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Sales TipsYour Prospect Wants Benefits But Which Ones

Written by: Greg Beverly

Article Overview: Wouldn't it be great if we knew which benefits mattered to our prospects? Which ones were the most important?

Sales TipsYour Prospect Wants Benefits But Which Ones

You know the difference between features and benefits. So for purposes of this article, we won't go into the difference. You also know that benefits sell better than features. So wouldn't it be great if we knew which benefits mattered to our prospects? Which ones were the most important? Why? Because you need to lead your prospects to the end result rather than allowing them to travel that road alone. Alone they may take one or more detours delaying their arrival, or worse, they may never get there at all.

So how do you know which benefits to sell? Answer that question and you can concentrate on the only thing(s) that matter to your prospect. Actually, YOU can't answer that question. Only your prospect can. That means that you must develop the appropriate questions to find the answer. It also means that you cannot take the first answer that you get at face value. Often it takes several questions to get the true answer.

You can't be afraid to ask questions. If you don't, you'll have no idea what your customer wants and without knowing what your customer wants, you cannot help them buy.

Imagine for a moment that you are in the business of helping clients with their tax preparation. You have the opportunity to meet with a busy business owner who gives you "15 minutes" to convince him that he should be your client. Do you go in and lead off with how long your firm has been in business, how many clients you have, how many years of experience that your partners have, etc.?

If that's your plan, you will lose your prospect's attention within minutes. Their eyes will glaze over, they'll soon be thinking about what they must get done as soon as you leave, all the while listening with one ear and nodding at the appropriate time.

Now, we are going to make an assumption here. Based upon the fact that this business owner stipulated that he would give you "15 minutes," we are assuming that you have verified to the best of your ability in your initial interaction with him/her that they are a high D type personality.

So instead of beginning with small talk, which you would with other personality types, you get right into it. But instead of launching into the features or benefits of doing business with your firm, you find out which of those features or benefits are important to your prospect? What if you lead with a question instead? What if you asked, "Mr. Prospect, thank you for seeing me today and congratulations on your decision to entertain new ways of improving your business. May I ask what is the most important thing to you when it comes to your tax preparation?"

Now you know where to begin. As I stated earlier, you'll need more questioning to determine WHY it is most important. Then you can begin to understand his motivation and structure your presentation to highlight how your firm and your service satisfy his why. But for now, you have his/her attention, you have him/her talking rather than you selling and only good can come from that.

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