Features

You probably learned from basic sales courses that features, the attributes or key traits of products, produce benefits. However, saying what a feature does is not the same as defining it. This oversight probably explains why most salespeople view features and benefits as being interchangeable. They are not—and understanding how they differ helps you to better define value for customers.

In selling, the words you choose to communicate the value you provide are critical to your success. Because of the key role played by features and benefits, you must pay particular attention to the words you assign to them. Grammatically speaking, there is another way to distinguish features from benefits. Features are described with an adjective followed by a noun, such as stainless steel or bullet-proof vests.

The table in Exhibit 2-1 highlights two features of a high-tech cellular phone and a low-tech bottle of barbecue sauce. Try to limit features to two or three words for clarity and brevity, so they do not become narratives that confuse customers.

Cellular Phone Features (Adjective-Noun)	Attribute/Image
Digital Signal	State-of-the-Art
Hands-Free Operation	Safety Conscious

Barbecue Sauce Features (Adjective-Noun)	Attribute/Image
Hickory Flavor	Outdoorsy
Fat-Free Ingredients	Low-Fat

Exhibit 2-1: Column 1 vs. Column 2 values.

Basic selling courses also forget to point out that features can produce liabilities when they do not achieve customers' goals. This omission turned legions of salespeople into features creatures. You earn this designation when you think the sales pitch with the most features wins. To make matters worse, the more features you mention that do not achieve customers' goals, the more you dilute features and benefits that do.

In addition, these diluting features make customers become more conscious of price. No one likes paying for unnecessary features. A customer's price sensitivity becomes further aggravated when you explain how two dozen unwanted features are "free" because they come standard on your product. When customers feel they paid something for nothing, your prospects for repeat business become bleaker.

Example

You are shopping for a CD player for your car that can hold and play ten compact discs (your goal). You go into an audio equipment store and tell the salesperson you are interested in a ten-play CD player. The salesperson is a world-class feature creature on automatic pilot. He rambles on about how a particular ten-play unit offers random play, sequence order, and mix-and-match features.

Finally, about ten unwanted features later, he tells you the price is $500. You tell him: "Thanks anyway, but it's not exactly what I want. Five hundred dollars is a lot of money for a car unit." Especially one with a million gizmos you will never use. Off you go to the next store in your quest for the "perfect ten" unit.

Again, you state your interest in a ten-play CD unit (goal). This time the salesperson is not a feature creature. She explains only how the features of a particular model are designed specifically for ten-play. She focuses on how its interchangeable cartridges (feature) will also fit your home model, how easy they are to change, how they reduce handling wear and tear. She also highlights why a ten-CD cartridge (feature) has a higher resale value than units with five CD cartridges. The salesperson then tells you it costs $600. You say, "It's exactly what I want, I'll take it."

You go home and start thumbing through the operating manual. You find yourself saying, "Wow, it has this gizmo too," as you read about its peripheral features. The difference is that after the sale, secondary features build value; before the sale, they dilute value.

Note

Regardless of whether you sell a tangible product or an intangible service, both have features. Therefore, for the sake of brevity, the terms products and services will be used interchangeably throughout the book. For example, you could just as easily read the Product Profile sheet as a service profile sheet.