Picture this: You arrive home to find ants crawling all over your kitchen. You whip out your phone and Google for an exterminator. You want a solution NOW, and the first company you find that impresses you in some way will get your business. You click through to the first company on the list and…eh. Thumbs down. Company number two ends up getting your business.

Why did one exterminator get your business while the other did not? It could be that one “connected the dots” between their services and the benefits of working with them, while the other failed to do so. One made you feel like if you called them, your problem would be solved. The other did not.

You need to “connect the dots” for your prospects

When business owners write their own marketing materials, they often make the mistake of thinking that the benefits of their products are obvious. They talk about the features and assume readers will immediately “connect the dots” to make the connection between these features and their “obvious” benefits.

Unfortunately, this generally will not happen.

For example, say you’re selling a new dental handpiece sterilizing machine that uses fresh water with every cycle. If your marketing materials simply announce that your machine “uses fresh water with every cycle,” dentists are likely to respond with, “so what?”

Very few dentists will see this and immediately understand the excitement of this feature. “Wow! Fresh water with every cycle! That means that this will completely eliminate the problem with oil and debris buildup that I’ve got with my current sterilizing machine! Woo hoo! This new product is for me!”

No. That’s not likely to be the response. You’ve got to spell it out for your prospects. If you only talk about the features, no one will care. It’s the benefits that lead to sales.

Features vs. benefits

Just to refresh your memory here, a feature is a fact about your product. A benefit is the reason why someone should care about this fact. It’s the all-important “what’s in it for me?” aspect of what you’re selling.

Yes, people want to know about your product or service’s features. What’s it made out of? What’s included in the monthly service package? And so forth. But those are just the boring facts. If you want to sell, you need to focus on – and spell out – the benefits that those features provide.