Nobody Cares About Your Product
TweetOne of the most important, yet difficult, lessons that a salesperson needs to learn is that nobody really cares about the product you sell.
Prospects care about their own problems, their own issues, their own pain. They don’t care about your product.
The only reason they are interested in your product at all is because it solves a particular problem of theirs, or makes their job easier, or saves them money, keeps their boss off their back, or some other selfish reason. You can think your product is as cool as hell, but people don’t buy something cool as hell, unless they understand how it helps them. Yes… your prospect will be thinking about his/her own issues while you talk about your product. If they can’t make a match… they will not buy no matter how cool your product is.
Think about your own purchases. Especially when you are spending large sums of money, you will always think about how if affect you, whether it be status, comfort, simplification of your life, etc. Your prospects will be thinking this way too.
Once a salesperson understand this fact, the sales process changes to what it needs to be – about your prospects problems / about their issues and pain. The faster the salesperson gets to relating the product, and more importantly the features of the product, to the particular pain of the prospect, the faster he/she will get to a sale.
Time and time again in demos, and presentations, I see a salesperson super intent on getting all of their points out. They are so intent that they do anything and everything to make sure that they cover all the slides they prepared and that they demo every aspect of their product – even when the prospect has told them what they need and what they care about. What makes me cringe is when I see a salesperson get to a section of their presentation and the prospect says, “That’s interesting, but I here is my problem… and I want to hear about this…” and then the salesperson continues on their defined tour of all of the product features. As a salesperson, you should focus on the features FIRST that will help solve the prospects greatest pain. If you can’t define that, then you haven’t done your homework – or there is no match for your product – and you will never get the sale. And, if you only need a single feature to sell the product, why not focus heavily on that feature until is exhausted and the prospect fully understands it.
Once you get your prospect over the hurdle of understanding how you solve his her problem, then you can start to talk about all the other features and things that will make it even better – and perhaps take his/her business in a new direction.
Salespeople should be the greatest evangelists for their products and they should know and love the product. But, by knowing the product that well, the salesperson should be able to talk to anyone and quickly ascertain what part of the product, if any, can solve this prospects pain, and get the prospect to understand that too. If you, as a salesperson, feel the need to just vomit all of the possible features onto the prospect hoping something sticks, well then you are expecting your prospects to do your job and I certainly would not expect you to crush your quota.
Bottom line: They will never care about your product until you MAKE them care about it. How? By showing them how it makes their lives better/easier/simpler/richer.
