You’ve been told for years that you sell on benefits not features. It’s one of those things you see stated again and again, yet there is a key element missing, which is essential if you want to get the best return on your marketing investment. That’s what this post is all about.
Educate then inform
A common marketing myth is that you need to market your services based on benefits and that’s it! This is incorrect. Selling on benefits is only half the deal. First, the other person needs to believe they have a problem, which your benefits solve. If they don’t believe they have a problem, they are not going to buy your solution. The challenge here is that many people who really need your services, don’t know it yet. For these people, you need to educate them that they have the problem, before you stand a chance of them becoming a client.
For example, if someone is using a “cheap” accountant, they may think they are getting a GREAT deal. It’s only after they learn that their cheap accountant is losing their business 50k a year needlessly, by giving them bad advice, that they are aware they need a good accountant, and quick! An hour before they discovered they were losing out on 50k a year, they would have been bragging to their buddy about what a great deal they got from their accountant and not remotely interested in finding a better accountant.
Yes, the benefits of your service are extremely important to your marketing, but they are of little real marketing value, until you have convinced your prospective client that they actually have a problem.
Use this idea and become the only show in town!
If you are really smart, you will develop a unique solution that your competitors are not offering. This way, when you educate your prospective clients that they have a problem, your service becomes the answer, rather than simply an answer.
Get this right and you will never have to sell based on fees again, plus you will always be in demand. It’s one of the many things I work on with my clients and the results can be amazing!
Jim Connolly can help you grow your business and achieve the breakthrough marketing results your hard work deserves. To find out more, simply click here!
Photo: Darkuncle
Top notch post as usual Jim. A great reminder!
Thanks for the kind words, Jeremy.
Jim,
I hear what you’re saying and completely agree with your premise that you must first frame the benefit in terms of the problem that it solves. However, in your example, you’re suggesting that you need to send a message that a business owner may be losing money because they’ve hired a schmuck.
Which brings me to my question… I’ve always been reluctant to frame value propositions based on this sort of negative message. My theory is that people hate to admit they’ve made mistakes, which includes hiring the wrong person. There is psychological research to support this.
So, what’s your experience? How do you tell a business owner they have a problem because their current accountant (or CMO or software developer or college intern) was a bad hire?
Hi Jon. I don’t see a negative message there, sir. Your ability to help people identify and then solve genuine problems is 100% positive. It only becomes negative, (and pointless) if you are silly enough to disrespect or bad mouth your competitors, rather than highlight the solution.
I blogged about the danger of bad mouthing your competitors just a few weeks ago: http://jimsmarketingblog.com/2011/08/03/the-truth-about-bad-mouthing-your-competitors/
This blog is for savvy small and medium sized business owners. I believe my readers are bright enough to know that it’s a REALLY bad move, to tell a prospective client that they’re an idiot when it comes to hiring service providers. You can’t cover every point, on every subject, in every post.
For example, I could have mentioned that it’s a bad move turn up for that client meeting an hour late. I could have added that you need to make sure that your uniqueness has a demonstrable market value, before taking it to the marketplace as a solution. I might have added something about the need to determine if you even want to work for someone, who places so little value on service, that they would hire the previous provider. All of which are valid, but you can’t say it all in every post.
Note to self: I may write a post about that
Hope that helps, Jon and thanks for giving me the seed of an idea for a blog post!
Amen to that Jim.
What we love about your blog is that you share the idea and use it to open our minds rather than patronize us by doing the thinking.
Love
Charlie XxX
Thanks for the kind words, Charlie.
Jim,
You took my comment the wrong way. I wasn’t suggesting that you badmouth your competitors (or suggesting that you suggested it).
I was asking your opinion about a much more subtle distinction in constructing a marketing message. My point was that a potential customer may receive that message very differently depending upon whether or not they have already bought that product or service. For example, you could have a very positive message like, “Our unique approach to consistently saves clients money and reduces their time to .” If the customer has never purchased “Service X,” they will have a very different psychological reaction than if they had already spent money on an apparently inferior one. That’s what I meant by negative; the fact that they would react defensively at the realization that they may have screwed up with their initial decision. For this reason, I somewhat disagree with your assertion that “Your ability to help people identify and then solve genuine problems is 100% positive.” If the root cause was that they hired the wrong person or bought the wrong product, I think the task is a little more challenging.
And so I was looking to start a discussion along those lines. I wasn’t trying to insult anyone’s intelligence (yours or your readers). I find your answer to me to be pretty condescending. I’m sure I could have done a better job articulating my point but I don’t think it deserved a retort like, “I could have mentioned that it’s a bad move turn up for that client meeting an hour late.” Nor did I say anything resembling calling your customer an idiot and for you to suggest that is unfair, to say the least. That’s the behavior of a school yard bully, not a marketing thought leader in my opinion.
Seems there’s a communication issue here, Jon. You’re welcome here to comment and share ideas any time. I take your comments on board and apologise if anything I wrote suggested otherwise to you. I was attempting to make a point, not piss off a valued reader.
No worries! I’m sure many wouldn’t have posted my follow-up comment and even fewer would have responded as well as you did.
Thanks for your gracious reply.
Jon, I have seem you on and around my blog for a couple of years and your intention is always to contribute. You’re input here is always warmly welcomed.
Jon,
I see what you are saying here. I think there are ways to go about communicating this to the prospect without being blunt and making them feel like they have made a mistake. Using questions to get them come to this realisation themselves that they can make more money by doing something else would probably be a better approach. Do you have links to this research you mentioned? Would love to read if you do. Good point anyway!
Hi Jeremy.
Whilst not research, Seth Godin made a point about how to sell the problem, a few days ago. I don’t go with everything he says here, but it’s a solid post.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/08/sell-the-problem.html
Hope that helps.
Hi Jeremy,
I think that there are two relevant psychologies here, one of which is related to Godin’s post and – I think – the key to solving this problem.
The first is that we overvalue what we have. There are three reasons for this: We fall in love with what we have, we focus on what we will lose instead of what we will gain and we assume other people will view the transaction from the same perspective we do. The latter is particularly relevant to this discussion. I know I’ve read several different accounts of this, but the only specific one I can remember at the moment can be found in Dan Ariely’s book, “Predictably Irrational.” He conducted experiments on the Duke campus using basketball tickets.
So if we overvalue the things we already have, it makes it more difficult to get people to admit that they may not be as valuable as they think it is. Also, most people are extremely reluctant to admit that they are/were wrong. But Godin’s post gives us a clue to another psychological tool we can use; peer pressure.
Similarly, there are dozens of experiments that demonstrate how powerfully our decision process is affected by “group think.” I can recall one in which people were shown relatively simple math problems and asked to solve them as a group. In one group, a cooperative participant was asked to deliberately (and strenuously) put forth a wrong answer. This group produced the wrong answer significantly more often than the control group. There were similar experiments done with MIT students who were asked to solve engineering problems as individuals and as groups. The individuals also performed significantly better because the peer pressure of the groups encouraged lowest common denominator thinking. With all that said, Godin suggests that a powerful way to get people to admit they made a mistake is to demonstrate that other people have solved the problem.
This brings us back full circle to Jim’s point and what I think is the answer to my question. Yes, we need to focus on selling benefits, but I think it may be even more beneficial to focus specifically on the benefits gained by others from a particular solution.
Going back to my example from earlier, this would suggest that a subtle rewording of the benefit from “Our service reduces cost by x and reduces delivery times by y,” it might be more effective to say, “Our customers have seen cost reductions of x and reduction of delivery times by y as a result of (our service solving this specific problem).” That fights irrational fire with fire. They don’t want to admit that they could see an improvement by replacing the person or product they’ve already purchased (loss aversion) but perhaps this can be overcome through the irrationality of peer pressure from seeing that others have gained the benefit of your particular solution.
Thanks Jim – not sure how I missed that, I am on his list.
You’re welcome
Hello Jim,
I’ve been doing what you are saying here, but the most difficult thing is how to position this amazing tips into the brain of the sales people?
Because they only doing this tips for about 1 or 2 months, and then they just forget it.
[...] Selling on Benefits? Then Read This — More smart advice from Jim Connolly this week on marketing. And this is a must read, if you haven’t seen it already. The idea of benefits has been beaten to death, and sadly, it’s not all that effective. Jim shows us how to do it right. [...]