On the difference between 'value' and 'utility' and why it's the only thing that counts when selling

Susan is 16 years old and goes to the fancy, private school most kids her age can't afford. Susan only wears high-end designer clothing and despises math—having that pervasive disdain for all things bourgeios.

Matt is the head of the coding club at his high school. The only interest he has in clothing is the one stemming from its legal mandate. For his 15th birthday, Matt got the latest Xbox and has clocked about 100 hours on that thing since.

Its 2013, and Susan sits atop her metaphorical throne surrounded by friends in her parent's townhouse. An ad appears on TV and Susan is instantly fixated. She can't look away as the screen melts and moulds into delicious, metallic shades of luxurious champagne, until from it emerges, the new iPhone 5s. She has to have it—it represents everything she loves in the world—beauty, style and above all, luxury.

Matt and his friend Dave sat huddled around an old Nokia in his garage—they had just disassembled it for fun. On Matt's computer pops up a notification: Tim Cook presents the new iPhone 5s. Matt and Dave watch mesmerised, as Cook talks about the revolutionary A7 chip with a 64-bit architecture—a chip that supports OpenGL ES version 3.0 to deliver gaming console-level detailed graphics and complex visual effects. Yes. His eye gleamed as he ran to his parent's room and begged them to get him the space grey iPhone 5s for his 16th birthday.

If Susan and Matt were to ever meet, they would have little to talk about. Even lesser they would agree upon. Yet, somehow, they had both just purchased the exact same product. But—and here's the brilliant twist—for completely different reasons. Had Matt seen the champagne gold iPhone ad, would he have been instantly compelled to buy it, as Susan was?' and on the other hand? 'who is Tim Cook?' Susan would ask, only half interested when her friends talked about how much hotter than him Steve Jobs was.

The lesson here is one on the difference between value and utility. While value can be objectively quantified (in most ways), utility is the perceived benefit attained from a product's value—one that is entirely subjective. An iPhone's value lies in its great processing power, its intelligent design and its user-friendly interface. However, the utility that a buyer derives from these objective facts, is completely personal. So, if you want to sell a product, it is essential to know two things: the 'value' of your product i.e its objective features and benefits, and what that 'value' means to the people you want to sell it to i.e its utility.

The utility derived by Susan and Matt from the iPhone's features is completely different—in Susan they satisfy a social need. In Matt, an intellectual, functional need. Final lesson? map not just your product's value, but its utility for your target customers. At the heart of selling, whether its door-to-door selling of the 60s, or the mass, digital marketplaces of the post-truth era, empathy is key.