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Sales Techniques - Selling Benefits

Written by: Keith Benton

Article Overview: Sell the Sizzle, Not the Steak. This point became overwhelmingly clear recently while eating at a local Mexican food restaurant here in Texas. Someone had ordered Fajitas. It was interesting to note that as the waiter brought out the plate of sizzling beef strips, all the heads in the room turned to notice what delicacy was heading their way. Hence the statement “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” Steaks had no doubt been brought to various tables with little or no fanfare. However, when the Fajitas entered the room, everyone took notice. You may ask what this has to do with sales. It’s a question of selling

Sales Techniques - Selling Benefits

Sell the Sizzle, Not the Steak. This point became overwhelmingly clear recently while eating at a local Mexican food restaurant here in Texas. Someone had ordered Fajitas. It was interesting to note that as the waiter brought out the plate of sizzling beef strips, all the heads in the room turned to notice what delicacy was heading their way. Hence the statement “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” Steaks had no doubt been brought to various tables with little or no fanfare. However, when the Fajitas entered the room, everyone took notice. You may ask what this has to do with sales. It’s a question of selling features or benefits.

The brochure mentality is prevalent in some sales organizations. The company has spent a great deal of money on brochures, so the easiest sales technique is to simply sell from the brochure. However, the problem is that most brochures list features, not benefits. Features don’t sell. Benefits do. What’s the difference, you may ask? One is the sizzle; one is the steak. A feature states what something is and a benefit states what it does for the client. Ask yourself, “Do the sales techniques I am using answer the benefit question?” For example, a salesman might say that his product has the feature Super X. The benefits question doesn’t get answered. What does that do for the client? It actually would be better to state what the feature means to them; how it improves their life, makes their job easier, or adds value to your overall proposition. That’s a benefit. That’s the sizzle, not the steak. Make sure you sell what it does, not what it is.

I have been selling insurance for years and what strikes me as extremely interesting is that if you were to ask 100 insurance agents what they sell, I can almost guarantee you they will tell you Life insurance or health insurance. If you were to ask any potential client what they are truly looking for, they would tell you safety, security, and peace of mind. Unfortunately, some times we are not selling what the client is really looking for. Why? Because we are selling the steak instead of the sizzle. We are selling features instead of benefits. Remember to always ask yourself, “Does the manner in which I am selling answer the benefit question?”

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Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
Re: Bad SEO techniques? - There are few more techniques which also known as the Bad SEO Techniques or Black Hat SEO Techniques. Such as: - Relying on keyword metatags - Purchase Links (From Spamming or blacklisted sites or doing purchase links on high level for site marketing) - Horde Page Rank: This is one of my favorites, because it's one that most webmasters don't understand yet. This is because it changed over the past year or two. The concept people have in their mind is that page rank is a key part of site rankings and linking to other sites "leaks page rank" from your site. However, the world has changed. - Swap Links: Another oldie, but not goodie. Search engines want links to represent endorsements. Swapped links represent barter, and they are trivial to detect. Don't swap links for the purpose of building page rank. It's a waste of your time - Implement duplicate content - Use Session IDs on your URLs - Use lots of Javascript - Implement your site in Flash
Re: Bad SEO techniques? - [quote="WebBizIdeas.com":1jr37kqx]There are few more techniques which also known as the Bad SEO Techniques or Black Hat SEO Techniques. Such as: - Relying on keyword metatags - Purchase Links (From Spamming or blacklisted sites or doing purchase links on high level for site marketing) - Horde Page Rank: This is one of my favorites, because it's one that most webmasters don't understand yet. This is because it changed over the past year or two. The concept people have in their mind is that page rank is a key part of site rankings and linking to other sites "leaks page rank" from your site. However, the world has changed. - Swap Links: Another oldie, but not goodie. Search engines want links to represent endorsements. Swapped links represent barter, and they are trivial to detect. Don't swap links for the purpose of building page rank. It's a waste of your time - Implement duplicate content - Use Session IDs on your URLs - Use lots of Javascript - Implement your site in Flash[/quote:1jr37kqx] Hi Jeff, Thanks for adding to the list. I have one question, though. How would one implement Session IDs for a URL, and what benefit would come from doing so?
Re: Kevin's Case Study #10 - When to become an entrepreneur? - When the bug bite you. A lot of successful entrepreneurs started in their teens or at school. Selling sweets to fellow students or lemonade to firends in the neighbourhood.


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