You’ve got a phenomenal product or service. You’re passionate about what you do. You want to start selling the bejabbers out of what you’ve got.
You study sales. You learn that you need to communicate the features & benefits of your stuff. You develop a nice list of features, and a terrific little list of benefits that those features will help deliver.
Stop right there.
DON’T do it.
Don’t launch into the usual suspects of the sales game: features & benefits. What you really need to do is: tell the story of what you’ve got, why it’s great, and why you’re so passionate about it.
The features & benefits will be apparent. Trust me.
Think of some of the great marketing messages you’ve seen – were any of them loaded up with a features & benefits statement?
Yeah, Cialis and Viagra do advertise the potential for a 36 hour hard-on, but I don’t know as that feature is really a benefit. Any feature that includes "see a doctor if…" might not be a real benefit. Or any kind of sales trigger.
Seriously, though, what about those great Career Builder ads from the 2007 Super Bowl? Or this year’s model, the Naomi Campbell/Lizard-wit-a-grill LifeWater ad? Did they have a laundry list of features and benefits? No – but they spoke volumes about what the products/services had to offer. Career Builder will help you feel less like an office-supplies-bedecked gladiator. LifeWater will help you dance with lizards…or maybe look like Naomi Campbell. Or at least feel like you could.
The best sales pitch is a great story about your product. The best features & benefits statement is a great story about how your service impacted someone’s life, business, health…pick one.
Stories are what connect us. Charts & graphs, features & benefits – that’s useful data, but it won’t sell anyone. It will help show ROI, yet no one will think to ask about ROI unless they’re drawn in by your story.
That’s MY story, and I’m stickin’ to it.
