All I want is an unfair advantage

by Rick Phillips

Several years ago, while leading a sales training seminar, we asked each participant what they expected to gain by attending. One participant, an engineer, said, “All I want is an unfair advantage.” Several of us laughed but I asked him to elaborate.

“Hey,” he said, “I'm not a crook or a thief. We have some really tough competition and I’m tired of losing major jobs to bigger organizations that can’t perform any better than we can. They may have an unfair advantage in size, but certainly not in talent.”  

We kicked the idea around for some time and discovered that it is entirely possible to gain an unfair advantage in almost any selling situation...once you are prepared to adopt some new selling habits.

Companies don’t buy our products or services
There is a serious misconception that we are selling to companies or organizations when we are actually selling to people who are working within those companies. (Read that again.) “Semantics” you say. “Phillips, you’re just playing with words.”  And I say, “No!”  It’s been my observation that people are different from companies and they buy for different reasons.

After 25 years of selling and managing sales teams, I have seen far too many sales won by competitors who have a higher price or an inferior product or who don’t meet the job requirements. And if you have been in sales for anything over nine days, you have seen it as well.

Does somebody do something unfair when this occurs?

I hear a chorus of, “You bet! The bad guys beat us out of one we deserved.”  My response,  “Bull,”  you lost one. You didn’t do your job. You tried to sell to the company when you should have been selling to the person.

People don’t buy products!
That’s right! People don’t buy products. They buy the end results (the consequences) of having those products. “Semantics” you say. “Phillips, you’re just playing with words again.” And again I say, “No!” 

There is a difference between products and the consequences of having those products. I remember buying my son’s first little league baseball bat. The salesman was “selling”  20 ounces of “specially treated anodized aluminum and custom rubberized cushioned non-slip, grip surface.” My son was “buying” home runs.

For years, salespeople have been selling the features of their products. And sales organizations have been calling product knowledge training sales training. I was recently in an organization where the salespeople, with a half-a-million-dollar annual sales budget each, got 16 hours of product training each month. Last year the company spent just $65 on each sales rep to go to a selling seminar.

The result is not fun to watch. A salesperson trained in features or technology alone will normally walk into a prospect’s office, do three minutes of rapport building followed by 15 minutes of product features dumping. After about 20 minutes he will be summarily dismissed by a busy executive who wonders if he or she will ever find a salesperson competent enough to handle the account.

Here’s how the sales call sounds in real life:
Salesperson: “Boy that’s a nice bowling trophy.”
Prospect: “Thanks very much. Do you bowl?”
Salesperson:  “Ah...no but...Ah... I’ve watched it on the Wide World of Sports.”
Prospect: (under his breath, “I have got to remember to hide that stupid trophy from salespeople. This is the fourth one today who has complimented me on it.” )
Salesperson: “Mr. Prospect, I realize that you are a busy executive and I would never waste a minute of your time...”
Prospect: (under his breath, “Too late.”)
Salesperson: “...So I’ll get right to the point. We at Industrial Supply have a proud four-year tradition of offering our many clients...Yacketty...Yack...Yack...(11 minutes later)...so this Carbide Indexable Cutter 406 has the much sought after Eastern German micro-encapsulated laser technology that has been lost behind the Iron Curtain.
Prospect: “Well, that’s very interesting and I can’t wait to read all about it. Please, be sure to leave a bunch of your literature with Joyce out front and then we will give you a call.”
Salesperson:  “Will you be calling before Wednesday? (That’s commission cut-off day.) ‘Cause we only have a few of these honeys in stock and I wouldn’t want you to miss out on that special pricing I told you about.”
Prospect: “Right. ” 

The unfair advantage is selling consequences
Today’s selling professionals must understand the features, naturally, but they must sell the consequence of those features. 

“Semantics” you say. “Phillips, you’re just playing with words again. I have been selling my product advantages for years.” And again I say, “No! You are still missing it.” 

For many years, we have understood that “features” describe what the product is, “benefits” describe what the product does and “advantages” describe what the product does better than the competition.

That is fine, if it means anything to the prospect. Too many salespeople miss that last part altogether and it is the most critical part of all. People do not like to buy, or even talk about features, benefits or advantages until they understand what those things mean to them.

The unfair advantage lies in the consequences, and the consequences describe what the product features do for the prospect.

Here’s how the unfair advantage sales call sounds:
Salesperson: “Mr. Prospect, you mentioned how valuable Joe’s time is. What would it mean to you if Joe could save a couple hours a month by using this automated Carbide Indexable Cutter 406?”
Prospect: “Quite frankly, it might keep him at his CNC instead of in the tool crib looking for end mills.”
Salesperson: “Does that cause you any concerns right now?”
Prospect: “Sure. When he is doing that, no one is running the CNC.”
Salesperson: “How does that make you look to your clients?”
Prospect: “It makes me look inefficient.”

The consequence for this customer is that his machine operator will be at his CNC machine, making the company more productive. The fact that the insert utilizes laser technology would have little or no significance if the prospect did not realize the impact the feature has on his life. That one consequence may be enough to make the sale. But if the sales professional can uncover three, four or five consequences, it will certainly be unfair to the competition.

Understanding features and product technology is critical, but in the real world, people buy the results of the technology.

Remember, the unfair advantage in sales comes from understanding that people buy our products or services for their  consequence, the technology is only the conduit, not the bottom line.

If you are losing sales you should not be losing, perhaps your competition has already unfairly discovered how to use sales training that focuses on real-world selling rather than the technology of your features.

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