Coffee's for Closers

24FAB Selling

‘Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines’.

—Robert H. Schuller

One of the most common mistakes salespeople tend to make is known as ‘feature bashing’, where they tell the prospective customer all the features of their products and services, and hope that will persuade the prospect to buy. In fact, it achieves the exact opposite.

Imagine a mobile phone salesman doing a pitch to a lady that has walked into their store looking for a new phone. The salesman shows the prospect a new iPhone and says, ‘This is our top selling and most popular handset. It has the best camera, amazing memory capacity for you to save loads of pictures and videos and a really wide screen to clearly view all your emails. It has over 300 ringtone options, and comes in grey, black, white and pink’.

The prospect replies, ‘I need the handset for my mother, who is 84 years old, and it should be the simplest phone to keep for her security and emergencies’.

What should the salesperson have said when the prospect said they are looking for a new phone? One good question should have been, ‘Whom are you looking to buy the phone for?’, rather than just making an assumption.

Once the salesman knew it was for an 84‐year‐old lady, he could have said, ‘What features would she like on the phone?’ That would have allowed the prospect to open up and tell the salesman everything he needed to know to make that sale.

I made a very similar mistake about 15 years ago when I first set up my training company. ...