Pop Quiz Question #1:
What can you do for me?
Frank Traditi
Kicking off our series - The Pop Quiz You Need to Pass - we're going to look at the first question on our quiz:
What can you do for me?
Here’s a reality check – the marketing and sales conversation is heavily favored toward the potential client or hiring company. And for a very good reason. They visualize you as someone who can help solve their problem or bring in new opportunities. However, they also have the ability to say NO in a blink of an eye.
The sales presentation (or interview) is not a time for idle chitchat. They have a real problem or challenge and they're looking for the real answer. This is what you can do for them.
Let's talk about some popular, and many times fatal, mistakes made when the time comes to demonstrate what you can do for them:
Show-up and Throw-up
This is the ever-popular method of telling them everything your product
or service does. If you described every product or service you offer, something
will stick.
"We've been around for XX years" or, "I have XX
years' experience"
Just because you or your company have been doing this kind of thing since
the 60's, you'll get an edge up on the competition. The number of years
don’t matter nearly as much as what you did with those years.
The "I'm really good with people" answer (my personal
favorite)
I have yet to hear anybody say they AREN'T really good with people. Assume
your prospect already knows you're good with people.
Talk more about features instead of benefits
Here is where you launch into an explanation of all the features that come
with your product or services. You spend more time telling how it's done
before you've described the benefits to the client.
These are just a few of the stumbling blocks that seem to stop us in our tracks when the client is looking for the answer to “what can you do for me”.
Here’s how you pass this part of the test:
• Focus on their problem and the solution
• Find out where their pain is and how you can take it away
• Talk about how you perform your services after the client has realized
what the benefits are to them
• Take the risk out of hiring you
• Provide your prospect with enough advantages for doing business
with you so that they visualize the positive end result
This would be an opportune time to re-look at each of your services, products,
or yourself, and clearly define what benefits you provide for your potential
clients. A simple list of one-sentence statements that start with words
such as:
• Increase
• Improve
• Reduce
• Better
• Convert
• Leverage
• Create
Your potential clients want to know how you can bring value to their organization, company or team. There’s a reason that they are talking with you – it’s to help them solve a problem or take some pain away from a situation they have been dealing with up to this point.
The message you deliver has to be focused like a laser toward that goal.
Otherwise, you risk sounding like everyone else that has come through their
door.
Copyright © 2006, Frank Traditi
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