 Track Selling Times - January, 2001
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Track Selling Times
The Voice of the Sales Profession
Issue No.134
January 1, 2001
Published by Max Sacks International,
Home of 100% Guaranteed World Class Sales Training
Developers of the Track Selling System™.
Author/Editor: Roy Chitwood, President, MSI
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"A Buying Motive Feature-Benefit Matrix
helps determine a buyer's 'hot buttons'."
by Roy E. Chitwood, CSP, CSE |
The Track Selling System works by providing a scientific understanding of how, when and why a person buys. And one of the most effective selling tools that can be created is a comprehensive Feature-Benefit Matrix. This tool should be the basis for each sales presentation.
Contrary to typical matrixes that simply list a feature and its corresponding benefit (i.e. Feature: 24 hour-a-day, toll free support; Benefit: peace of mind and ease of access for business travelers). The Track Selling System-based matrix lists a feature, directly followed by a benefit that corresponds to one of the six Buying Motives. Remember that this is essential because people buy emotionally and then justify the purchase logically. By focusing the qualification process on questions relating to the Buying Motives, the salesperson will uncover hidden needs satisfying the prospect's emotions, hence the likeliness of a sale is significantly increased.
Creating a Track Selling System-based Feature-Benefit Matrix will take time and considerable thought and energy. If possible, brainstorm with colleagues to list all possible features and its benefits for each buying motive. The more time and effort spent will yield a more effective sales tool.
- The three components of an effective Feature-Benefit Matrix are:
- Listing the important features of your product or service
(prioritized during the brainstorming session)
- Detailing the corresponding benefits for each of the six Buying Motives
(Desire for Gain - $, Fear of Loss - $, Comfort and Convenience, Security and Protection, Satisfaction of Emotion, and Pride of Ownership)
- Developing three or four fact-finding and/or feeling-finding qualification questions for each feature/benefit
There are many possible layouts for the matrix, but it's important to remember that the matrix is intended to be an actual tool a salesperson can use during sales calls. This considered, I recommend an easy-to-reference basic table layout. We have a basic Feature-Benefit-Reaction Matrix available for graduates of the Track Selling System at our new Graduate Center, www.maxsacks.com/graduates/; please call our office for login instructions (800-488-4629).
For those interested in creating your own, here's how to set it up:
- At the left margin, vertically list the important features of your product/service.
- Horizontally across the top of the page and to the right of the features, create six columns for the six Buying Motives:
Desire for Gain - $, Fear of Loss - $, Comfort and Convenience, Security and Protection, Satisfaction of Emotion, and Pride of Ownership.
- For each feature, move across each row from left to right, filling in the key benefits for each Buying Motive.
- On the back, it's useful to list 3-4 general and specific Qualification Questions that relate to each Feature. These questions are used during Step 2 - Qualification of the Track Selling System to uncover potential Buying Motives.
For example, one of the most important features of the Track Selling System is; The Track Selling System is a proven, effective scientific selling process.
The corresponding benefits are:
- Desire for Gain - $: Enables your company to close more sales in less time.
- Fear of Loss - $: You won't lose sales using old-style, antiquated selling techniques.
- Comfort & Convenience: Management can coach a proven sales process instead of sales by chance.
- Security & Protection: You'll have a proven tool for protecting profit margins and meeting sales forecasts.
- Pride of Ownership: You'll feel at ease knowing that some of the world's most successful sales organizations (Oracle, Hewlett Packard, Coca-Cola) have relied on the same process.
- Satisfaction of Emotion: You can feel confident and secure in knowing that you're developing your selling and professional skills and well on your way to becoming a true sales professional.
To determine which of the Buying Motives strike a chord with the prospect, ask appropriate qualification questions. In the above example, useful questions might be: "What would it mean to you personally and professionally to increase sales 25% while shortening your sales cycle an average of one month?" (Desire for Gain - $), "What would it feel like to know that you're doing everything you can to be as successful as possible at selling?" (Satisfaction of Emotion). It's obvious when you hit the right Buying Motive(s) because people will react emotionally and be anxious to talk.
Increasing sales demands continuous improvement of a salesperson's selling skills and a comprehensive Feature-Benefit Matrix can be an extremely powerful selling advantage. Develop it. Improve it. And use it. It really can help uncover a buyer's 'hot buttons' thereby generating outstanding results.
Integrity Pays:
"Just saying no to a potential million dollar bribe."
by Dan Kallestad
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Dan Kallestad is president of Chino, California based Sentry Technologies, Inc. The company specializes in grain management and provides farmers with its patented Sentry PAC (programmed aeration controller), which prevents grain from spoiling. The company is currently developing its website and has a placeholder at www.binbrain.com. For more information, please call (800) 227-2279 or write to: Sentry Technologies, Inc., 15710 El Prado Road, Chino, CA, 91710.
Several years back, in a business I formerly owned, I was put into an unenviable predicament by anyone's measure. Through several meetings with potential clients it was represented that if we made an investment in both our time and specialized equipment to fill orders we would be awarded ongoing contracts.
This was not going to be a small investment. In fact, it required us to build a tool & die shop and buy equipment that would be used exclusively for these new clients, totaling more $200,000 during a period when our annual sales were only $800,000. But with a commitment from our clients that my company would receive the business and a commitment from my staff, and believing that a deal is a deal, I moved forward without hesitation.
When we had built the infrastructure to the point where we were ready to tackle the first contract (for $75,000), my employee who had arranged the sale told me the client wanted $10,000 cash back out of the deal. Shocked, I told him that's not the way we do business.
When I probed deeper I learned the other contracts were set up the same way. My employee was obviously padding his own pocket, although I never learned how much he was keeping or how much the client expected. I questioned him why he would do this, never receiving a straight answer. He told me this was how it was done at his former employer and he didn't understand why I wouldn't do the same for easy money. His theory was that it was a small price to pay for a windfall.
While this theory was obviously satisfying from a monetary base (a kick back of $10,000 on every $75,000 previously nonexistent contract), it was fundamentally flawed on the ethical and principle base from which I ran the company, even though the company really needed the business. At that stage of our growth, my decision not to pursue these deals, in essence, threw away our $200,000 investment and put a severe strangle hold on the company's cash flow.
I never hesitated in rejecting the proposition nor have I ever regretted it. If your actions are based on honesty and integrity, and you honor your own moral compass of what's right and wrong, you won't be able to put a price on your peace of mind and clear conscience. As the popular advertising campaign for Mastercard beautifully states, "They're priceless."
World Class Sales Management:
"Train your sales staff to succeed."
(Excerpted from the Orange County Business Journal)
By Roy E. Chitwood, CSP, CSE
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In today's competitive marketplace, a company's future depends more on its sales and marketing ability than on any other facet of its business. Without sales, nothing happens. Even knowledge of what products and services to provide flows from the partnership between a company's sales force and its clients. W. Edwards Deming says that a company must "focus on the consumer, not the product, as the most important part of the production line."
Deming founded the Total Quality Management (TQM) movement. TQM shifted the focus in manufacturing from profits to quality, and from the individual to the team. TQM is working well; costs are down, profits are up, consumers are more satisfied, teamwork is replacing old win/lose ways, and new methods and processes ensure that the consumer receives quality service as well as a quality product.
TQM works because it uses a logical, step-by-step process to improve production. In addition, the TQM process can be applied to any product from potato chips to computer chips. Now, just about every organization has a production process, as well as an accounting process, a distribution process, and an administration process. But what about sales? Which organizations have a sales process? Sales tend to be left to chance. Typically, salespeople are given some product knowledge and some motivational hype, and then sent out to sink or swim. Is it any wonder that salespeople feel pressure, panic, and don't close sales? Without continuous training, and a sales process, how can salespeople increase sales and improve profitability? Most cannot.
Think of your salespeople.
How would you rate them on a level of one to ten, ten being the highest level of product knowledge, sales skills, negotiation skills and attitude? Are your salespeople threes, fives, or tens? A salesperson must be a highly trained competent professional to survive in today's competitive marketplace. Yet research shows that the majority of salespeople do not know how to sell. The money their companies have invested in them is wasted. If you look at your salespeople and they are fives today and they were fives last year, what has to change this year to make them into sevens, eights, nines, or tens?
Now let's look at your customers.
Are your salespeople calling on high level decision makers who control the dollars a company spends? Then your salespeople are dealing with clients who are above average in attitude, education, and skills. How would you rate these clients? Fives? Or are they closer to tens? What do you think happens when a salesperson who is a five or six calls on a prospect who is a nine or ten? No sale and a damaged company reputation. Remember the salesperson is your company to a prospect or a customer.
Now let's look at your competition.
What will happen if your competitors train, educate, and motivate their salespeople to be nines or tens? Your competition eats your lunch. They will be much more successful and will increase their market share. A more knowledgeable, better-trained sales force will outsell the competition every time.
According to a recent study by Harvard University and Wharton Business Schools, the surest way to profits and productivity is to treat employees as assets to be developed.
Companies say, "Our greatest asset is our people." That's static and one-sided. Any company's greatest asset is the undeveloped potential of its people.
Focus on the Professional -
"Susan Brebner "
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Susan Brebner is Sales Director for MarketReps in Vancouver, B.C. She represents Thompson Consumer Electronics and sells telephone systems exclusively to Canadian Telco, a division of Bell Canada. She has more than 30 years in the telephone communications industry.
What was your biggest selling challenge prior to enrolling in the Track Selling System workshop?
Although I didn't have a label for it prior to attending the workshop, I now know it was the Agreement on Need step. I was strong at qualifying a prospect, however, once I thought I knew what her needs were, I'd move immediately into selling her on the benefits of my product and then the close. The sales process would often break down during the close because I hadn't uncovered her true needs.
What prompted you to enroll in the workshop?
I began my current position about a year ago. With my many years of experience in the telecom industry, I considered my product and capabilities knowledge to be strong. And I believed my sales skills were also solid. Yet it's important to me that I always be growing and developing my skills. About seven months ago while using the Internet to search for sales training and sales skills advice to compliment my skill set, I found the Max Sacks site. While visiting I read about the Track Selling System and began visiting the site frequently. I quickly knew this kind of selling process, one that could be duplicated on every call, with every client, was what was missing from my sales quiver so I decided to pursue it by enrolling in the workshop.
What was your biggest learning experience?
Aside from meeting many sales professionals from other industries who all shared remarkably similar challenges, for me the seven-step process was by far the most eye-opening, most valuable takeaway from the workshop. The process is very easy to follow, easy to duplicate, and if applied correctly, it works. Prior to the workshop, I was always very well prepared and had an objective for every sales call. The Track Selling System has only aided my preparation thereby increasing my confidence. This truly is an investment that continues to appreciate.
Book Review -
The Invisible Touch: The Four Keys to Modern Marketing
by Harry Beckwith
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Harry Beckwith's 1997 work, Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing, helped shine the business spotlight on the cavalier and selfish attitudes many companies had in dealing with their customers. It's since become recognized as one of the most valuable manuals ever written for effective customer service and sound marketing.
In his follow-up piece, The Invisible Touch: The Four Keys to Modern Marketing, Beckwith centers on what categorizes as the 'four keys to modern marketing' - price, branding, packaging, relationships - and offers many entertaining examples to drive the points home. He effectively explains why higher pricing can actually increase sales because of a heightened quality perception; why a brand's message is of more fiscal value than the quality of the product or service; how, with a prettier and more visual appealing package, a product will sell more regardless of quality; and why it's important to make every client feel as though they're the most important, and how to go about accomplishing as much.
Although The Invisible Touch: The Four Keys to Modern Marketing, isn't in the same class as Selling the Invisible, few books are, however, it's a light and engaging read that can stimulate new ideas for improving your business and serves as a strong compliment to its predecessor.
| Ask Roy
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Kris Hanlon of Bloomington, Indiana asks:
"How many feature - benefit - reaction sequences are appropriate and how do I know which ones to present?"
Roy's Answer:
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Usually you'll offer three, possibly four, feature - benefit - reaction sequences. As a refresher, the sequence is: cite a specific feature of your product or service; then share the corresponding benefit; and then ask an open-ended reaction question to learn the buyer's feelings on this specific benefit.
You learn which feature - benefit sequence to share during the qualification process by asking questions that relate to each buying motive. Once you learn the buyer's dominant buying motives (hot buttons), move to the Agreement on Need step and continue the sales process.
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| Reader Survey
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1. What do you think of Track Selling Times?
2. What else would you like to see included?
3. If you have sales questions for Roy, or know of a salesperson, sales manager or integrity story that should be featured in Track Selling Times, mail it to:
The Editor, Track Selling Times
c/o Max Sacks International
2442 NW Market Street #409
Seattle
WA 98107
Tel: (206) 706-4119 Fax: (206) 706-5359
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Our products and services help our clients increase sales, improve profit
margins, reduce sales cycles and build stronger partnerships with their
customers.
To learn more about our Track Selling System and how we can help you, please call (800) 488-4629.
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