The new age sales person will engage the prospect with right consultative overview questions

Kathmandu

Observe an Internet Service Provider (ISP) sales representative in Kathmandu and you will observe that he/she will talk about the internet band with 1 MBPS, or as 512 KBPS or 256 KBPS. Similarly, interact with a commercial bank’s Customer Service Agent while opening a basic savings bank account and she will be forthright in presenting a package of service features like free debit card, Any Branch Banking Service (ABBS) or number of ATM points or walk into an Automobile showroom and inquire about the recently launched model, the sales adviser will start talking about BHPs, Clearance, CCs and then you start getting tizzy.

Furthermore, walk into a mobile showroom and seek to learn the difference between the high end model and the mid range model of the same mobile brand, the sales person manning the counter will most likely disappoint you and narrate the only basic feature differentiation between the mid range model and the high range model.

The attendant will possibly fail to reflect the excitement of the advertisement campaign the mobile company tries to portray in their print adverts and TVCs.

For the complex business to business selling, one can also observe that the front line sales person starts feature dumping from the very first minute of sales interaction and a typical verbal sales presentation follows the following format:

•    Company introduction.

•    Main clients as a quick testimonials.

•    Feature led details of the product and services.

•    Case studies of previous successes or service deployment.

•    And finally packaging and pricing options.

With this practice, the seller is always left vulnerable to customer objections with various interjections and social psychologists points out that the more public one makes one’s opinion it is less likely that one will change the mind, therefore, presenting the Features, Advantages and Benefits (FAB) in the correct manner has become critical and requires a lot of planning and pre-preparation before facing a customer/ prospect.

Classically the process for FABing focuses heavily on explaining the feature and then communicating what problem the feature will solve and finally drilling down to benefits that the prospect/customer will obtain with that feature. Novice sales reps will struggle with the list of features and an enthusiastic untrained sales rep will feature-dump the prospect and dwell too long on the explaining the feature without understanding the explicit need of the prospect.

However, the new age sales person will engage the prospect with right consultative overview questions, comprehend the implicit and explicit requirement of the prospect and then brilliantly focus on one feature, its corresponding advantage and the benefit the prospect will derive out of that particular feature.

The new age sales person thereby, facilitates the buying decision rather than pressuring the prospect for closure. When pressured to make a decision, the prospect will react with “I think about it" which is straight No and stalls the sales process.

The new age sales person further looks at A (advantage) of FAB in a deeper manner and is more relevant to the B2B sales process where the prospects are acutely aware and sensitised about the feature and the corresponding benefits due ready information available on social media and internet, therefore, A becomes much more central and should be communicated as Business Advantage of the product/service wherein the

specific advantages of products/services like the physical aspect, technical improvements and

financial advantages that is correlated to the prospect’s requirement of either increasing revenue, reducing operational cost or increasing the market share as a business advantage.

Finally, if you are sales professional and still burbling out the features and fail to enlighten the prospect on the advantage and the benefits of your products and services then your days as a sales professional are really numbered.

The author is the General Manager of Resonance Nepal and also conducts sales empowerment workshops to enhance skills and processes and can be contacted at sunimt@yahoo.com