Yesterday we talked about Icebreaking and Qualifying when making a sales presentation. Today we will talk about the Features-Advantages-Benefits part of the sales process.



So why do you ask the qualifying questions? For two reasons, first you want to have an idea what the customer is looking for and finally you want to find out what the customers hot button is. You need to find out what that hot button is so that you will be able to incorporate into the rest of the sales presentation.

The most important thing to remember is that the customer wants to know what is in it for them. They will not buy on the features, they want to know how they are going to benefit.

For example, let's go back to the printer from yesterday. The customer tells you that they print a lot of black and what pictures, they do not print in color and speed is important. Speed appears to be a hot button. So you take them to a fast standard laser printer. You mention that this printer can print at 30 pages a minute (feature), that will allow the customer to print faster (advantage), which will the allow the customer to get their printing done faster saving time (most important-benefit).

Sometimes it will difficult to truly find out what the customers hot buttons are. The customer will not give you enough information or leave out some detail that is important. So how do you know you have given the customer enough reasons to buy? That will be the topic for another day.

A great resource for information on Sales is the Sales and Marketing Blog.