I want to do all I can to increase your sales motivation and help you maximize your price. That’s what is behind our series 8 Ways to Increase Your Price.
So far we’ve dug into 5 of the 8 ways: believing in what you sell, increasing your pipeline, just saying “no”, never entering into a discussion about price and accepting that you can’t close every sale.
Here is number 6:
6. Never sell the features. Only sell the benefits.
Customers buy or invest only for one reason: to eliminate a pain or to better a situation.
This sounds basic but I can’t emphasize this enough. People don’t care about what you’re selling; they only care about if it will help them.
If you’re in a B2B environment, the best way to think of this is by viewing your customers as making an investment. In the end this is what they’re doing. Businesses don’t buy anything — they only make investments in things that will help them achieve their bigger goals.
The more you can help your customer see how their situation will be better or their pain will be relieved because of what you’re offering, the higher the price you’ll be able to achieve.
Too many salespeople spend their time talking about the product features, because this is what they know best. The problem with this is for even the most intelligent customer, they won’t always be able to make the transition from hearing about a feature and seeing it as a benefit.
The more difficult it is for the customer to see what you’re offering as a benefit, the lower the price you’ll be able to get for it.
What it comes down to is pretty simple — maximize the benefit and you maximize the price, which means for both you and your customer, you maximize the profit. Not only do you win with increased profit from the sale, but your customer also wins because they find greater value in what they just invested in.
You must get at the heart of what the customer’s pains and desires are. You do that by asking the right questions.
You then take whatever it is they tell you and start asking them follow-up questions to get them to share with you more.
The more they share, the more you will see what they value — which often looks a lot different than simply the features of your product or service.
Selling features will kill you every time. You may occasionally get the sale this way, but it will never be at the profit you are capable of pulling in.
But if you focus on how the benefits of your product or service align with the customer’s needs and desires of the customer, then you have the potential of striking gold. Over and over again.
Copyright 2011, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
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