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Features and Price

Features and price have a weird sales connection:

When you start talking about features, your prospect starts thinking about price.

If all you talk about is features, you sound like every other seller in your marketplace.

So if you want to stand out in a crowded market, here's how to do it:

Talk about something else.

features and price

A decade ago I was business development manager for a full service IT firm back in Vancouver. The copy for our website talked about how we "understood your business" if you were a client and didn't "just talk techie jargon." I was real happy with it until I saw a few competitor sites.

Darn it.

We were all saying the same things. Nothing was there that helped us stand out. Back to the drawing board.

Move the Sales Conversation Off Features and Price

If you're in web design, don't talk about web design.

If you're in car sales, don't talk about cars.

If you're in marketing consulting, don't talk about marketing.

Chiropractors who aren't making any money talk about cracking backs at chiropractor conferences.

Poor web designers talk about web design when they get together.

People who aren't making money at the thing talk about the thing.

Don't talk about features. You won't stand out.

Don't talk about features. You'll induce your prospect to start thinking about price.

When a prospect has nothing to compare you to others on than technical features, all their decision comes down to is price.

They don't have anything else to make that decision on, do they. They don't know about anything else.

Do you want gearheads as clients?

Maybe you do. You know, the person who always has to be right about this or that technicality. The one who will question your every move. The one you have to keep making the sale to as you go, because they know better than you despite you being the expert they hired.

That's who you'll attract if all you talk about is features.

Stop Making Your Prospect Think About Features and Price

Stand Out by taking about something else. Something different than what every boring, cookie cutter version of you is talking about in the industry.

Talk about your branding. Talk about your experiences. Talk about who you've helped.

Talk about pain points. Talk about success stories. Talk about results.

Talk about anything else than the dull, unexciting pabulum everyone else in your field is tone-deafly reciting.

In my case with the IT firm, I went back to the drawing board and started talking about client success stories instead. This filtered for the right kind of managed services and custom programming clients.

>> Jason Kanigan is a conversion expert and business strategist. To book a call with Jason to discuss your business, click here.

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Buyer Preferences Kill Sales!

Buyer PreferencesBuyer preferences are the beliefs you or your prospect have about how you make a purchase. Yesterday we looked at the Foot In The Door technique, and I noted how it shows more about the head trash of the salesperson than anything else. Let me expand upon that.

Each one of us has ideas floating around in our head about how to buy. These are buyer preferences. Many of these are unconscious beliefs; we don't even know we have them. Beliefs about:

  • risk, and how much money we can trust the vendor with to start ("We'll start off at $200/month and see how it goes")
  • how long to take before making a decision ("I need to take at least a night to sleep on it")
  • the way we'd like to be communicated with ("Give me all the data in a spreadsheet")
  • geographic proximity ("I only want to deal with local providers")
  • buying platforms ("There's no way I'd ever buy a car or a suit online")
  • salespeople ("All salespeople are slimeball tricksters who will say anything to get an order")
  • and more!

Two huge issues arise from these beliefs.

First, we believe other people have the same buyer preferences as us.

Second, unsupportive buyer preferences held by the salesperson make selling more difficult!

Other People Do Not Share Our Buyer Preferences

Contrary to our instant belief, other people do not share our buying preferences. Oh, I'm sure some do. Somewhere out there. But the majority of others? No. No way.

Just because you believe risk needs to be controlled, and can only trust someone new with a small amount of money, doesn't mean they believe that. For example, many business owners want someone they can trust to hand the problem over to, and be assured it's being taken care of competently--and if the price is higher than another vendor's, so be it.

If you stick with believing other people have buying preferences that are carbon copies of yours, you'll miss out on sales. Wouldn't it be a good idea to find out what your prospect's buyer preferences are?

You Had Better Get Your Buyer Preferences Aligned with Your Sales Desires

What happens when you believe it's OK for buyers to shop around?

And you take that with you in to the sales conversation?

Surprise, surprise...you'll figure out a way to allow the prospect to shop around.

This is called an unsupportive buyer preference. It doesn't support you selling. The best thing you can do is identify and get rid of it.

Start thinking about your buying preferences. Bring them out into the light of day. Turn them over. See whether you really should be holding onto them--whether they actually make sense or not. Or are they hand-me-downs from your parents?

Align your buying preferences with your sales desires, and you'll make selling a whole lot easier on yourself. You'll also begin attracting prospects who are qualified to work with you.

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