Benefit Selling

You may think that selling benefits is a bit old fashioned, but it’s still an extremely common (and fairly common sense) way of demonstrating what your medium can do for your prospects.

The most important idea that "selling the benefits" gives us is the importance of being clear about why a company should do business with you.

As mnemonics go it’s a pretty bad one so you’ll have no problems remembering the acronym WIIFM – What’s In It For Me?

Imagining your prospect saying "so, what’s in it for me" after each statement you make about your product and you’ll get closer to expressing the real value of your proposition.

You’ll know when you’ve hit the real benefit as your prospect won’t be able to say "so what?!". Using Features, Advantages & Benefits is one way to get there.

Feature
This is a fact about your product for example the circulation of your magazine.

"That’s great, but what’s in it for me?"

Advantage
So…having the biggest circulation means that you’re likely to get a better response than from any other magazine.

"Well that’s nice…but so what?"

Benefit
So…you said that your main objective is to get your vacancy filled quickly. Because more of your target employees read our magazine than any other we can deliver the quality and volume of response you need to fill your vacancy in the least possible time.

"…"

One of the reasons this approach often fails is an over-reliance on basic benefits that the salesperson assumes all buyers will be interested in – in reality one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

For this to be effective you must sell the benefits that match the specific needs and desires that you uncovered during your probe stage (see Questioning). As well as these we also know that certain types of buyer will look for different benefits depending on their job role (see What Your Prospects Want).

You may work for the market-leading magazine with the best circulation, but remember that there’s more than one way to skin a cat - as well as the directly competing magazines in your sector, you may also be competing for their spend with other media such as an exhibition or online pay per click.

Find out what other media you’re competing with and sell the benefits of your medium as well as your brand. You’ll find the latest research to support your pitches in our Supporting the Sale section.