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Get Matching

Written by: Bob Hazell

Article Overview: Why not get your customer to buy from you, instead of you selling to them. People love to buy - but they hate being sold to!

Get Matching

Benefits, benefits, benefits! It’s been drummed into us sales people ever since we started our careers. Why do Sales Managers keep on about it so much?

Probably because benefit selling is still a very important part of what salespeople do. This tip is about why and how to sell benefits!

So, what is a benefit?

Why would we go to a store and buy a 15mm drill? Because we need a 15mm hole! So when we buy a product or service it is only a means to an end. We buy the product or service to achieve what we want to do.

So the first point is that before we can find out what product or service to sell we must find out what the customer wants done. Once we find out what that is we can sell the product that meets the criteria bringing out the benefits that the customer wants.

We probably have some well-worn statements to bring out the benefits of our product or service. Shall we refresh them? Let’s put ourselves into the customers’ shoes and get grumpy. Let’s say our benefit and then hear our customer say “SO WHAT?” What shall we now say that is more powerful than what we said before?

We need to get to things that SAVE money or time before it gets really powerful. But then we must be able to show HOW it does it and not just trot out “which will save you money”.
Why sell benefits?

Imagine we are shown two pens. Both look identical. One is made by ABCPen co. and costs 30 pence. The other is made by XYZPen co. and costs 40p. Given only that information, which would we buy?

Now let’s throw some more information in. The ABCPenco pen costs 30 pence and writes for 1 Km. The XYZPenco pen costs 40 pence and writes for 2 Km. Which would we probably buy now?

We’ll always buy the cheapest if we can’t see the difference

The difference comes from benefits. Another tip here. We must never get into a pricing discussion before we’ve found out what the customer wants and matched the benefits. The price will never look really good value without benefits.

Only matching benefits help

Let’s imagine we’re selling a small car. An elderly person takes a test drive. Would it be likely that “watch how this roars away from the lights” would help us? Now the teenager comes in for a test drive. “Let me show you how gently this goes round corners” might not impress. We’ve probably not asked the right questions to find out the benefits that they’re looking for.

Then there’s the issue of having to pay for something that we don’t want. If we major on something like satellite navigation when selling a car and the prospective buyer doesn’t want it then we might get the question “what’s the price of the model without satellite navigation?” If there isn’t one, we’ve shot ourselves in the foot!

We often ask ourselves “Is it worth it?” That’s judgment of value. We all do it, so for the customer to buy from us they must feel that what we offer is worth the money. So hold matching benefits high, and keep the price to the end of the discussion.

Conclusion

There’s a lot more to say about benefits selling than what is included here. We probably know most of what we’ve read already. However we don’t become successful by what we KNOW but by what we DO.

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Article Tags: benefit, means to an end, money, pence, pens, sales managers, salespeople, shoes



Related Forum Posts
Re: Matching competitors prices - beware - [quote="BuzzAroundBooks":3ga2u10u]While I agree that getting into a price war should be avoided if possible... on rare occasions, it's not a bad idea to match someone's price (or even beat it) if you're doing it "one time" to land a new customer. For instance, I was recently looking for the best price on a [u:3ga2u10u]specific[/u:3ga2u10u] flight to NY and a customer service rep from Flight Centre ended up taking zero commission to help me book my flight. In fact, she even beat the price by $5 in the hopes of creating brand loyalty for the future.[/quote:3ga2u10u] Matching prices that are close is one thing - but there are times when an inferior competitor can do a job much cheaper - because they are doing a lesser job. There have been times when I'm more expensive, but I'll take the time to explain the reason for the difference. If the person wants a lesser job - then it does not work in my favor to drop my price and take a loss. Customer expectation can make a difference in when this should be done. There is a company who offers work that is somewhat similar to mine, but its just not the same value service and they can undercut my price because they cut a lot of corners. I'm not willing to cut that many corners and that makes a big difference in the amount that we charge. For a person who business who recognizes the difference and some who want to send me business, I'll work with them on the prices or pay them a finder's fee. Lots of possibilities - but I've found it better to evaluate the situation and see if it makes good business sense. Shri


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