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WHY SELLING BENEFITS IS MORE IMPORTANT

People buy based on emotion, they only justify it later. This has been proven over and over again. Furthermore, the emotional ‘hook’ is based on what the product and/or service will do for them, not what it has. In other words, can we just ALL stop selling the features and focus on the benefits? That is one simple way to take you from; salesperson to sales professional.

A feature, simply put, is something your product has or is.

Examples of some of these features include: a 64 GB hard drive on a computer, pneumatic seat height adjustment on a chair, battery pack with 1000 mAh capacity on a cell phone, integrated timer on a heater or, modern state-of-the-art equipment in a gym. Just to name a few.

WHERE ARE YOU BEING SEEN?

Recently a brand new place to eat, primarily for breakfast and lunch, opened up where we live, Port Coquitlam, BC. Today, my wife and I decided to visit for lunch.

The place is called Jimmy’s Lunchbox and they have been opened for a couple of months in downtown Port Coquitlam. There was a lineup for tables. Not that unusual as it was a Sunday afternoon. They had advised us the wait would be a minimum of 30-minutes.

We could have certainly gone somewhere else for lunch as there are dozens of restaurants nearby as we are a suburb of Vancouver with the borders of the different communities really obscured in this mega area. However, we decided to stay and wait.

Saw a few people come, informed of the wait by staff and then leave not waiting to support a local business.

WHY AVOIDING RISKS IS A BAD IDEA.

Last week I was calling back the clients that had worked with me so far this year, I am sure you all do that. What? You don’t. Maybe you should carve out some time to do so as there is no easier sale that you can make than a sale to an existing customer as they know and trust you already.

I was concerned about one particular client as his fear of rejection had kept on the sidelines. It was starting to become a major issue with his manager. Yes, he was about to be terminated and the manager had decided to hire me for him and the rest of his team as a last resort.

WHAT IS DRIVE?

Drive is a choice that begins with two beliefs;

  1. An expectation that you are suppose to and will win.
  2. A belief that everything happens for a reason.   

These are the words of Jeb Blount in his book Sales EQ and in my estimation, something that has not been discussed as much as it should.

Some of us have an incredible drive and are always in overdrive passing everyone on the road and laughing all the way. While others are still in second gear doing everything we can to get to third, but are having challenges in getting it into the right gear.

Both of the people above have had the same training, similar education, work in the same firm, therefore, why the difference in, drive?

The Micromanagement Myth

There is a dangerous myth going around which states the reason for micromanaging is so one is sure ‘nothing’ goes wrong and deliverables are delivered on time and budget. My opinion is this myth is actually being propagated by…micromanagers.

The above could not be further from the truth. There is a HUGE cost to micromanagement and micromanagers don’t even see it because it can’t be measured.

By micromanaging your team, individuals or other departments, you are essentially telling them you do not trust them to get the job and deliverables done.

YOU CAN ONLY CONTROL WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL

I have to set the budget numbers for next month. Have to start getting the final numbers in for this month. There are three workshops which need to be completed for this month. I need to create content for next week. There are those classes which I need to teach. Have to set the agenda for the special meeting. OMG!!! Can I get the World to just stop for awhile, please? I am so stressed out!!

Is the above scenario something which you deal with? It is for me, except for one little factor; it does not stress me out.