By Marco Longley
Are you familiar with FAB (feature, advantage, and benefit) statements as they relate to your sales presentation? They are an incredibly powerful sales technique that can substantially increase sales if used successfully.
When selling products, such as hot tubs, the primary focus is to make it absolutely clear what you are offering is of value to the prospect. To do this you must explain to the prospect how they will benefit from the ownership of what it is you are selling. The most effective way of doing this is with FAB statements.
These statements help paint the picture as to why your hot tub is the most effective at meeting the prospects’ needs. They connect the physical features of your product to the benefits your prospect wishes to receive. The product’s benefits are the reason why the prospect must own it.
Why use FAB statements?
- They build value in your product and increased value justifies the asking price;
- You control the direction of the discussion and presentation;
- You can better understand the prospect’s needs;
- They reduce the chances of you data dumping (putting off a prospect by giving them more information than they actually need);
- The prospect will often reveal buying signals; and
- You will address their WIIFM (What’s in it for me?).
What’s in it for me?
When presenting your products, always remember to translate its features into advantages and then its advantages into benefits. The product’s benefits are the reasons why the prospect will buy from you; the WIIFM will be what they remember most. With practice you can turn the benefit into a hook and follow it up with a trial-closing question. This is used to connect all of the dots. Your hook gets the prospect to confirm they find the benefit to be important. For example:
- Feature: actual components of the product (What is it?);
- Advantage: what the result of having the feature is (What does it do?);
- Benefit: how your prospect will benefit by having the feature (WIIFM?); and
- Hook: ties the benefit into a trial-closing question.
It is not uncommon to have a variety of benefits associated with your product, so simply adjust your benefit statements to reflect the prospect’s specific needs. You should follow every feature and/or advantage you mention with a transition into what the benefit is to the prospect. In other words:
- “What it means to you is…”
- “Providing you with…”
- “What this does for you is…”
- “Which means you will benefit by…”
- “Therefore you will be able to…”
