These are a few more of the most common, proven and useful professional techniques you can use in sales.
Feature, Advantage, Benefit (FAB)
Salespeople tend to “feature dump” when selling. Being the expert in your industry is fantastic. Sometimes that knowledge overwhelms to buyer prospect if the salesperson bombards them with features. An example is, “someone asks you for the time and you want to build them a watch…”
How is FAB is defined?
Feature: What it is
Advantage: What it does
Benefit: Why someone should care
FAB Example
Feature: Antilock brakes
Advantage: Makes you stop faster and safer
Benefit: It helps save your life!
When explaining the BENEFITS, this is where salespeople often keep talking about features… don’t get caught in this trap. To test yourself, think about the “what’s in it for me” approach not what the product or service is.
Spin Selling
This is a course by itself. If you have not read the book named Spin Selling by Neil Rackham, it is one of the better books out there to help you succeed in sales, no matter what you offer.
Briefly, SPIN stands for:
- Situation – Establishes buyers’ current situation
- Problem – Identify problems that the buyer faces that your product and/or service solves
- Implication – Explore the causes and effects of those problems (show them the potential pain)
- Need-Payoff – Show why your product is worth it
As mentioned, there is an almost unlimited info about selling and I will continue to encourage you to keep learning.
Even though you can build your sales expertise, remember that people are really buying you as well.
