How To Sell More Starting Today!

[Rudi Vanhaecke]

Do you want to sell more online? Do you want your ads to get more clicks, your sales letters to convert more visitors into buyers and dramatically increase your bottom line?

 

 

 

 

If you answered yes then you need to know about benefits. You need to know what benefits are, how they differ from features. It’s time to learn to create what are called “benefit statements”.

 

 

Knowing this can make life easier. It can help you sell more. Why?

 

 

Because the bottom line in selling is simple. There is no “secret” to selling. There is only this one staggering truth.

 

 

Understand this and you can sell anything. Fail to understand this and you will be doomed to forever wonder why you aren’t selling more.

 

 

Ready for the truth? Don’t be fooled by its simplicity. The truth is …

 

 

People buy what they want!

 

 

Always have. Always will.

 

 

 

If they want your product they will buy it. If they don’t want it they simply won’t take action, no matter how logical your argument for them to buy is made.

 

 

 

 

 

 

People buy on emotion and defend that purchase with logic.

 

 

 

 

Let me put it another way.

 

 

Let’s look at that again. They buy based on emotion (they buy what they want) but then defend their choice using logic.

 

 

Here’s an example. This actually happened to a friend of mine. You have a good car, a car that is almost paid off. But your car needs new tires. So you go to the car dealer and, since you are there anyway, you look at the new models. The salesperson offers you some trade in values for your existing car. You suddenly realize that your old beater is worth more than you thought. Two hours later you are driving home in a brand new car!

 

 

How did you get from needing tires to buying a new car?

 

 

Emotion!

 

 

You saw the car. You smelled that new car smell. You saw yourself driving a new car. And, after all, you deserve it! This is your life. You work hard. You sacrifice for your family. You don’t ask for much. You DESERVE a new car!

 

 

See the emotion there?

 

 

But how will you defend that purchase to your spouse, your friends or even to yourself? You bought a new car when yours was almost paid off? Are you nuts? You bought a new car in this economy? Are you kidding me?

 

 

But you are ready with your answer. Logic will save the day!

 

 

It goes something like this.

 

 

New tires were going to cost me $1100! Who knew tires cost so much?

My old car was almost out of warranty anyway. And you know that’s when expensive repairs start to happen.

We are taking a trip later this year and I wanted to make sure we were all safe.

My new car is costing only $65 per month more than my old car.

My new car gets 10 miles more per gallon than my old car! I’m helping save the environment!

 

 

 

On and on it goes – logic trying to defend what was a purely emotional buy. You bought the new car for one reason and one reason only – you WANTED a new car! Nothing wrong with that. But logic was not the main factor.

 

 

FACT: If humans bought cars based on logic we would all drive the same car … the cheapest and safest car on the road! But we don’t. We buy what we want – and then justify it to the world with the logic of why it was the right choice for us.

 

 

So how does this apply to doing business online?

 

 

The key for business people like you and me is to quickly tell our prospective customers why they should want what we have. In other words, don’t talk about features but instead talk about benefits! We have to understand the difference between features and benefits and then let our prospects know why they should want what we offer.

 

 

That’s important enough to say again. You must let your prospect know why they should want what you offer.

 

 

It all starts with understanding the difference between a feature and a benefit. Understanding the difference between a feature and a benefit is vital, and easy.

 

 

A feature is what your product does.

A benefit is what is does for me!

 

 

 

Let’s look at one example from the real world. I’m in a car mood today so I’ll stick with that for now.

 

 

One of my favorite cars has always been the Corvette. I love the look of the Corvette and am old enough that I grew up wanting what we called the “Stingray”. As a boy I fantasized about driving down the road driving my shiny new red Corvette.

 

 

The Corvette has some outstanding features. Here are two.

 

 

The Corvette can go 205 miles per hour

The Corvette can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in under 4 seconds

 

 

 

Sounds like fun, but are these the reasons that people pay between $48,000 and $105,000 for these cars? (Prices according to Chevrolet.com for model year 2010)

 

 

In my view, the answer is no. The reason people buy Corvettes is not to go from 0 to 60 in under four seconds.

 

 

The reason people buy Corvettes is to be seen driving a Corvette. A Corvette is simply a rolling envy machine!

 

 

People who buy Corvettes often do so for the feeling they get being seen driving a Corvette.

 

 

The same can be said of many products, including yours. Here are some products that are sold everyday using a very emotional approach.

 

Clothing

Jewelry

Houses

Art

Business Opportunities

Competitive “spying” programs

Ad trackers

How to make money on Clickbank products

And many more!

 

 

 

How can you sell your product using emotion?

 

 

That’s a great question. While I don’t know your specific situation I can offer some guidelines to help.

 

 

There are two super-motivators that apply to almost every product. These are very emotion-driven reasons to buy something, especially something online. Both create powerful emotions that will cause people to act now, which is what all online sellers (Product owners and affiliate marketers) want.

 

 

Promise of gain

Fear of loss

 

 

 

Promise of gain almost always applies to making money but can sometimes be another type of gain. People want all sorts of things (including making money) like prestige, power, fame, to leave a legacy and more.

 

 

QUESTION: How does your product help your customer gain something?

 

 

Fear of loss is the other side of the coin. This is where all the scarcity selling online comes from. Offline merchants use it too. How many times have you heard your local department or furniture store claim their current sale is the “biggest sale of the year!” That’s fear of loss telling you to act now or pay more later.

 

 

QUESTION: How does your product help your customer avoid losing out?

 

 

The more you know about how your product satisfies these two needs – the need to gain and the need to avoid loss – the more you will sell. Your ads, your sales letters, your tweets, your signature lines — all of your marketing needs to be filled with benefit statements that drip of promise of gain or fear of loss.

 

 

ACTION STEP: How to Translate Features into Benefits

 

 

Here are four simple steps to help you translate your product or service’s features (what it does) into benefits (what it does for me).

 

 

After you make your list, be sure to review your selling literature, be it a web page, email or brochure, and make sure that you are selling benefits instead of features.

 

 

After all, everybody wants to know what’s in it for them. :-)

 

 

List the key features of your product … the things that make it worth having. Describe what each one does; how it works.

Determine what that means to the customer. More free time? Feel safer at night? More financial freedom? Write it down next to the feature.

Be able to state every feature in terms of money. Either making a gain or avoiding loss. Write it down next to the advantage.

Write out benefit statements for each feature. Memorize your list. Write it down and carry it for quick reference.

 

 

 

You have now created a feature, advantage, and benefit list. By committing these statements to memory and using them often, you will now be speaking the prospect’s language, the language of saving or making money.

 

 

And that is the sound they love to hear.

[Ted Carter]

Rudy, I believe this one of the best articles about converting I have ever read. It's no fluff, just good common sense.

 

Thank You

Ted Carter

[Octav Alexandrescu]

Yes for sure,this really help me

Thank you for sharing with us