What Causes a Qualified Prospect to Buy … and to Buy Now?

A prospect buys all products/services on emotion!  However, there must be a “logic safety net” in place when he reaches the “Buy Zone,” so he can justify his emotional decision.

What causes a qualified prospect to buy and buy now?  The answer is: a professional salesperson has taken a prospect into the “Buy Zone” and then closed.  What is the “Buy Zone?”  The “Buy Zone” is that point in time when our prospect has bought our product/service/idea emotionally and can logically justify it.  How does the salesperson do that?  He artistically delivers an extremely well designed feature, advantage and benefit presentation aimed at the pre-qualified prospect’s dominant desires and finishes off with an appropriate close.

How does a salesperson know the dominant desires of his prospect?  He learns his prospect’s dominant desires by asking strategically-designed questions at the beginning of the sales process.  These questions come in two types and are used in a specific order.  The two types of questions are “Fact Finding” questions and then “Feeling Finding” questions.  The “Fact Finding” questions are asked first and they engage the prospect’s logic process.  Therefore the prospect’s answers to these questions contribute to the building of the “logic safety net” that the prospect will need to justify his emotional decision when he buys.  The “Feeling Finding” questions are asked second and they engage the prospect’s emotion process.

“Fact Finding” questions help the salesperson focus in on the proper product/service that would best meet the prospect’s needs.  A prospect is very comfortable answering “Fact Finding” questions because he understands the need for this information.  These questions help to give the prospect a sense that we are seriously interested in helping him.  We can improve our positive impact on the prospect if we make it a practice of writing down the answers to his questions.  It increases the prospect’s sense that his needs are important to us.  Some examples of “Fact Finding” questions follow.

“Fact Finding” questions:

“What exactly is your specific need for this item?”

“When would you need to use this item?”

“Where would this item be stored?”

“How much of this item would you require?”

“Who would be using this item most frequently?”

“Feeling Finding” questions help the salesperson learn the dominant desires of his prospect.  What are the benefits that the prospect is hoping to gain from the ownership of this product/service?  A prospect is usually a little less comfortable with “Feeling Finding” questions.  One reason for his potential slight discomfort is that the questions are not as easy to answer as the “Fact Finding” questions.  Answers to “Feeling Finding” questions usually take a little more thought.  We are requiring the prospect to ask himself why he really wants this item.  He must access the right side of his brain (the creative side) rather than the left side (the logical side).  Often people are less comfortable talking about how they “feel” about something than what they “think” about something.  It is very important, however, for the salesperson to move the prospect over to the feeling side, because the sale will be much easier when we appeal to his emotional reasons for ownership.  Some examples of “Feeling Finding” questions follow.

“Feeling Finding” questions:

“What do you feel is the greatest benefit from using this item?”

“When do you feel you would benefit most from using this item?”

“Where do you feel you will get the greatest use of this item?”

“How will you feel when you use this item?”

“Who will feel the best after using this item?”

After learning the benefits that this particular prospect is looking for in our product/service, what do we do with that information?  We use that information in our feature, advantage and benefit presentation to lead into an assumptive close.  What is a feature?  What is an advantage?  What is a benefit?  Those are great questions!  Why?  Because, in the 30-plus years I have been coaching salespersons, I have learned that most of us try to convince the prospect to buy by selling the features of our product/service and assuming that the prospect will imagine the benefits in his mind.  There is no reason to believe that the prospect is prepared or even capable of translating the features of a product/service into the benefits to him.

As Dr. Peter Drucker would say, “Define your terms.”  So, here are the definitions of features, advantages and benefits.  A feature is a component of the product/service.  When we mention a feature we are to explain what it is and what it does.  For example: “Mr. Prospect, this is a windshield wiper.  It removes rain or snow from your windshield.” That tells what it is and what it does.  An advantage is a problem that the component solves.  Continuing with the windshield wiper example, “That allows you to see better without having to put your arm out the window to wipe the windshield while you are driving.” Problem explained and solved.  A benefit is how the advantage helps the prospect gain something he wants or helps him avoid something he does not want.  Continuing with our windshield wiper, “By being able to see better, you will avoid running over the garden rake in your driveway and putting holes in your tires.” The benefit of not having to replace his tires is why he wants the windshield wiper, not because it removes rain and snow.  Now put all three together and we have a feature, advantage and benefit presentation: “Mr. Prospect, this is a windshield wiper.  It removes rain or snow from your windshield.  That allows you to see better without having to put your arm out the window to wipe the windshield while you are driving.  By being able to see better, you will avoid running over the garden rake in your driveway and putting holes in your tires.”

I hope I have made it very clear that we must sell the benefit … not just the feature.  However, we should be encouraged to state the advantage often.  We should not just jump from the feature to the benefit.  It is important that the prospect understands what problem has been solved that produces the eventual benefit.  To jump from “it cleans the rain and snow off of your windshield” to “you will not need to buy new tires” may be difficult for the prospect to understand.  An excellent exercise for a salesperson is to write a “F.A.B. Chart.”  This will give us a visual aide for learning our features, advantages and benefits.  Then we need to practice presenting each feature and the corresponding advantages and benefits.  The great Tom Hopkins may likely tell you that the F.A.B. can only be done through P.D.R. (Practice, Drill, Rehearse).