference that shows a solid sales pitch. Nice work!!