The Verbal Structure of Explaining


The structure of explaining highlights the difference between the benefits of goals and the benefits of features. Start your explanations with customers' goals and they will value them more as they listen to how you connect features to them. Avoid leading with the features of products and making customers wait as you work your way back to their goals. It takes a little practice becoming comfortable starting explanations with customers' goals—not product's features. It is like visiting a country where they drive on the wrong side of the road (at least, according to Americans). The steering wheel is where the passenger sits from our perspective. Although it feels a little awkward jumping into the passenger seat, it is still the fastest way to get where you want to go.

In addition, you connect all the features and benefits of one goal before you proceed to the next one. These connections require concentration (fortunately driven by logic) when customers might have two or more goals, one goal might have two or more benefits, and one benefit might have two or more features that can connect to it. Again, the case studies give you plenty of examples of the explaining process.

Explaining consists of the following four-step process:

  1. Start with the customer's first goal (top ranked) and that goal's first measurable benefit.

  2. Highlight and explain which feature(s) of which product(s) achieve that first benefit.

  3. If there is a second benefit of the first goal, again highlight and explain which features of which product(s) achieve that benefit.

  4. Exhaust the benefits and features that achieve the first goal before proceeding to the second goal by following this same pattern.

Another sure-fire way to determine if customers accept your explanations is to let customers know that you accept responsibility for their understanding of what you said. A helpful question is: "Does that make sense the way I explained it?"

Note

The following examples make this concept easier to understand; otherwise explaining them is like trying to give someone a haircut over the telephone. You can either chart out the relationships among goals, measurable benefits, and features on your connecting value sheet or create one for your customers. Use modified versions of these sheets in your formal proposals and presentation packages tailored to your audiences' areas of expertise. Customers find them easy to read and understand.




The Science of Sales Success(c) A Proven System for High Profit, Repeatable Results
The Science of Sales Success: A Proven System for High-Profit, Repeatable Results
ISBN: 0814415997
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 170
Authors: Josh Costell

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