Benefit Selling

Thanks
In response to your question, "to qualify as a benefit, does it have to be tied to a need?"
Not necessarily in the beginning, but it should by the end of the sales process. A benefit that doesn't fit the client's needs is probably a feathure, not a benefit, at least to that particular customer.
However, oftentimes clients don't fully understand what they need, and if that is the case, it is your job to help them understand all their needs, and the benefits your product or service offers.

Thomas, in the B2B world, benefits become clear while probing for needs. Everyone in the thread seems to have made this point but the newbies frequently overlook opportunities to uncover truly meaningful benefits.

I can count myself in this class when I was in my early days: It was a function a newbies' virtual discomfort with what transpires in a business. My inability to tie-in (to benefits) that which was going on in the business. I think I "broke through" when I approached FoodCorp's head office based on a reading (in the newspaper) about their declaration of profits. For the first time, I wasn't selling a copier to the CEO, rather, I was sheltering expenses from the tax man!

My point with respect to selling benefits: don't assume that the obvious/easy benefits are the only ones! Get inside their business and they'll love you for it ...

Good luck & Good selling!
Pat

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas

Thanks Drew and Skip. To qualify as a Benefit does it have to be tied to an admitted need?

No, it doesn't always have to be tied to an admitted need, but it's often more powerful if it is.

If you're interested in buying a pencil, but you've never seen an eraser on the end of the pencil before, you have no awareness of your need for an eraser because it is out of the realm of your understanding. But if I present the feature (the eraser) to you with the benefit of the eraser (i.e., not having to carry an erasing device along with your pencil), you will decide if that benefit is important to you. I can find out by asking, "how do you feel about this eraser on the end of the pencil" after my presentation of the features and benefits.

For many customers, the benefit will resonate, for others it won't, but you'd be foolish to not present the feature and the benefit to your prospect, imo.

Skip

I'll be deliberately controversial here:

I don't do benefits selling at all.

Now admittedly, my clients and I sell services rather than products - so "features/benefits" doesn't fit so well.

But even so, I don't really live in a world of benefits or even needs. As a customer it all feels rather artificial and divorced from my real life.

In business life, me, my clients, their clients - we have problems and we have goals we want to achieve. Mainly we have problems to be honest!

I buy solutions to those problems. I buy neither features, nor benefits - I buy the thing that best solves my problem.

It seems to me that "benefits" are a strange, artificial way of phrasing what is actually a solution to a client's problem.

But benefits seem to take on a life of their own. A product "has" certain benefits. These seem to be concrete, unchanging, absolute things.

Yet a solution changes evey time - because every customer's problem is different.

Now this might seem like a trivial thing - just a different way of using language. But I feel it also affects the sellers mindset.

In a problem-solution world it's my job to find out what your problem is and then sell you a solution that exactly solves that problem.

In a benefits world it's my job to convince you that the benefits of my product will be good for you.

Maybe I'm just mad though....

Ian

The features and benefits of your product and service will help the salesperson, when they make their presentation. However, talking features and benefits "too early" as a 'show and tell', won't necessarily close the sale FOR YOU.

Most salespeople 'hear' a problem a customer has and because he knows the 'features and benefits' of his product have solved that problem for other customers....start presenting.

But EACH customers 'real problem is different'. The customer rarely admits his real issue, early in the conversation.

Salespeople are uncomfortable really getting to know what the customers problem is; maybe it is 'equipment downtime, which led to production delays, which led to forced overtime (when the replacement product arrived) to meet a deadline......but that problem really is 'profitability'.

Problem resolution (but uncovering the real business problem, not just the initial surface problem) is what will help the prospect see you as the solution to his 'problem'.

A paradox exists in the comparatives of feature and benefit.

In spite of the almost universally accepted view that people buy benefits, not features, people will most often justify their purchases by referencing features.

Next time someone tells you about something they bought, listen closely and you will hear it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas

How are you defining Benefit Selling in your sales training?

Benefit Selling. What am I selling to my clients anyway? I've heard of features and benefits all my life and wondered exactly how that really applies to most clients.

I sell insurance... what are the features... well waiver of premium, settlement options, interest options, bonus options, convertibility and such are all possibly considered features, but then you could consider them benefits if you needed them, but I have rarely ever discussed a settlement option with a client... more likely it was along the lines of what plans do you have for you kids education, do you plan on keeping this home or buying a new one, if you died yesterday, what three things would you want to take care of... or if you were involved in an automobile accident or a plane crash, how much would your estate be asking for compensation? Would the need for that figure be any different if you had a heart attack?

Is providing cash a benefit or is the fact that you can get it from me at a discount the benefit? Is providing cash and filling a need a benefit? Is a solution a benefit? It would seem to be wouldn't it?

Aloha....

"Admitted need" is an interested phrase. Benefits (which weren't "admitted") can be uncovered with the use of good probing skills.

Having probed to the "Nth" degree, gotten agreement on the best possible configuration, it could well be that the offering has "sold itself". So, when you add a creative financing package (for example), you may have created a benefit which wasn't on the table throughout the discussion.

Benefits which will not be realized immediately are frequently described after the fact.

I make the point only because it's easy for junior SR's to fall into the trap of "firing all their ammo" in the first 10 minutes and latching onto "admitted needs".

Good luck & Good selling!
Pat

Benefit Selling

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