When you’re selling to senior business leaders—or anyone for that matter—they all have questions running through their head.
Unfortunately, if your approach to selling is based primarily on talking about your product or service, you are not likely addressing these questions because very few of them are about your solution.
Most sales people spend a lot of time reviewing the key features of their product.
However, this approach seldom addresses how your prospect will benefit from buying and using your product, service or solution. You might think the latest and coolest feature is important to your prospect, but the truth is that they don’t care about product features.
Some sales training experts suggest that you use the FAB (feature, advantage, benefit) approach.
“The Agro Reflexor has a thirty-three inch spray arm. The advantage of this is that you can reach difficult-to-reach corners which means your workspace will be cleaner and more sanitary.”
Personally, I don’t think this is necessary. Here’s my suggestion…
Strategy #1 – Talk about Outcomes
Instead of talking about the product, talk about the outcomes your prospect will experience once they implement the solution.
If you have done an effective job asking discovery questions to determine what is important to your prospect, focus your attention on addressing those issues…in terms that resonate with the other person. This approach places the emphasis on the benefits your prospect will experience, rather than boring him with details about your product or solution.
For example, “After you install this, your workspace will be more sanitary because your team will be able to access difficult-to-reach corners.” It sounds similar to the FAB approach but it takes less time because you get to the point faster.
Strategy #2 – What’s the ROI?
Business people always consider the financial impact of a solution on their business and when a particular purchase makes good business sense, the motivation to make a buy
Unfortunately, very few sales people invest enough time on this. Especially learning about the impact their possible solution will have on the business.ing decision significantly increases.
For example, Teneo recently conducted a sales training workshop for an agricultural equipment manufacturer, and like most industries, the sales team spent a lot of time focusing on the features of a particular tillage machine with their dealers and farmers.
However, one individual discovered that a farmer’s biggest concern was fuel consumption and crop yield. He knew from experience that his machine could save the farmer at least $XX per acre tilled and could increase the crop yield by about 20 percent. When he positioned his solution in these terms, it became a no-brainer for the farmer to make a positive buying decision.
Remember, people buy for their reasons and what is important to them. Not because your product has some cool feature.
Invest the time to find out what is important to each prospect and position your solution accordingly and you will achieve better results!
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.