Can you quantify the value that you offer your customers?

Traditionally, marketers draw the bright line between features and benefits with two simple questions. If it answers the question "What?", it's a feature. If it answers the question "So what?", it's a benefit.

Some go even further and argue that if it doesn't have a good answer to the question "What's in it for me?" (WIIFM), it isn't even a benefit at all.

Increasingly, in these difficult times, there is a further question: "How much is in it for me?"

Sales and marketing professionals who usually stopped at WIIFM are finding that they are losing to others who can quantify the benefits more clearly. It's especially challenging for professional and financial services professionals trying to sell intangibles like "experience" and "client service."

For example, imagine two large banks promoting their "global reach." Is the bank with offices in 80 countries more attractive than the bank with offices in 50? How much?

How about an accountant with 15 years of experience? Is he or she more valuable than one with 10 years? How much?

Consider a charity that serves 2,000 needy persons per year. Is it more worthy of a donation than one that serves 1,800?

The recession makes life tougher for anybody trying to sell anything. That's the downside. The upside is that it forces those of us who sell to explain our value proposition better.

And that's a good thing.

Labels: fundraising, ggcb, marketing, sales

It's a global trend. When times are tough, people pick quality first. They invest in Treasury bills. They shop for better cars and homes. Somehow, when every penny counts, people think more about how they spend or invest their money. It's called "The Flight to Quality."

So, explain this: why do some companies cheapen their products and services in a downturn? True, people look harder for value when times are tough, but less quality at a lower price is not a "deal."

"We have to do more with less," everybody says, but they don't mean it. They mean less with less. And they're going to deliver it with a bad attitude. Count on it.

So if you want to position yourself to make good money -- in bad times and in the better times that are coming -- all you have to do is deliver good value when everybody else is delivering junk.

Labels: ggcb, marketing, sales

Breakfast with my favorite doctor always yields a juicy insight or two. His fun fact for today: the average healthy person carries about 25 million cancer cells in his or her body -- and about 10,000 of them are malignant.

Our miraculous bodies handle this threat with absolutely no problem. The trick our immune systems performs is keeping all those nasty cells apart. But let them clump together, forming little colonies of evil, and we're in big trouble.

One of the key leadership issues, whether for the country or your sales team, is dealing with the little malignant cells of doubt and fear that will sap the energy you need to get the job done. Take a tip from Mother Nature: don't let them reach critical mass.

Labels: leadership, marketing, sales