Sell The Results with Product Knowledge | Sales Skills Training

Product knowledge is primarily for the benefit of the seller, not the customer. It is very rare that the person who knows most about the products is also the best person to sell them. In-depth product knowledge is essential for professional salespeople, not only for their own belief in what they are doing but, more importantly, for their own self-confidence and credibility.

I find it dreadfully frustrating to talk to uninformed sales- people. But the reverse is equally frustrating: sellers who are so in love with their products that they give every detail of its history, production and technical specifications. They get some of the best-educated prospects, but very few customers! Remember – people don’t buy products; they want the results.

Don’t sell your products or services. Sell the results, or what your product or service will do. A customer who walks into a hardware store and asks for a quarter-inch drill doesn’t really want one. What the customer wants, of course, is a quarter-inch hole. He cannot buy that, so he states his requirements as being a quarter-inch drill.

That sale started with a completely cold approach. People buy products or services not for what they are, but for what they will do. Not make-up, but beauty; not a wristwatch, but a fashion item or statement; not a credit card, but an easy way of purchasing.

I have said earlier that professional salespeople do not have to be a great talkers. They do not have to have the ‘gift of the gab’ but they must be able, when necessary, to be enthusiastic about their product or service and they must be able, through what I can best describe as ‘picture power’, to convey the benefits and results to the clients. Picture power uses words to describe, to create pictures in the minds of the listeners. Facts or features do not create picture power images. Descriptive phraseology most certainly won’t. Enthusiasm will.

There is, of course, a balance to be very aware of here. There is a greater thirst in all of us for knowledge and cus- tomers expectations are much higher. There is a much greater enthusiasm, as well as willingness, to read the small print and to find out exactly how a product may work or a service is delivered as well as what it will do. People expect to learn and be educated by those who sell and communicate, but only provide this in-depth product knowledge to those who show an interest.