This means asking and listening, something that many salespeople completely forget to do. If you do not ask and listen, you do not know how your services will benefit your client, and you will make some needless mistakes in describing the benefits.
Also ask general questions about the customer you are talking to, and do not focus on their needs in relation to the product/service that you are selling. General questions can elicit a great deal more information that can give you unexpected insights into benefits that you otherwise would have missed.
When selling personal services, also ask about lifestyle and let them keep talking. Personal services agreements are generally for the benefit of more than one person. Home care services are provided to a single client, but the benefits often reach into extended families.
One of the basic principles of selling is that people do not buy features, they buy benefits, and this is a principle which can equally well be applied when it comes to "selling" yourself.
So, what is the difference between features and benefits? Take airbags in a car, for example; these are features. The benefit that they provide is safety. People do not buy a car because it has airbags; they buy it because they will feel safer when they are driving.
When "selling" yourself, you too need to think about the benefits that you can provide to an employer, rather than simply listing your skills, abilities and qualities. In the busy world of HR, recruiters do not have time to work out the connection between these, the benefits they might derive from them and the results they might expect in the role that they are trying to fill. It is up to you to demonstrate it to them plainly.
How does this work in practice? Well, say for example that using your initiative is one of your really strong selling points, and one that the employer is likely to value. Instead of just catalogueing "initiative" as part of a long list of skills (ie as a feature), you demonstrate that use of this skill brought about, for example, the benefit of freeing up your manager time. Then you go one step further and tell the employer what that meant in "real" terms, for instance by telling him that the use of your initiative freed your manager up to the extent that he was able to focus his efforts on bringing in x number of new accounts over y period. What you have demonstrated is something concrete that the employer can relate to, and if you can do this in such a way that it shows how you can either make or save the potential employer money, then you will really have his attention!
Wilson Chua Intergity Career Transitions www.integritycareertransitions.com 750 South Shipyard Drive, Suite 300, Wilmington, Delaware 19801 Toll Free: 1-302-442-4100 Tel. No.: (302) 504-9960
Tags: career, career transition, career counseling