Stop feature bashing and sell the benefits

People purchase based on the benefits to them, WIIFM. What will they get from your product or service? How will they feel, what will they save and so on.

You have probably heard this before, but people don’t by features they buy benefits.

All too often business owners waste time, effort and money pushing feature after feature of their product or service and…you guessed it, the potential customers don’t care.

Take a look at your collateral materials and your web site. If you’re a “feature basher”, your work consists of flyers, letter head, ads, and a website all of which have your logo and company name, a list of things you do or the “features” of your products and your phone number. Are you surprised that no one cares enough to respond?

They don’t want you or your products: they want to know what you and your products or service can do for them!

This is often very difficult for many people to get to grips with. Here’s a very simple method of uncovering the benefit over the feature, try to using;

“Which means that…” let me give you an example or two.

We offer an outstanding customer service (feature)…which means that you will have no stress or no worries (the benefits).

Our long wheel base cars have extra leg room (feature)… which means that your beautiful wedding dress will look as wonderful when you get out of the car as it did when you stepped in, (benefit)

Here’s another example for you.

A chauffeur service has the latest luxury limousines available for wedding hire and is very proud of the shining lump of metal so they tell people; We (oh no, here we go with the we thing), have been offering an exemplary service (stuffy) to the wedding industry for over 10 years (so what) and we (again) have just added the latest luxury SE Mercedes long wheel base to our fleet (so what)…

…and on it will go bashing features and we-ing all over the place.

How about…

You’ve found it! This could be just what you’ve been looking for.

No stress! No worries! (Understanding their concerns) Your personal chauffeur will be with you in plenty of time for your photographer to capture the moment that you step into the sumptuous luxury of your immaculate S Class Mercedes. (Ok, so keep a little technical stuff here for the petrol heads),The lavish and spacious interior with extra leg room will ensure that your beautiful dress looks as wonderful when you arrive at your venue as it did when you set foot into your car.

Better? Can you tell the features from the benefits? No feature should be mentioned without the back up and reinforcement of a benefit statement.

So you may need to change your entire mindset. Put yourself in your customers shoes, see their problems, understand their fears, learn their wants and needs, and then provide the solution to them by way of benefits. That way you can stop selling and let people buy from you.

Take the time to understand your customers, and show them you understand them and their needs… and watch your sales shoot through the roof.

All the best,

Steve Clarke