286: Bait Your Hook In Sales

<p>I do a lot of coaching for salespeople and there is a common theme which continuously arises, which reveals why they are not getting sales with their clients.  They get very deep into the weeds of the solution for the buyer.  The features of their widget monopolise their own minds and that is what they try to use to envelop the client with.  It doesn't work for a simple reason.  Clients buy the application of the benefits of the solution, not the features.  You would think, “Greg, this is highly obvious buddy”, yet salespeople keep leaping to the features and forget about extolling the virtues of the benefits. Take a long, cold, hard look at your own sales materials.  Are they a compilation of features, describing in detail how the widget works and substantially light on the benefits of employing the widget?</p> <p> </p> <p>Salespeople are often engrossed with the execution piece of the sale.  They want to explain how the widget will function for the buyer, going into depth on the intricacies of the how it works.  This is important because the buyer needs to know they can integrate this solution into their existing business.  But this not why they will buy. </p> <p> </p> <p>I was accosted by a salesperson who battered me with the gritty detail for twenty five minutes.  It was a slide driven sales presentation and it was very comprehensive and detailed in explaining how the widget worked.  Now this was a totally non-customised presentation, so it had to cover off all manner of buyers, with their different situations, needs and motivations.  In other words, it was shotgun spray hoping to hit a buyer or two.  I noticed in that slide deck, that there were two cases where there were other companies, a little similar to my own firm.</p> <p> </p> <p>A big opportunity was missed however, because the salesman didn’t bait the hook to catch me as a buyer.  He launched straight into his pitch, which doubtless was something he had been doing for the last twenty years or so, judging by his age.  So he has been failing now f