Bells & whistles are nice, but sell me on primary value first.
Thankfully I don’t go shopping for a new car very often.
My last experience at an auto dealership left me baffled, and also a bit perturbed. After narrowing the search down based on meeting my overall desires for mileage, price-point, etc., the salesperson and I then moved on to various pros and cons of different makes and models. A seemingly logical next step…
However, rather than continuing to focus on the primary differences of the cars relating to my stated needs and desires, the sales pitch was focused on each car’s specialty features.
Remember the Saturn commercial a decade or so ago promoting their different approach to sales in contrast to other dealerships pitching the visor mirror as a key selling point to females?
Yeah, it was a lot like that.
The very first “differentiation” the salesperson pitched to me about one of the cars was how the radio would reset itself to a certain volume every time I turned the car off/on. “If your teenager was blaring the radio in the car the night before, you won’t be jilted out of your senses the next morning…” The next “differentiation” was how it would remember my settings for seats and mirrors so various drivers wouldn’t have to manually adjust the settings each time.
How nice. Now, what about MPG? Is this particular car’s MPG better or worse than the other two on my list? What’s the turning radius? Horsepower? Average resale value?
And let’s also not ignore the inherent assumptions by this one particular salesperson. Based on my age, he assumed I might have a teenage child. (Nope.) It was also assumed I would be regularly sharing my car with someone else who would change my seat and mirror settings. (Nope again.)
Maybe it’s because I’m a woman. I’m an optimist and would like to think how businesses sell to consumers has evolved, but gender-based—and other bias-based—stereotypes in sales and marketing are still very prevalent in sales and marketing across all industries.
And while (presumably) not all auto sales are conducted this way, even the commercials on TV are overwhelmingly focused on some feature—some bell or whistle—that’s better than the competition’s feature. Hands-free parking assist, or WiFi enabled, or some other such amazing add-on. All wonderful whistles indeed, but completely irrelevant to my buying decision if, say, what’s important to me is great mileage and the hands-free trunk lift the salesperson is pitching is only found on gas-guzzling SUVs.
Which led me to wonder…
Why do so many businesses focus on selling the “bells and whistles” of their product or service before selling to the actual “needs” of potential buyers?
I believe it boils down to a general misunderstanding about the common trend of value-based selling verses cost-based selling. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big proponent of value-based selling. The distinction I’m making here is that many businesses aren’t clear on exactly which value(s) to be selling. A desire to implement value-based selling without fully evaluating consumer demographics and what’s important to their target market is causing many businesses to jump into selling value about add-on’s and nice-to-have’s before ensuring that the primary value of their base product/service is communicated and bought in to by the consumer first.
Consumers are more informed “pre-sales” than ever before. Perhaps many businesses are assuming that the primary product/service value has already been sold and all that’s left is to sell the bells and whistles in order to close the deal.
Maybe. But I can assure you no-one is going to buy your product/service based on the bells and whistles alone, so be sure to verify that assumption. Start by identifying and selling your primary product/service value and unique differentiations. Then sell the bells and whistles to help seal the deal.
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Want to learn more about value-based selling? Here’s a great place to start: