How You Connect the Dots

Features of your products and the goals of customers both have benefits. Knowing this tidbit makes connecting them easier to understand and accomplish. Otherwise, you end up pointing out product benefits in the mistaken belief that you are highlighting the benefits of customer goals. It becomes especially difficult to connect features to benefits with perceived value because they can mean anything. Your products create the most value when you can connect their features and benefits to the measurable benefits of a customer's goals. Look to make sure the benefit has a "by" in it, followed by the dollar amount, to ensure that it is measurable. By equals "buy," which means compensated value.

Example

Rich Darling sells protective enclosures for electronic components. Jane Austin runs the assembly plant that inserts electronic parts into different types of enclosures for various manufacturers such as computers, telephones, or stereo equipment. Jane's goal is to reduce the number of products damaged in transit by $50,000.

In his MP 3 presentation, Rich does what most product-focused salespeople do: He talks about the benefits of his enclosures thinking he is talking about the benefits of Jane's goals. For instance, he explains how one of the features of his enclosures is shatter-resistant plastic that protects the electronic parts better (benefit of feature). Sounds like a good feature and benefit. However, there is one slight problem.

He does not relate this benefit directly to Jane's goal. Granted, it must surely provide value to Jane, but he is leaving it up to her to decide exactly how. Therefore, Rich should directly connect the benefits of shatter-resistant plastic to reducing returns by $50,000. For instance, he could find out how many of Jane's shipments were damaged by incidents that his shatter-resistant plastic could have prevented.

When customers provide measurable dollar benefits, ask them why they chose that amount. In the previous example, Rich should have asked Jane why $50,000 and not $25,000, or $75,000. Knowing those reasons will help you to determine how customers calculate value—and to make sure those dollar amounts are not just out-of-the-blue figures. Measurable dollar benefits will also determine how you can cost-justify your product selections.

Note

In cases where you cannot define measurable value, perceived value must suffice, such as the example in Exhibit 7-5.

Case Study: Olivia's goal is to reduce downtime by nine hours annually (the benefit becomes measurable once you know what an hour of downtime costs). Steven's variance alerts feature prevents unscheduled breakdowns. They connect as follows:
Customer's Goals	Common Benefits	Product's Features
Reduce downtime	Cut production stoppages by nine hours annually (benefit of goal) by preventing unscheduled breakdowns (benefit of feature)	Variance Alerts

Exhibit 7-5: Connecting goals, benefits, features.