Avoid feature and benefits dumping.
Speak only of the feature that addresses the buyer’s pain. Ignore the rest. Your soil health analytics has several features including a dashboard, chemical, physical, and biological diagnostics that map nutrient levels, biological activity, and crop-specific needs. Impressive. But. If the farmer is worried about declining yields due to poor soil life, pitch biological analysis—and stop there.
Selling is not about showing how much your product can do. It’s about showing how it solves this problem, now.
One Pain. One Feature. (Two if you must) That’s the Pitch.
Read that again: sharing two or three features is already a stretch; sharing all features is almost never justified.
If the buyer wants a lamp that also has a charging port for her phone, show her just that. You can even do a live plug-and-play demo.
That it has a flexible arm, fancy switch, stable stand and comes in different colours are not her concern and should not be yours. Just say enough to close.
If the next buyer is looking for same lamp but in colours that match her bedroom walls, then focus your discussion around that and ignore the charging port. If the third buyer seeks a flexible arm, then the charging port and colours are not in contention. Respect the buyer’s time and sell that feature.
You catch the drift? Yes? Good.
Feature and benefits dumping: What is feature dumping?
Now. Every product has several features. Your phone, like your laptop, has a screen, keypad, type of colour, and shape. At least these are the externally visible ones. A shirt has sleeves, buttons, a collar and type of colour.
The problem many salespeople have is to get caught up in sharing all the features of their product thinking that’s what selling is.
“This shirt is crafted from 100% long-staple Egyptian cotton with a thread count of 400 per square inch, featuring a single-needle construction on all seams, a seven-button front placket with mother-of-pearl buttons, a locker loop on the back yoke, a split-tail hem design, and gussets at the side seams for added mobility. It also has a removable collar stay and is pre-treated with a stain-resistant nanotechnology finish.”
Are you out of breadth?
That is feature dumping and its effect on the buyer. You are not a brochure a buyer is reading; you are a salesperson he is listening to.
Feature dumping is boring, overwhelming, Irrelevant, commoditises you and your product and, worst of all, misses all the opportunities in human connection across a sale.
Benefits dumping is no better
So, I should flood the customer with benefits? No.
Benefits dumping is no better either. “This shirt is designed for all-day comfort and a sharp, professional look that lasts. The premium Egyptian cotton is incredibly soft and breathes well, so you stay comfortable in meetings or at dinner. Details like the reinforced seams and mother-of-pearl buttons mean it holds its shape and polish, wash after wash, so it’s a reliable staple in your wardrobe.”
Sounds good, huh? That’s because you are reading it. If you were hearing it, it would feel like pushing not pulling;
Feature and benefits dumping is not selling
Yes, I know. I have said and reiterated here that features tell, benefits sell, and value compels. And that is true. Buyers buy not what your product is, but what it does for them.
What is also true is that prescribing the entire pharmacy is malpractice. Opening the floodgates of benefits can be overwhelming too. It also leaves the buyer wondering whether you understood him or are just shooting goodies in the dark hoping something sticks.
Everything has features. That’s not the point.
Features and benefits dumping aren’t selling. They are telling. Overwhelming.
That’s why AI responses are favoured over Google results. The former is specific, that latter general. Variety is good but not so when unlimited. Then, it becomes irritating. Which is why, even before ChatGPT, less than 3% of searchers went to page 2 of a Google search. Did you know that?
in fact, the joke is, if you want to get away with murder, hide the body in page 2 of a Google search – no one goes there.
Feature and benefits dumping: the silent sale killer
Jokes aside, features and benefits are tools in your sales arsenal to be dispensed in medic fashion.
Having understood the buyer’s pain, propose how your establishment offers secluded private setting for their meditation because that’s what their prayer group seeks for their end of year party, over and above the grounds for team building and mouth-watering nyama choma which you are known for, and they will be partaking of too.
Sell the pain, not the menu
Move from, “I need to tell them everything my product can do,” to, “I need to discover what they need, and show them how my product can specifically help them, by pointing out the feature that does it.” Usually, one, two, maybe three, features of your product are adequate. Stick to those.
Stop dumping. Start solving. That is the art of the close.
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