Benefits Vs Features | You Vs I

Being an engineer by education and profession for a large part of my career, I always used to feel that selling was an easy & automated job - the product is built by “us” engineers, all the sales people have to do is dress well and speak good English to sell. Since the product and its “features” are so good, the salesperson just has to convey it.

Only when I became an entrepreneur, of course first building the product like an “engineer” and then trying to sell it, did I realise how tough selling is and how wrong and misinformed I was.

This post isn’t about how tough selling is or how native engineers suck at it initially like we did, it’s more about what I learnt via slowly becoming a better salesman and how that philosophy applies to most of the aspects of life.

When engineers turned entrepreneurs start sales, the first and biggest mistake they make is speak in terms of features. Since they have developed it, their entire point of view is “selfish” - not that they are bad people or something - it’s the first instinct to speak about what they know - since they know everything about the product so they rattle it out.

The problem here is that the person they are selling to is least bothered about the features of the product - all he/she wants is something that can solve their problem. They are “hoping” & praying before every such meeting that this sales person will try to understand what they need and what benefits their product will give them. But 9 out of 10 times to their sheer disappointment, we sales people take a deep breath and blast out all our product features to them.

This happens with non-engineer MBA sales people as well, may be more sometimes. The entire “career” and “quota” and “targets” can become so mechanical and heartless that you step into every single sales meeting being extremely selfish. You may fake that you are bothered about the prospect, but most of the times they can see through, may be involuntarily. 

What I learnt with interactions with numerous meetings with prospects, who are primarily HRs in our case is that going with the attitude of “willing to help” creates the best results - both in terms of how the meeting goes & the relationship with the person. The end result may not always mean getting the deal - it may be that your product is not the right thing for them at that stage, but that’s not always the point. The beauty of such meetings is that it is not the typical “I Vs You” scenario.

It’s not a playground to show “sales acumen” and convince someone with guile to buy the product. It’s definitely a business meeting - but many times the sales person should themselves arrive at the conclusion that their product/company offering isn’t what’s going to “benefit” the prospect in the long term. That may look foolish but it’s actually wise. Any relationship that’s short sighted isn’t going to last long anyway and will cause chaos later.

I learnt that it’s not easy to think benefits first. It needs a reversal of the usual mindset. The good thing is - it’s always about the benefits and never about the features. So once you achieve the reversal, it's downhill there on.

The psychological aspect of features Vs benefits is that the former appears as if you are bothered primarily about yourself(I) whereas you should be bothered about the other person(You).

So eventually it is problem solving - and the best way to find about problems and what someone is looking for is to ask questions and that too to lots of people. 

Honest confession - we all use some jargon(machine learning, artificial intelligence, big data, NLP etc) to help our case - that’s more a question of building credibility and trust. These can play a role once the basis is established - that what you are offering is going to benefit the buyer.

As I try and apply these learnings myself to meeting prospects, customers and even when doing customer support, I realise that the “I Vs you” attitude is prevalent in many other aspects of our lives.

And it causes decent damage. 

It applies to relationships, things we are passionate about, our dreams and ambitions.

An example could be a person living in the past and blaming circumstances(validating features) rather than focusing on what can work here on in life and focus on the goals(benefits).

When you are complaining or looking back, inadvertently you are putting yourself(I) ahead of your dreams and what you want to become/achieve (You).

Another example could be singing/music. There are some singers whose voices touch your heart and then there are some who sound technically correct, but the impact is missing. Somewhere deep down, the impactful ones have their focus on the listener (You) or in other words, benefits. The technically correct ones have mastered the "features", but the focus is still on "I".

In relationships, it’s straightforward: the more it’s about yourself (I), the weaker the relationship is.

We always buy from someone who comes across as they are bothered about solving our problem.

We always like/love people more whose “I-quotient” is relatively lower.

We always achieve better results when we get the “I/ego” out of the picture and focus on doing the right thing - that benefits us.

You didn't build the product for yourself, you built it for them.

You don't perform for yourself, you perform for the audience.

I don’t believe in Karma, but the entire human race would benefit a great deal by giving more importance to the You Vs the I.