Who’s On Phirst

Sell the benefit, not the feature!
Some general well accepted observations about selling in general.

• People don’t buy a newspaper. They buy the news! - Unknown
• Last year, Americans bought twenty million ¼ inch drill bits. Not one of them wanted a drill bit. What they really wanted were ¼ inch holes! - Unknown
• Don’t talk machines, talk the prospect’s business - John Henry Patterson, founder, NCR
• In the factory we make cosmetics, but in my store we sell hope! - Charles Revson, founder, Revlon Cosmetics

When Michael Faraday invented the first electric motor, he wanted the interest and backing of the British Prime Minister William Gladstone. So Faraday took the crude model—a little wire revolving around a magnet—and showed it to the statesman. Gladstone, obviously not interested, asked: “What good is it?”

Faraday said, “Someday, you will be able to tax it.”

• Don’t lose a sale by talking too much! We call this premature elaboration!
• People buy for their reasons, not ours!
• A key to selling is to overcome objections.

Joe McGuire knew how to sell. When he was selling Remington Rand electric typewriters in a market dominated by IBM and others, Joe had convinced himself that the Remington electric was the best typewriter on the market. Whenever a prospect made a comment about his typewriter, he would assume they were praising it! He didn’t pretend they were praising it, he believed they were praising it because he believed it was the best typewriter on the market. He had brainwashed himself to believe that because he knew that every salesperson had to learn to sell himself first.

When a prospect would ask how much it cost, Joe would answer, ”That’s the best part about it—only $635.” Some prospects were surprised and would respond, “$635?!” At that time, a manual typewriter cost about half that. But Joe would answer, “I knew you’d be surprised. Most people would expect it to cost a good deal more than that.”

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“Every battle is won long before it is ever fought.”
     -- Sun-Tzu, the Art of War

I would like to share some of my thoughts on giving technology product demonstrations after years of being in “the heat of the battle.” The solutions-oriented sales cycle involves a sales team forming a relationship with a customer through which they are able to gain a thorough understanding of what the customer’s business needs are and how those needs affect the customer’s business. The sales team then uses this understanding to articulate how their solution can address the customer’s business needs to the benefit of the customer and their organization.

The “Demonstration” is the primary tool of the Sales Engineer and is a significant event in the technical selling process. It sets the stage for the remaining phases of the evaluation. While it is quite difficult to recover from a poor demonstration, an outstanding demonstration can make a solution the front-runner.

Demonstrations need to be well tuned to a customer’s needs in order to be successful. This tuning process begins with the definition of a solution for a targeted market. The process continues as the sales team consults with a customer and learns more about the needs of that specific customer. At the end of the sales cycle, when the customer signs a deal, the demonstration should be a visualization of the solution that the customer has purchased.

Demonstrations are a manifestation of a defined solution for a given market. They exist to provide a visualization of the business value that a customer could reap from a given solution. For a demonstration to be effective, however, there are several prerequisites that must exist.

The first prerequisite to a successful demonstration is that the product it represents must target a well-defined market and the specific needs of customers within that market. This ensures that a demonstration will have the potential to be relevant to any customer in that market.

The second prerequisite is that the sales team working in the targeted market must be able to “qualify” a given customer need to validate that the solution will be relevant to a given customer. This sales qualification process has two components. The first component involves one or several meetings with a customer to determine if they, in fact, have needs that are addressed by a given solution. If the customer’s needs could be met by the solution, the qualification process proceeds to the second component. In the second component, the sales team determines if the customer has a reason to act on those needs. Reasons for acting on those needs exist when:

• Pain exists – there is some fundamental problem in the customer’s business that is causing some aspect of that business to under-perform.
• A Need to fix the pain - consequences if not fixed, payback if it is fixed
• A Business Driver to address the need - Compelling event, a sense of urgency; An initiative, a directive, a project
• Owners of the Business Driver - the person that has the pain and needs the solution.

An effective demonstration does not "feature dump" or try to prove how smart the sales team is; it establishes value and technical differentiation by mapping qualified business needs to the technical solution.

In closing, let me clearly state that positioning features and benefits in terms that customer’s can understand and visualize while applying their business need -- is the key to setting the stage for a positive and smooth engagement. While positioning features and benefits occurs throughout the sales process, the demonstration is a significant event that visually links the business value to the technology. Remember again, it is quite difficult to recover from a poor demonstration but an outstanding demonstration can make you the front-runner.

Every mouse click, every keystroke, every additional capability, every new screen shown in a demo adds to the perceived complexity in the minds of the audience.

Focus on the specific capabilities needed by the customer to address their business issues – and hold everything else back. The demonstration should build a vision in the customers’ minds that they can easily visualize using the software themselves.

Focus and execute – and the reward will be the full order!

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