Hi there, everybody, I could go down a rabbit hole on this one. I'm going to try to hit the high points, throw it out there at you, let you digest it, go apply to your business development practice, as best you can. If you need help, give me a call and talk to me about it. Here's what I'd like to tell you - feature and benefits selling ain't gonna make you money.
Now, I'm not saying it hasn't made your money. I'm not saying it doesn't work. I am saying this. It's not efficient, it's not effective, it's not the best way to get the results that you're after. I don't care what the engineering, the research and development in the marketing departments tell you about it, facts, figures and data do not create business development success. What you really need to do, is to understand what the emotional component is that drives a prospect to make a decision to work with you.
So, one of the examples that I like to use is when you think of a tow truck service, and you think of why you need a tow truck service. Well, none of us wake up every day and have a tow truck budget for when we're going to be on the side of the road with a flat tire, a bad carburetor, and ignition switch that won't turn on, or whatever it is. When we're looking for a tow truck service, and we have an idea of what we'll pay for it, well, I really think there's so much more that determines the value of that tow truck. Beyond the open 24 hours, three trucks respond in an hour, no damage to your bumper, or whatever the features and benefits are of that service, what matters most is the emotion of what your circumstance is. So what are you willing to pay for a tow truck? Well, frankly, it could be anything depending upon where you are, where you have to be, when you have to be there, what the climate is, is it raining? Is it snowing? Is it icy? Are you in the middle of nowhere, do you need to get somebody to the hospital, are you up against it and you'll pay whatever it takes to get out of the predicament that you're in?
So, it's not the features and benefits that really drive the value for that tow truck operator. It's the circumstance in which they provide you the service of getting you from where you are to where you need to be. All the features and benefits in the world are not going to create the same value as the emotional state of worry frustration, fear, anxiety, nervous, upset, ticked off. Those are the words that drive urgency and create high value transactions in business development.
So yes, you got to know about your product, you've got to know why your service is what it is. You've really got to understand and get into the information about why someone wants it, why they want it now, and what happens if they can't get it for you. Get the real value of your offering. So to all you sales engineers out there, to all you research and development people, for all you people that are making things bigger, better, faster, brighter, whiter, cleaner, I love what you do. But you've got to understand it from the buying perspective, not the selling perspective.
Those of you in the business development arena, it's not what you know, but what you don't know, that creates the best opportunity and the most urgency for you to collect a decision that's best for you and the prospect. So, features and benefits are nice, but you've got to know what makes them valuable to the customer before they have any value at all. Change your thinking, change your results, change your income. Thanks for listening. Have a great day. Have a great weekend. Go have a great week next week.
