How Not To End Up On A Level Playing Field With The Competition! Part II

In Part I of How Not To End Up On A Level Playing Field , we briefly mapped the mantra of sales professionalism:  "the benefit."  The concept of benefit is the foundation stone on which the edifice of sales stands.  Both the successful sales professional and the organization to which the sales person belongs, depend on the existence of benefits to customers from acquiring the seller's wares.  But the sales professional does not rely merely on the existence of benefits, but the profession itself is dedicated to matching vendor to buyer around benefits to the buyer.  A top sales professional speaks to benefits. But as we learned in Part I, benefits may be ante to play, but they are not winning hands, because all good sales people are adept at benefit talk, and therefore the hard-one skill of "thinking of others first" is not much of an advantage.

To win advantage in sales, one must return to the practical world of features, the world left behind in our first rush to "think about our customers first".  This return to a discussion of features of our wares will actually be appreciated by your customers!   A generation ago, before the advent of benefits-oriented sales sophistication, buyers would quickly tire of the self-centred spiel of an endless parade of sales reps.  Now, buyers are likely as tired by an endless parade of benefits-spouting sales reps.  At least the older generation of sales reps were technically savvy.  The new generation however presumes to

A business case is a "work case".  There is a heirarchy of work objects.

To "earn a place".

To