How to Think Like Your Customer

Your salespeople need to talk less about product features and talk more about real life situations to which customers can relate. You can teach them how to use this strategy. In CustomerCentric Selling, we call this a usage scenario.

Usage scenarios work when selling any products or services to any businesses or consumers. Over the years, we've worked with a wide range of companies in a variety of industries spanning the gamut from retail banks and companies offering credit card sales to merchants, overnight delivery services and temporary housing providers. All benefited from this approach, even in cases where the offering was just one in a crowded field of entries. In fact, our experience suggests that in situations where the offering is perceived as a commodity - that is, interchangeable with the competition - the most powerful differentiator is the buyer's conversation with the salesperson.

Many salespeople tend to lead with their product - that is, to push hard on what they perceive to be the distinguishing characteristics of their offering. This approach is fraught with peril. It often fails, for example, to establish a salesperson's competence. It short-circuits meaningful discussion of the buyer's needs. It may lead to premature price discussions, cause sticker shock and result in no sale at all. Many salespeople fail to realize that only the product attributes buyers agree they want or need are relevant.

Part of the problem is the salesperson's familiarity with the product or service - most often thought of as a great asset. Think about the way your salespeople learn about their products. In many cases, they are sent off to "product training" during their first weeks on the job. Many organizations refer to this as "sales training," which is inaccurate. If your company emphasizes the importance of your product during training, naturally your salespeople will share that vast knowledge with each prospect.

Is that really what you want?

During sales calls, should your salespeople focus on what your product can do for the prospect or should they focus on how the prospect can use your product to achieve a goal or solve a problem? Without a doubt, your salespeople and their buyers should be focused on product usage, not product features.

What's a feature? For our purposes, a feature is an attribute of a product or service. Features include things like size, weight, color, material used, modules and specifications. Many marketing people take artistic license with these facts, adding adjectives to heighten the feature's presumed sex appeal to make it even more irresistible. For example, in technology offerings, words like "robust," "seamless," and "integrated" creep into the lingo.

The primary problem with teaching salespeople to lead with features is that this approach counts on buyers knowing whether or not the feature is useful and, therefore, relevant. Yes, countless salespeople lead with product features in their sales pitches every day and experience good results. It works best, however, when buyers already understand how to use the product or service, understand the value of using it, trust the seller and trust the seller's company.

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