Are You Selling the Wows or the Hows?

Vanessa Marie
3 min readMay 1, 2019

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Selling The Wows or The Hows
Photo Credit Pixabay

When offering solutions to your prospects, it’s vital to balance your presentation.

We may get excited with how much we know, and want to show them every single feature.

Exactly how our product works.

But does your prospect want to know?

Do they want to know how the Mercedes Benz engine works?

Or do they want to know it works, AND that it’ll make them feel a certain way?

When helping your prospects, you have to know if you’re selling the wows or the hows.

If You’re not Selling Benefits — You could be Creating a Problem.

Using industry specific terminology is helpful to show you’re an expert.

But it’s not the best at helping your prospect understand the offer, or your solution.

Recently, I had a lead from one of my clients tell me she had no idea what the advisor was talking about. So she started ‘tuning out’…

Simplify the terms.

Use language that is natural for your prospect.

“Below-average allocations to stocks” means something to you. But it may mean absolutely nothing to your prospect.

And worse it could lose your potential client all together.

As Consumers, We Do Not Buy Something We Do Not Understand.

ErikaWittlieb from Pixabay”>Image by Erika Wittlieb

In fact, we stop listening.

So know who you are speaking to.

If your prospect is more analytical and is asking industry or market specific questions, then great.

Flex your muscle and show them you know your product.

However, if they are more concerned with ways they can use their investment, or the money they’ve put toward their retirement.

Show them that.

In real life examples. Using terms they understand.

Overwhelming someone with complex concepts (even if simple to you), will only lead to the inevitable …

“That is a lot of information. I’d like to think about it”.

And eventually becomes a lead that goes dark.

Cancels appointments.

No longer responds to you.

Some people are prideful.

Some rather say nothing, or tell you they’re not interested. Instead of saying they don’t understand.

Selling The Wows Not the Hows
Confused Consumers — Don’t Buy

Avoid this.

Check in on your Prospect During the Consultation:

  • Ask questions “does this make sense?
  • Engage them “what questions can you think of?
  • Involve them “You mentioned earlier…”

By taking these breaks to gauge their interest and comprehension level, you will also know where they are in the process (and how much more work you have left to do).

You will know to focus on features or benefits.

You’ll be able to zero in on selling the wows or the hows, based on their response.

But if your prospect is not asking questions throughout your sales meeting, this does not mean they don’t have objections.

Quite the opposite.

It could mean, they’ve stopped listening.

Just waiting for you to finish.

If they’ve tuned you out — and you still go ahead with the close; you will not earn their business.

Don’t let this happen.

Instead, show them the benefits.

The wows. 😉

Find out what’s important to them and speak a language they understand!

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Vanessa Marie

Entrepreneur. 📗 Reader. Sales Aficionado. Solution Seeker + Lover of Life. 🌎 evolvd.io