Analogies

Take the strongest feature or unique strength your product possesses and develop an analogy for it. Analogies are especially useful when selling technical products to nontechnical customers. You want to use everyday parallels to which your customer can relate (more on this topic in Chapter 7 also).

Example

You sell expensive collectors' watches. The strongest feature is their high resale value. You tell a customer to think of a collector's watch as not only a precision instrument and work of art but also an investment, like a mutual fund.

The worth of the watch increases the longer you own it— historically at a rate of 11 percent annually. You point out that this return is better than that of any savings account. Everyone can relate to the benefits of investing in a mutual fund, even one that tells time.