In a previous article, The Pop Quiz You Need to Pass, I talked about three simple questions you must be prepared to answer any time you speak with a prospect. One of these three is: “How will I benefit by using your services?”

Your clients want to know how they can benefit in one or more ways from your services. Benefits are the end result that your client will receive. Your job in the sales process is to help your client visualize what the positive end result will be once they take advantage of your expertise.

One of the biggest mistakes service providers make when answering this question during their sales presentation is focusing on the features of their services. In other words, how they do what they do, or how their service works.

This approach focuses on you rather than the client. While the details of how you execute your services are important, this isn’t why a client decides to buy from you. How you work is secondary to what they get.

Here are some examples:

• Do you buy a 4-wheel-drive vehicle because you can push a button to shift gears, or because it’s safer for driving in the snow and rain?
• Do you use email because you can attach a file to a message, or because you can get a quicker response than using postal mail?
• Do clients hire you as a leadership trainer because of the type of assessments you offer, or because you will be able to help them improve productivity and reduce conflict in their organization?
• Does an IT Director offer you a contract because you can program in Java, or because you can get their software product upgraded quickly and save them thousands of dollars in lost sales?

It’s the benefits and results your client believes they will get from your services that persuade them to say yes. They agree to hire you when they can visualize a successful implementation, higher sales, better protection, a more productive work environment, or another specific addition that your services will make to their bottom line.

One way to get right to the essence of what your service can do for your clients is the “so what” test. Assume that after every aspect of your service your potential clients hear about, they will ask you, “so what?”

Write out each and every feature, process, procedure, or tool your service makes use of. Next to each one, ask “so what?” Then craft benefit statements that will answer that question for the specific type of clients you are targeting. You’re likely to come to some very enlightening conclusions.

First, you’ll discover just how valuable your services really are for your clients. Second, you’ll see that these detailed benefit statements are the perfect talking points whenever you speak with potential clients.

Passing this pop quiz can be a breeze, right? Just do your homework, study hard, and put your learning into practice.

You can now go to the head of the class.