Sometimes, one of the most difficult things to instruct beginning sales professionals is the difference between features and benefits. All too frequently, sales people list their product or service features, without articulating how those features will ultimately benefit that prospect or customer. Unfortunately, your prospects or customers are not always able to make that leap for themselves. And when they do not see the benefit, they don’t buy. So-what is the difference between features and benefits? How do you articulate that difference?

Product or service features are facts-they are just there. There’s no real value or judgement attached to them. They simply exist. For example, the product is blue, it’s a certain size or shape. Another example: the store is open 24 hours.

The most important thing you want to remember about features is:

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Could this be the worst moment in your selling cycle? You’ve done all the right things with your prospect:

• You’ve identified a real need and developed a reasonably solid relationship.

• You have determined that your prospect is interested in your solution.

• You’ve had a couple of great meetings or conversations that let the prospect move the sales process forward.

• You have supplied everything needed to make a final decision.

• And you have followed up, as customary, by leaving messages or e-mails to see if you can get a final decision

But instead, all you’re hearing is dead silence.

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You are probably familiar with e-mail signature (or “sig”) files - they’re the few lines of contact information that many of us put at the bottom of each e-mail we send. Most e-mail software programs allow you to create and use sig files - even the newer versions of AOL.

I’ve heard some people who don’t use sig files defend their position by saying, “All my clients know my info - I do not need to remind them with every e-mail.” Stop! You are missing a perfect opportunity to promote your business, as well as do your clients and prospects a favor.

When you consider how many e-mails you actually send a day, it’s probably more than you realized! Some people send over 100 a day. That’s a lot of mail - and a lot of chances to slip in your own subtle marketing messages.

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Find out how your company can capitalize on this growing communication trend. Blogs have become one of the hottest communication tools on the Web.

Blogs have become one of the hottest communication tools on the Web. Offering the opportunity for anyone to create their own free Web site, encouraging views and interaction, blogs provide forums for individuals to create their own highly personal presentations to the Web audience. They also provide for consortia of all types to experience the sort of online community feeling that was pioneered by early newsgroups and by the phenomenal success of AOL in the 1990s.

Blogs have reached into the corporate and government sectors as well. What started out as an outlet for teenage expression and grassroots journalism has turned into a lucrative communications tool for small and large businesses alike.

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Ego searches are free and easy searches designed to monitor blogs and news portals for mentions of your company, product, competitors or other specific keywords. Conducting ego searches not only allows you to stay informed, but also allows you to maintain a strategic advantage over competing companies.

A number of new Internet services are freely available that make these ‘ego searches’ painless and easy. Dynamically created keyword based RSS feeds, update in your RSS reader or news aggregators, each time new information containing the keyword appears in the searched resources. The dynamic feeds match requests against new information, as it comes on the web in real time.

The following free services allow for RSS feed ego searches.

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