Sales Innovation - Go Beyond Benefit

I love the truth. 

The more I understand the truth of a subject, the better I can understand it. The more transparent a process, the more likely it can be made to work. The more honest a person is, the better I can trust them. Honesty and truthfulness are foundations for how society works and for how we all become better people living in a better world.

Very few would disagree with the statements above...and yet we all live and work in a pragmatic world, where shadings of truths, omissions, contextualization and emphasis can make things less than transparent, slightly misleading, a bit less true - especially when it comes time to sell something.

I'm not suggesting that selling is dishonest- but when one sells or tries to persuade, the accepted practice is to show, describe or even demonstrate benefits. Few people sell by telling a potential customer what's wrong with their product, service or idea. That's why a "pitch" for something describes the positive, downplays or omits the negative, and paints a splendid picture of how our lives, businesses and communities will be improved by those benefits.  

It's not a lie, it's a pitch.

No one believes a lie...but no one really believes a pitch either.

That's one of the main reasons why advertising is steadily losing its power to sell...not because the ads are bad, quite the contrary, some of our best design, writing, photography, and acting are applied towards pitching products and services. It's hard to imagine better produced or better distributed advertising than what is seen today. But here's the problem: no matter how well produced, how entertaining and how well placed an advertisement, no matter how compelling the benefits described- customers know immediately that they are getting "pitched".  

"Pitching" makes people more skeptical and it becomes more difficult to persuade them. Quite often, no matter how well produced, people will buy something despite the pitch, not because of it.

If someone tells you how wonderful they are -  can they be believed? 

Could it be that describing benefits isn't the best way to sell?

Here's a little thought experiment. Imagine a single woman meeting a single man for the first time. This hypothetical man is very handsome, has an Ivy League education, possesses a considerable financial portfolio and runs a successful company that builds schools for lower income children. If this hypothetical man, let's call him "Mr. Right", is interested in striking up a friendship with our hypothetical woman, ("Ms. Right"), perhaps leading to a romance and a long-term relationship how successful would the following sales strategies be?

1. Features:  Mr. Right describes his background in colorful detail, with stories and accomplishments that prove how he is a valuable, charming, and interesting guy.
   
   
2. Benefits:  Mr. Right describes the benefits of dating him.  He could describe his passion for long walks in beautiful park land, meals in Parisian cafes, sweet nights watching old movies with someone special.  He could talk about how he is so good with kids, how he can provide a stable economic future for his family, how he is a good shoulder to cry on, how he can make a long-term, loving relationship a reality.
   
   
3. Conspiracy:  Mr. Right asks Ms. Right questions.  He listens to her answers.  He asks more detailed questions until he finds something about her life that he shares with her.  He would then find out what Ms. Right wants to do tomorrow, next week, next month and perhaps for the rest of her life - and what might be standing in her way.
   
   For example, Ms. Right might mention that she loves music from the 1940's but never learned to swing dance.  Mr. Right realizes that there is something they have in common.
   
   He says - "You know, I've always wanted to go to one of those retro dance places with a big band, but I'm a complete klutz - how does someone learn to dance like that, anyway?"
   
   She says - "There are classes you could take."
   
   Ever so delicately, our hypothetical couple will start to learn together the different ways they might learn how to dance a Fox Trot...and there's even a chance that they might go take a lesson together...and eventually dance together.

Which of the three strategies is more likely to bring Mr. and Ms. Right together?

The Conspiracy Strategy I described is all about getting on the same side as a prospect and figuring out how to collaborate together for mutual gain. As a colleague of mine, Buckley Brinkman described it recently, instead of defining a pain point for a prospect, then describing the benefit of your solution"...it should be about conspiring with them to solve a problem."

But conspiring with someone requires a kind of direct - at times even brutal - honesty about your self, your capabilities, and the potential obstacles. People only conspire with people they trust...and people don't trust you if you talk about how great you are.

This form of conspiring, of creating alliances with customers has long worked for individual sales people.  "Rain Makers" or master sales people, whether consciously or not, have used this technique as long as there have been products and services to sell.  But can it be scaled beyond an individual sales person with an individual customer?

Yes it can.  The transformation of electoral politics in 2008 demonstrated that quite well. When President Barack Obama's campaign "advertised" through media, the Internet, and in person, the emphasis was not on the benefits, but rather on an invitation to join together or "conspire" to create a different government. In the process - constituents (or customers, if you will) began to join in the marketing of Obama - there was far more independent marketing than there was campaign marketing.

It's time for marketing and sales to innovate away from the dogma of benefits - and to move towards conspiracy and truth.