MBS

Professioal Sales, a must-have skill.

The Heavy Impact of Sales on Our Lives Everyone is selling something most of the time either in our personal or professional life. Why not do it well and professionally for the maximum impact?

Try to define business and you will realize that it involves buying and selling. Buying and selling, which one then is more difficult yet very rewarding?
We have realized that businessmen and women struggle to sell their products. This is very frustrating because of the inadequacy of the sales skills they have. In view of this, we have put together a book and training to help you overcome this challenge. At least get the book and we will give you a free session of training to start with. Try to enroll if you can to get this very important skill that applies to other aspects if not all aspects of life. If you find this interesting, like share, etc.

AI and Advanced Technology Plus Human Competence: The next level of sales.

The Future of Sales – Dreamforce 2017 I'm excited to be attending Dreamforce in San Francisco next month because technology is changing everything and many of the best minds on the planet will be there. Is technology creating a bright future for salespeople or could selling 'devolve' into a series of decision trees from natural language

You might have been selling in a way or the other. It's no news that polishing your sales skill is necessary. What are the few challenges you have encountered?

The Sales Navigator is looking good.

The Definitive Business Case For Sales Navigator Business is done at the speed of trust and this is why relationships still matter. LinkedIn is the #1 platform for building a strong personal brand to show insight and value.

What are the Differences among Product Feature, Product Advantage and Product Benefit?
What is a Product feature?

It is the superficial descriptions of your products as to what it can do, how it does it, its dimension, specifications, and so on.

Features are most of the time described, and by the time the attempt is being made to show or demonstrate them, they must have changed into advantages or benefits. Feature-based sales or marketing are not effective and evoke the question, “and so what”?. For example, this car is a four-wheel-drive (4X4). The possible question is “and so what?”. This feature requires a further explanation of the specific results it can produce. After these explanations, advantage or benefit will have developed, presented or demonstrated.

What is Product Advantage?

The product advantage is what the feature does. It is also the results envisaged by the product developers, marketers or salespersons on behalf of prospects, customers or clients. It is the transition from a feature to a benefit; in other words, it is what the feature does to satisfy the customer. Advantages could be presented, spoken of, shown or demonstrated. It could be correct or wrong expected satisfaction of the prospect or customer. That is where marketers miss it most of the time because they are not in continuous touch with customers like the sales force. According to Philip Kotler, Niel Rackham and Suj Krishnaswamy in their article entitled "Ending the war between sales and marketing" published in 2006 Havard Business Review, salespeople are most of the time talking with prospects and customers. They are also attuned and know what customers will buy and which feature will fly or die. It is essential to discuss with the prospect or customer to be sure of what they are expecting.

Features don’t necessarily have to become advantages before becoming benefits.

What is a Product Benefit?

It is the result a product can give to a prospect, consumer, customer or client.

So the product benefit varies according to the need or want of a specific prospect, customer, consumer or client.

That is why it is essential to communicate, question and determine their need or want before benefits can deliver to them. Benefits talk directly to the wants or needs of a person, it affects their emotions and therefore evokes an action to own or invest in a product.

Generally, it is easier presenting, demonstrating or speaking about benefits because of its relevance to the needs and wants of prospects.

To practice this skill, list your product features, advantages, and possible benefits after talking to a prospect, customer or a client. Try to be flexible to adapt and change potential benefits when they appear not to match the want or need of the prospect.

It is worth noting that there is a thin line between a product advantage and a product benefit.

That thin line is a question of how it meets the need or want of the prospect, customer or client.

So an envisaged benefit is a product advantage, but when the prospect or the customer accept the advantage as an answer or a solution to her need or want, then it becomes a benefit.

In his article, "Is your value proposition strong enough?" Jill Konrath defines the value proposition as a clear statement of the tangible results a customer can get using your product.

So it stands to reason that, a correct product benefit is equivalent to a strong value proposition.

The Importance of Differentiating among Product Feature, Advantage and Benefit.

Knowing the correct product feature is important because that is what defines its quality.

Good knowledge of the feature also puts the salesperson or marketer in readiness to convert it into an advantage or benefit.

It also motivates the marketers to align and integrate their functions with the salesforce to come out with correct product benefits and strong value proposition.

The stronger the value proposition, the more closed profitable sales you have, a prerequisite for business profitability and success.

Do you know that you are always selling something? Why not sell it well and sell it professionally?

Hi, I am Paul Biscoff, the author of The Sales Compass, a professional sales book written for people who are helping others to make decisions that are good for them.
According to Simon Hazeldine, “nothing happens until someone sells something” he continues to posit that when you look around your environment, “apart from very few items, everything will have been sold”.
Regarding this discussion, we classify sales into two, non-sales selling and sales selling.
Non-sales selling involves moving, influencing or helping people to make decisions that are good for them at the same time favouring you, particularly in other aspects of life other than business. According to Dan Pink, 9000 respondents researched spent 40% of their time at work engaged in non-sales selling which involves, moving or influencing others. Non-sales selling goes beyond the workplace to touch every aspect of life.
The second aspect the sales selling which is mainly business oriented, where you move products from the producer to the end user using a combination of skills for a reward. It principally involves helping people to understand their need to invest in it. So sales is not about convincing or manipulating prospects. It is not about selling a mirror to a blind man.
Note: The person you are trying to sell to must be qualified to be moved or helped. In non-sales selling, they need to have the desire and authority to be able to take that decision. In sales selling, they need to have a need, authority, money or something of value for exchange and the urgency. If not leave them and go after the numerous qualified prospects out there. We will throw more light on qualification in our subsequent posts.
If you like this post, kindly share, like or leave your comment.

Now, our question. Which of these two types of sales are you engaged in? Kindly leave your answer as a comment.

It has become all too obvious that mobile is the way computing is happening and likely is going to continue to exist, even in the corporate world...... John Laskaris

The next generation of e-learning which is mobile learning is already with us due to the upsurge of mobile internet users. How ready are you to take advantage of this in our part of the world?

Is true that we are all selling at one time or the other? If yes, what have you sold in the past couple of days ? If no, kindly share your reason.