Why You Should Be Selling the Benefits of Your Products

No matter what business you are in, you are selling something. Maybe you are selling a product, a service or perhaps your time, but every business is selling something. This is a good thing. The exchange of goods and services is what makes our economy work.

As business owners, it can be easy to forget what it is we are actually selling. Of course, we know what product or services our respective businesses offer, but the product or service may not be what we should be selling. For example, A Fitness Center may be selling club memberships although that is not what prospective customers are actually buying. When a person buys a fitness club membership they are purchasing an opportunity to look and feel better. The consumer is concerned with the benefits that the Fitness Center provides them, not the contract the club membership is comprised of.

Selling the benefits of your products or services is a customer-centric approach to doing business as opposed to focusing on what the business wants. As a business owner, we want people to buy our goods and services, as consumers, we are concerned with what those goods and services offer us. We can help to bridge this gap by relaying the benefits of our products to our customers.

Here are a few examples:

Instead of:
Our product will help you lose weight.
Try:
Our product will help you look great.

Instead of:
Buy a new mattress.
Try:
Sleep like a baby.

Instead of:
Eat healthier.
Try:
Feel Better.

Instead of:
Buy a new car.
Try:
Drive a safe, reliable vehicle.

Instead of:
Eat at my restaurant.
Try:
Don't slave over a hot stove or enjoy a romantic evening.

As business owners, we need to keep the benefits for our customers in mind when we create advertising and promotional programs. If our advertising does not provide consumers with the benefits our products offer them, then we should change the way we are advertising.

Customers don't care why we want them to buy our products, nor should they. They want to know what benefits our products or services offer them. How can we help them, will our products or services make their lives easier, save them money, make them more comfortable, or benefit them in some other way?

Take a moment and think about how your products or services benefit your customers, then determine whether or not your advertising is reflecting those benefits. Ultimately, the more we focus on the benefits we can offer consumers, the more products and services we will sell.