There is only a BENEFIT if there is a NEED. This expression, title of this Article-Video, constitutes the core of the Advanced Sales Techniques.

We enter Stage III, in the Sales Process, which is called: Selling Benefits, which follows Stage I, which was: The Contact, and Stage II: Information Collection or Qualification.

When I start talking about Selling Benefits, How to Sell Benefits? I usually start by involving the Group, as I did in Stage II of Information Collection, with the exercise “Doctor my head hurts”, with which we started the Training on Question Technique.

Now that we enter Stage III on the Sale of Benefits to the client, which I also usually begin with another Exercise, involving the Group, to impact on the key elements when selling the Advantages and Benefits to our client.

And to begin with this new exercise, I say to the Group the following: I think it would be good at this time for one or more of you to alternately think about what you would like to offer me, David, anything you can think of, offering me that if the advantages the benefits that I personally could suppose, buy that something, make that something, use that something.

It can be anything you can think of, even any topic or seemingly absurd thing, but I will put one condition, that when you introduce me, the advantages, the benefits of doing something, buying something, using something that you are going to offer me, in truth, I have no need of what you are going to offer me.

This is an exercise, I tell the group, and it has its reason for being, and since the movement is demonstrated by walking, who wants to be the first to offer me the Advantages, the Benefits, of anything I repeat to do something, buy something, use something, but if I don't have the slightest need for it.

What are you going to offer me?

Who will be the first I insist?

With a certain effort, overcoming certain shyness, different participants search their minds for things to offer me, some apparently absurd, and the different Role Plays start one by one.

And what is happening is that as I ask the participant about what I am going to achieve by following their advice, they, themselves, without realizing it, introduce me to the fact that there are always one or more reasons, BENEFITS, that for me it might be interesting to accept his proposals.

At that moment, I make them see that they, themselves, have introduced me to a reality, and that is that I, playing that game, get into the different needs that are emerging, and that will be covered by the offers that each of them are showing me.

And with this, at the end I make them see something truly central and key in the Sale: "That there is only Benefit if there is a Need", and that "There is no such Benefit if there is no such Need". Because the benefit and the Need in the Sale, necessarily go together.

This is a key and fundamental piece in the sale and I repeat: "There is only Benefit - Profit to the extent that a Need is covered". And what if someone offers me Benefits without taking out the Need, I can tell them to call it another way, not to call it a Benefit. Call it a characteristic, specification, or advantage, but not a Benefit, if I don't have to nor want to recognize the existence of that Need.

And with all this, now we enter in a new concept, which is going to be "The Mother of All Battles", "The Authentic Heart, the Most Core Part" of modern Advanced Sales Techniques, and which is called:

THE 2 DIMENSIONS OF THE ADVANTAGE, and the Technique that derives from it, in which we will immediately enter, and where it is necessary to draw for a better understanding, three boxes with the following disposition:

SCHEME 3 Rectangles. see on YouTube video.

In the upper box, we write the word Advantage, and since we are saying that Advantage has 2 dimensions, in the lower-left box we will write the word NEED, as the first dimension of Advantage.

And in the lower right box, we will write the second dimension of the Advantage, which is the PROOF, that is, how can I prove to my client that everything I am giving him as Advantages, that they are true, and since I am giving him the Compelling evidence that demonstrates the reality of those Benefits that meet his Need.

Once I have painted the three boxes, I make the group see that when presenting our Advantages, "WE ARE NOT AUTHORIZED" to present a single one of my ADVANTAGES without previously having extracted the Need that the client may have of our Advantage.

Well, when I adjust the Advantage to the Client's Need, at that moment it occurs as "A MIRACLE IN THE SALE" since the Advantage is no longer an Advantage, it takes a leap in "rank" and becomes a real BENEFIT for the client, having exactly adjusted my Advantage to the Need that the client and the sales professional had previously defined.

Now that we have adjusted the Advantage to the client's need, transforming it into a true Benefit for the client, we remind the Group again that "there is only benefit if there is a need."

Now is the time to go down to the second dimension of advantage, the PROOF, proving to the client, demonstrating most palpably, that there are facts, tests, that show that our advantages, and benefits, are authentic and real.

Because if before any benefit, I could not present any Proof, the Benefit would lose its value because I would be asking my client to BELIEVE in what I am saying, without any proof, that is, I would be asking the client to do "ACTS OF FAITH" in my words like a salesperson, and that is already asking too much to our customers.

Therefore, as the words are blown away and it is not enough to sell Advantages and Benefits out loud, I must present the necessary Evidence so that the client understands that my Argumentation of Advantages, already Benefits, are true.

Once the need has been extracted, there is a step prior to the presentation of advantages and benefits, which is to start from the most significant technical characteristics of my product and offer for my Client, transforming those Characteristics into advantages, with which I am already giving the first jump in rank, and transforming the Advantages into Benefits as the Solution of the Client's Problems and Needs.

All this that I have just described, and that I developed dynamically, with different participants of the group, has a denomination, it is called THE DAPA TECHNIQUE of Argumentation.

In future Articles-Videos, we will continue developing and deciphering the following Stages of the Sales Process, with specific expressions of the different Advanced Sales Techniques.

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Thanks, D.