".....which means...."

By Jill Dennis

Features and Benefits.  Isn't this the first thing you're taught in Sales 101?  Yet, the art of translating the feature into a benefit is often lost in advertising.  We assume that the customer has a level of understanding that they don't have.  We assume the information we're trying to relay is common knowledge.  And then, because we assume, the customer is not able to clearly see the benefit of the product we are trying to sell.

So, how can we guard against making statements about features without showing the benefit?  Well, in Roy Williams' book "The Wizard of Ads", he talks about his friend who trained himself to silently add the words "which means" to every statement he used to talk about the features of the product he was selling.  The result was that he constantly reminded himself to translate the objective, intellectual features of his product into the meaningful, desirable benefits they represent.  He goes on to give an example.  If a salesperson were to tell you that the car you're looking to buy has a V-8 engine and you'll love it.....most likely, that will mean nothing to you.  But if the salesperson instead says, "This car has a V-8 engine, which means it will last longer because it doesn't have to work as hard as a smaller engine.  You'll also have the power to pass in traffic, and most important, you'll have the acceleration to get out of the way of traffic accidents before they happen."    

Learn to translate features into the language of the customer, whose only question is, "What's in it for me?"  The customer will hear you when you speak their language.