7/10/2024-My product’s got 154 features

It is a tired myth that you must know everything about your product. Your customers will benefit more when you help them define what they want from your offering and how it can benefit them.

If a stranger stops you on the street and asks what time it is, do you launch into a three-minute rambling description of how your Rolex works?

No…you tell him what time it is. (Duh.)

The gravitational pull you feel to explain every last detail about your product in pitch meetings is understandable: you’re inundated with product training and all-hands meetings that glorify your offering’s bells and whistles.

Knowing your product does NOT require telling your customers everything you know.

Fight product info overload! Your customers don’t care about your long tail.

Knowing your product inside and out is great, but knowing how to translate product features into value is better.

Use the "So What…?" trick to help you emphasize value and benefits.

When pitching a customer today, imagine a dialogue box with the words "So What…?" appearing in a bubble above your head. The bubble is there to urge you to focus on explaining value to the customer.

"So what that feature means to you, Mr/Mrs. Buyer is this…"

Buyers need you to explain it to them…succinctly.

Having a deep and broad aptitude for your product is great, but it means nothing without the ability to translate features into benefits.

When discussing your product in customer pitch meetings, push yourself to focus on benefits by using the "So What…!" trick. It works.

The "So What…! bubble is a trigger.

When you launch it and see it floating above your head, finish the sentence aloud for the customer. "SO WHAT this means to you is X, Y, and Z."

Or, "So WHAT YOU should interpret from that product description is that you’ll be able to do A, B, and C with our product."

And if you really want to show off, you could say something like this, "You’re probably now asking, ‘SO WHAT’? …so what does this mean for me? Here’s what it means to you."

The great thing about the "So What…!" move is that it saves you when you fall deep into the abyss of talking too much about processes, product features, etc. You may need to talk about that stuff oi your pitch meetings, but it can’t overtake the time you talk about value and benefits for the customer.

The SO WHAT trick only works when you hit the start button. You’ll find that button on a Post-it note that you create with the words "So What…!" on it. That Post-it note should be stuck on your monitor and in your notebook.

In this clip from the movie The Guilt Trip, Seth Rogan realizes his features pitch is losing his audience, so he pivots and saves the sale with a great selling move.

Once you perfect the art of translating product knowledge into what the customer cares about, you can, like Seth, amp up customer engagement and create demand.