Selling Without Headlights

When you were a kid, did your dad ever turn the car’s headlights off while driving at night to scare you? Mine did. It was scary, but fun all at the same time. And, so, as a son now turned Dad, I have carried on the tradition with my kids, only five or six times in my life. 

Before you turn me in to social services, you should know that we live in a small town without much traffic. So for the scare and thrill of my two young boys, I only do it on the back road to our house where there are no streetlights. I turn my headlights off for about two seconds while only moving about 15 mph. It’s pitch black, especially since their eyes are still adjusting. It’s just long enough to get them to jump, but short enough to be safe. It’s scary and makes you appreciate how much your headlights help. They always beg for more, but I keep it to just about once a year, so they’re not expecting it. Our lawyer suggests I advise you not to do this at home. 

But as a sales rep, you may already be doing this — with your customers when you talk to them on the phone. You just don’t know it. Why? Because on the phone, you typically don’t have the benefit of visual aids to help your customers see. 

In person, you have a presentation, or marketing collateral, or even a sample of the product you are selling. Customers can touch and see it. But in most cases, the only thing customers have to understand your solution whey you’re on the phone with them is your words. 

And while the trend of web sharing and video conferencing continues to grow, in 95 percent of phone conversations the only information customers get is from what you say. It’s the same as closing their eyes. The only sense they are using is the sense of sound – what they are hearing. This has the same effect as turning off your headlights. They don’t know where you are going, and it might be a little scary. Both things are bad.

Why do we want customers to see? Because it’s more powerful. Using more senses involves more brain energy and emotion. It makes a bigger impact, and customers are more likely to embrace what you are saying. We would like them to see on the entire call. But the most important time for them to see is when you are making your recommendation for a solution, or in the Build Value stage of the conversation. It is at this point that customers are learning new information. The more senses they use to receive this information, the greater their ability to process and the more likely they will buy what you are selling. 

Even though it’s only the phone, there are two things you can do on your next call that will help them “see” better on the phone: Use Other-Centered® Benefits and create Word Pictures. Both of these are effective ways to help customers visualize your recommendation and increase your chances of success.

Use Other-Centered® Benefits

Highlighting features and benefits of a product are essential in the selling process. As a refresher, a feature is a specific fact about what the product or service does, and a benefit is why any particular feature is important.  For example,

• Feature: The X123 camera has two gigabytes of memory and holds 1,000 pictures.
• Benefit: Having a 1,000-picture capacity means you don’t have to download pictures to a computer in the middle of a vacation.

Here are two truths: Benefits sell and features don’t. Benefits don’t help customers see, but Other-Centered Benefits do. What’s the difference between the two types of benefits? Most sales people have a list of marketing-crafted features and benefits in their sales tools. But an Other-Centered Benefit is personal; it connects the features and advantages of the product to a specific situation the customer told you during your Discovery.  

So you can only create an Other-Centered Benefit by learning about the customer. If the customer wants an upgraded camera, a good job of asking questions may get the customer to reveal, “On our last trip to the islands, I ran out of memory on my camera. I had to delete some good pics and missed some others because I didn’t realize I was out of memory until we are on our boat tour.”   

This is very personal to the customer. And the customer for sure sees himself on that boat, frantically trying to decide what pictures to delete while once-in-a-lifetime sights are passing his family by. 

The standard benefit of “You won’t have to download them to a computer …” is OK, what’s even better is, “The next time you are on a unique adventure, you won’t have the stress of trying to decide which pictures to delete while your family is screaming at you to take a picture of the one-of-a-kind view you are missing.” This is an Other-Centered Benefit. It specifically connects to the customer’s situation. And the customer sees it. 

Even if you are not selling a camera for vacation, customers also “see” the problems they have at work. They experience them first hand, and those images are burned in their minds. When you connect to customers, those images of work problems come back to life in their minds. And seeing is believing.   

So, use your standard benefits as a starting point. But get your customers to really see how it applies to them by connecting the benefit to their specific situation. Use an Other-Centered Benefit.

Create Word Pictures

Sometimes understanding the Other-Centered Benefit can be a little complicated. While you are the trained sales professional who knows all about your solution, customers may struggle to get it the first time. And on the phone, it’s even harder.

We had a client selling some technology features that consolidated servers and folders through virtualization. So to bring the solution and its Other-Centered Benefits to life on the phone, the rep would say, “It’s like having five different sets of music you want to play depending on the situation:  a workout, a party, or a quiet dinner at home. Instead of carrying five separate CDs you can just have one iPod® with five playlists.” The rep created a Word Picture.

Unlike Other-Centered Benefits, you can create these Word Pictures ahead of time. Look at the top two or three features and benefits of your solution. Now, think about everyday life and try to compare the benefits to a situation totally unrelated to the industry you are in and something that has nothing to do with the product. It makes the benefit really come to life and people really see it. Here are a couple of examples to help you get started.

Do you have some examples of word pictures of your own? Please share them in the comments section – we’ll be looking to see if you need some help with ideas.

Help Yourself. Help Us. 

Inside Sales is hard. Selling on the phone is different from selling in person. Fortunately, there’s an organization focused on that specific role. The American Association of Inside Sales Professionals (AA-ISP). Check them out. 

Better yet, if you have been through one of our programs, we’d be humbled and flattered if you’d take less than two minutes to make a quick vote for ASLAN. We need you. We are up for an award with AA-ISP this year. A quick rating and recommendation would be a big step to help us win, giving us a good platform to help more people sell over the phone. Rate us here.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for the recommendation. Good luck helping your customers see on the phone.