Lovin’ your product

We know you love selling…But do you love your products???

As a sales pro­fes­sional , when I’m watch­ing the TV, I can’t help but ana­lyze the prod­uct pitches in the com­mer­cials. I start think­ing to myself, man that guy is annoy­ing, but he is toooo smooth. Man that guy sucks,  or that guy was funny.

I’m not talk­ing about the celebrity pitch­men , but the other no names,  that come into your liv­ing room, to sell you some­thing, mostly with an Eng­lish accent.

Billy Mays, who recently passed, always got on my nerves  because he was yelling at me.  But some­body must have been lis­ten­ing, because he was work­ing steady since he came onto the scene.  Now they have the Sham Wow guy.

One thing con­sis­tent with all of the infomer­cials is the pitch: it is con­vinc­ing because you think they really believe it works, has a direct ben­e­fit, and is cost effective.

Now I don’t buy any of the prod­ucts, but I’d be lying if dur­ing the com­mer­cial I wasn’t won­der­ing if the prod­uct really did work, do I have a use for it, and would it be worth the effort to buy it.

I sell solu­tions, work­flow, soft­ware, and always have.  In solu­tion sales you only get one or two shots at a  buy­ing audi­ence for a demo so you bet­ter believe your prod­uct works.

I believe that the FAB sell­ing of the past needs to come back into main­stream, no more of this one size fits all crap. I like to be reminded of the sim­ple sale to get in front of spe­cific tar­gets, with spe­cific needs and sell them the ben­e­fits of using my solu­tion to solve a par­tic­u­lar prod­uct.   So often I read indus­try blogs where cus­tomers have bought the kit and caboo­dle up front and haven’t rolled out crap over a com­plete bud­get cycle.

I guess what I am try­ing to say is no mat­ter what your par­tic­u­lar prod­uct is don’t get lost in delu­sions of grandeur, rather, keep your head down , aim at a spot and hit it.  Work the KISSh the­ory (Keep It Sim­ple Shit­head). Sell one thing, then sell them another, and another.  Wars are more often won with a series of bat­tles, vs. a cold war where nobody pulls the trigger.

Love your prod­uct and you will con­vince some­one else to as well.

2 Responses to “ Lovin’ your product ”

1. Tuna says:

   August 14, 2009 at 11:34 am

   I agree on being a ‘needs’ based sales per­son. When I know a buyer is really get­ting in to a capa­bil­ity I do some­thing I’ve never done before…I linger there. Yep, we hang out a while on that appli­ca­tion. Some­times we go back over it again or I ask a few ques­tions around the topic. There is always a deeper rea­son they are inter­ested and stay­ing on a hot topic gets a real pos­i­tive energy flow going. Some­times I joke and say ‘is that enough — can I stop now?” Also try revers­ing the FAB. If you are inter­ested in effiency then you may want to explore a way to _____. You would want our _____. This benefit-advantage-feature lets you segue way from one hot topic to the next.
2. Lovin your product - too | Sales Swamis says:

   August 17, 2009 at 8:29 pm

   […] is some­thing to be said to return to a sim­pler way to sell, as Res­cue Me pointed out in part one. Fea­ture, advan­tage, ben­e­fit. Excite­ment. Momen­tum. Pas­sion for your prod­uct and your […]