Are You Still Selling On Features and Benefits?

To successfully sell to a client, you need to know their criteria and then create a powerful presentation around that. We all know no one likes being sold to, but they do love buying. Since you know this, it is important to offer your products and services that doesn’t feel like you’re selling them. Instead, find a way to offer them to this person so it is their idea to buy them.

Features and Benefits Be Gone!

Novice sellers turn to the features and benefits to close a deal. Yes, this is a simple approach and you’ll sang some bites with this. But there are other ways to get better results. Listen to your potential customer and their needs. What do they need? What are their values? What kind of person are they?

As you take in this information, you’ll have the ability to create a presentation that sells to the person. You’ll cut down on resistance and you should see your numbers increase. That’s because you are appealing to both the conscious and subconscious of these individuals.

It’ll take a little experience as you break away from the features and benefits, but you’ll also offer more valuable. Especially when you learn how to use hot buttons for results. You see each of us has a unique set of needs and wants that drive us. We need to belong, we need to stand out. People love to buy based on these and they enjoy being led by these items. To successfully sell you lead them with this knowledge and not with the features and benefits from the product. Doing this increases the chances of a person being persuaded.

Make this your mantra and build on it. Remind yourself that you believe you can persuade everyone. Once you engrain this into your brain, you’ll feel surer about it. To succeed, you still need to discover their hot button and help them to make that purchase. Don’t worry about selling logically, most purchases aren’t done based on logic. Ignore focusing on rationalization too. Most people buy impulsively these days and often this is based on their emotions or values. If you want to sell to someone who believes in only buying products made in the USA and your product is made here, upsell that fact.

What is a Hot Button?

We mentioned hot buttons while reviewing features and benefits. So what are hot button items? These are the items that are incredibly important to your customer. It might be a problem they are struggling about and vocalize it. Perhaps it is a need they have and they are searching for something to fill this need. It might even be an interest or passion they offer you that you can build on in the process. As they open the door ask open ended questions and prove you are listening. Make sure you focus on the stuff that’s important to them and draw them in a direction you need them to go.

Here’s the thing. When you ask the same questions to everyone, you get the same answers. While they vary slightly, they don’t get to the root of the issue. Everyone has something that is important to them. At the highest level, we call these their values and in a moral sense they are good. In a business sense, they shift things. When you talk about values in sales, you are looking at the criteria for buying like a need for security or a need for more freedom in a company.

Criteria is also important. To get this, you need to direct questions that focus on that. These are questions like, “What is important in your work?” They may have a need to make millions, help other people, or to be recognized for the job they are doing. If you were to ask them, “What is important in your life?” The answers will change because the context has changed.

That is something to stress. Hot buttons are dependent on the context of the communication. When you sell, you need to focus on areas of that context. If you’re selling to a person it needs to focus on this criteria and context with the hot button issues important to them in that realm. This is done with reflective listening where you pick out important keywords and elements from what they are saying. You then incorporate these items when you are moving the individual through the buying process.

So in a case where you are selling a new home to a buyer, you listen first. They mention they want a home in a safe and secure neighborhood. You then find a home in a good neighborhood where you can add the safety and mention why it is safe. Then mention it is also a secure area and touch on that. You play to these emotions and the house is sold.

What you need to remember is that your questions should bring in the answers you get and offer value. You want to maximize communication without it. Don’t ask questions like, “Do you like the color?” ask someone “What physical attributes are the most appealing to you.”

Not only do you have someone mention they want a specific color but they might also tell you they want a product that is easy to carry and need it to offer specific features and benefits. This information helps you to minimize the risk of mismatching them with a product, while improving sales. After all, the selling tips, tricks and techniques that worked a century ago won’t work in today’s world. If you want to develop your selling skills and boost your effectiveness, it is important to keep all this in mind.

Gregg Swanson is a successful sales consultant and experienced sales performance coach.  He owns Warrior Mind Coach and specializes in the development of mental strength to achieve maximum performance.  You can grab his complementary mini eBook, “How To Make Change Easy” by going HERE.