Picture the announcer in the middle of the ring broadcasting - "In this corner, wearing the red shorts we have the challenger, weighing 217 pounds, winner of this year's collegiate championship, introducing Sales Mindset. Defending the long-standing domination of this event, winner of 35 title bouts, defending heavyweight champion, weighing 224 pounds, in the black shorts, please welcome Sales Training."

Can you imagine two heavy weights like Sales Training and Sales Mindset squaring off in the ring? It might be one exciting sparing match. Both are critical to ensuring sales professionals get to, and remain at the top of their game. Which is most important?

Sales training is a very broad category that includes everything from sales process, product knowledge, dealing with objections, open and closing skills, prospecting, territory management, listening skills, networking, presentation skills, and funnel administration, to name some of the assorted topics. This is not a short list. The sales rep would ignore any of these items at his or her peril. Many would be correct to think sales training would rank right up there, perhaps being the hands-on bet if you were to wager who would win the match.

Customers don't buy features - they buy BENEFITS. A FEATURE is something the product has, or a function it performs. A BENEFIT is what it does for the customer.

Customers buy BENEFITS – so try to to SELL them, because it's BENEFITS that justify expenditure (of time, money, and effort).

In order to skillfully sell your product line, whether it's digital cameras or houses, your staff needs to know the products' features, inside and out. They need to know how a camera operates, what special features it has, the number of pixels; real estate agents need to know the square footage of the house, the school district it's in, the amount of land involved, and so on.

But the features of a particular product are not necessarily going to be the main selling points. While you always have some customers interested in the technical details of a digital camera, or the specifics of a piece of real estate, you're probably going to sell the product based on the benefits it offers to the buyer.

DID I ASK YOU?

The world belongs to the askers. – Brian Tracy

“I’M going to read aloud the names on your customer account list and then I’m going to ask you some questions about each one. I’ll probably be stepping on your toes a little bit. Are you ready?”

“Sure,” I said. I was in the office of my manager, Bill Smith. He’d hired me from a competitor, given me an outside sales position and expected immediate results. I’d been with the company three months without much to show for it and Bill was getting a little impatient for me to perform. Hence, the heart- to-heart talk we were having to shed some light on my lackluster performance.