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August 18, 2007

Selling of product benefits

Honestly, I believe selling of product benefits is out. There are too many competitors out there that sell the same product as any other company. Take your product and check it via Google. May be you even know how many competitors you have, in your own country or elsewhere.

I heard recently, after the recall of Mattel's toys and the renewed negative interest in China's product quality, that there are 10,000 toy producers in China alone.

Sure, their quality might be lower, their prices surely are ... does it matter to you? If your price is anything but 10% more expensive than the cheapest supplier, and that is not that much of a differential margin, you have to think differently to get your product out of the warehouses and into your customer's hands.
This 10% is just a number, to give you any indication. So serious - how many competitiors do you have?

Any producer or service provicer, in Malaysia, elsewhere in Asia, Europe, Australia or the US must think differently to stay in the market place. Sure, currently there is a review of the products that China produces, and may be new demands for quality are made. Ask yourself, nevertheless. How long will you be safe, now, after this review? One month? Two months or more? Not for long, for sure.

I came back from the training in Penang. I trained a group of sales executives for one day in the magic of NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programming.

Just a bit only. They already had 3 days of training, before I started my training, so naturally, they were tired. During the earlier training, they had apparently learnt to talk about their product with clients and customers and introduce it to them.

Honestly, I was a bit shocked, when I saw their role play. It is good to know your product, for sure, and the different benefits, but this is something that you can learn easily, from your product brochure and some hardware training, so to speak.

In the roleplay, they went in and started to straight talk about their product and its benefits. The way they learnt it earlier. Just talking about the greatness of their product. No questions were asked, or only some that related to delivery of products and prices.

I stayed shocked throughout the session.

To me, selling today is more about creation of value for the client. What is it that the client wants? How can my product meet his or her needs. How is my product able to serve them better. How is the client buying, usually, what is the sales process. What are the issues he or she is facing currently. Talk about the client's product process, his or her dreams for better production, his or her clients and customes - basically, identify how your product can make or break (hopefully not) his production and help his or her company to stay ahead of the competition.

Questions to ask would be such as how would the client know that you are a great supplier? What is the importance of your product to his or her production - and plenty more. All those questions would identify the client's decision making strategy, his reassurance strategy and more. In the end you would be able to meet his or her needs hundred percent.

These questions keep you alive and ahead of those that undercut you and help your client to think that you are really interested in their business.

Nothing else. And these questions are what NLP teaches you. Questions, and much, much mroe, so that you are able to meet any demand of your client without any surprise.

I believe the company had a good interest, but if their salespeople go out and sell only product benefits and how great their company is .... honestly, forget it. Sorry!!


In our training classes, we teach you how to use the power of your mind to achieve your sales goals. Why not checking out our brochures and if you are ready for change, join us and others on the journey to success and self-management? Or call us at 012-287 50 48 for additional comments.
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Posted by Andreas at August 18, 2007 06:59 PM

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