Salespeople are commonly told to sell "solutions" and "value"
rather than just product features. But when the time comes to
present their products, they fall back on generic scripts with
no direct connection to any specific needs the customer has
revealed. The customer winds up in a one-sided conversation,
listening to the salesperson present too many low-priority
capabilities.
What salespeople lack is a structure for presenting products in
a way that ties features and benefits directly to the customer's
expressed needs.
Lack of structure in a presentation is a prescription for lack
of perceived value.
There is such a structure - Action Selling's TFBR method
(for Tie-Back, Feature, Benefit, Reaction). It lets you create
sales presentations that communicate a compelling reason to move
forward by connecting product features to actual needs the
customer has already agreed upon. In other words, TFBR provides
the answer to, "How do I sell solutions?"
Solution: To present your product as a solution, tie a
specific need the customer has expressed to a feature of your
product. Tie-Back by restating the need, then describe
the corresponding Feature.
Value: Demonstrate the feature's value to the customer by
explaining its Benefit, again in terms of the customer's
expressed need.
Confirm: Cement together the solution and value by asking
for the customer's Reaction. This tells you if what you
have presented is, indeed, perceived as a valuable solution.
Here is an example:
Tie-Back: "You said you were dissatisfied with the
unnatural light of your fiber-optic unit."
Feature: "Our Model 2000 uses a color-correcting system
that delivers perfectly white light."
Benefit: "This improves the visual sharpness and reduces
eye strain and fatigue."
Reaction: "How would a sharper image help with your work?"
When you structure your presentation using the TFBR format for
each product feature you discuss, you have a self-correcting
method to ensure that what you are presenting is a valuable
solution that hits all the right targets.
In The Field:
The TFBR method becomes even more powerful when salespeople get
product training and marketing support designed to reinforce it.
After introducing his sales team to the Action Selling process,
Gerry Giorgio, regional manager with Vaughn Seed, a Division of
Sandoz Nutrition, decided to take product training and marketing
to a higher level.
"We trained our marketing staff in Action Selling Sales
Training as well," Giorgio said. "Now we have
successfully integrated our sales
skills training with product training and marketing
develops presentation pieces using the Action Selling TFBR
procedure. You know it's working when customers go out of their
way to comment on how thorough your salespeople are with their
presentation of your product solution."
About the author:
Duane Sparks is chairman and founder of The Sales Board, a
Minneapolis-based sales training company that has trained and
certified more than 200,000 salespeople.
For more information about this author/company, visit The Sales
Board, Inc. to learn how the Action Selling Sales Training
Programs will exceed your sales objectives.
Written by: Duane Sparks
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