The Reluctant Entrepreneur: Turning Dreams into Profits

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FEATURES AND BENEFITS

To stimulate your prospect’s desire for your product, you have to understand the difference between its features and its benefits. The example of a No. 2 pencil is often used to illustrate this. Here’s how it’s done … 

A pencil has certain features:

• It is made of wood.
• It has a specific diameter.
• It contains a lead-composite filler of a certain type.
• It usually has an eraser at the end.

These features describe the objective qualities of the pencil. And if buying were an entirely rational process, selling it would simply be a matter of identifying those features.

But most purchases are made for emotional, not rational, reasons. Which means that you must convert the features of your product into benefits. For example, the features of a No. 2 pencil might be converted into the following benefits:

• Easy to sharpen.
• Comfortable to hold.
• Creates an impressive line.
• Makes correcting easy.

It’s the benefits that you focus on in your copy.

(By the way, I once conducted a workshop on the difference between features and benefits using a No. 2 pencil that resulted in the identification of more than 100 benefits!)