To be a top Sales Recruiting firm, not only does the firm’s delegated sales recruiter specifically understand our client’s salesperson prototype needs, they must also be very knowledgeable of this particular sales doctrine themselves, in order to recruit the right sales candidates in a timely manner. Here now is one of the many specific sales doctrines our sales recruiters are well versed in.
The FABs (features – advantages – benefits) Sales Protocol:
The technique of linking features, advantages, and benefits (FABs) was developed in the 1960s and it remains an important basic concept for successful selling and sales training. FABs were traditionally identified by the company and handed by the training department to the salespeople, who rarely thought much about developing them.
Here is the principle of using Features, Advantages, Benefits: Customers don’t buy features, they don’t even buy the advantages – what they buy is what the product’s features and advantages will do for them, which in selling parlance is called the benefit.
For example: A TV might have the feature of internet connectivity and a remote control qwerty keyboard; the advantage is that the customer can now access and interchange internet and TV services using a single system; and the benefit is that the customer saves money, space, and a lot of time through not having to change from one piece of equipment to another.
It’s the saving in money, space and hassle that the customer buys. A salesperson who formulates a sales proposition or product offer around those benefits will sell far more Internet TV’s than a salesperson who simply sells ‘TV’s with internet connectivity and remote qwerty keypads’. In fact lots of customers won’t even have a clue as to what a ‘TV with internet connectivity and remote qwerty keypad’ is, particularly when it’s packaged, branded and promoted as the latest ‘WebTV XL520 with the new Netmaster GT500 Supa-consul’….
Moreover the few customers who recognize the product benefit by its features and advantages will also recognize all the competitors’ products too, which will cause all the salespeople selling features and advantages to converge on the most astute purchasing group, leaving the most lucrative uninformed prospects largely untouched.
The aim is to formulate a product offer which elegantly comprises enough of what the product does and how, with the most important or unique benefits for a given target market or prospect type.