Become a Home Based Travel Agent

A Sales Game Plan - Part 5
"Features & Benefits of a Sale & U"
By Cory Andrichuk

Hi everyone, This is the fifth in a series of six articles that will help you establish a successful Sales Game Plan to grow your business. My intention is to bring you personal, specific, and creative steps to grow your sales into better profits and I want to emphasize how important it is to ensure you have an overall business plan in place before trying to improve your salesmanship!

Let's review the four main ideas from my previous articles:

#1. Sales success always starts with a positive and healthy mindset which is all about helping people from the heart.

#2. The next part is prospecting which is all about working smarter rather than harder to find and get in front of your potential customers.

#3. The third part is establishing rapport where you ensure your target audience is comfortable with you, your brand, and the potential message you are going to deliver.

#4. The fourth part is qualifying your customer by uncovering their needs. Customers don't often know what they want and need. It's up to you to find out with the right qualifying questions.

We are now ready to talk about the fifth step involved in making a sale which the Features and Benefits. Providing features and benefits only begins after assessing your customer's needs based on the questions you asked. Presenting and recommending a product that you know is best suited to your customer's needs is an art, as it illustrates how well you have taken notes and listened to your buyer. Always deliver your recommendation in a passionate and professional manner that stresses the fulfillment of their dreams. Describe it as vividly as you can Ð sell anticipation, memories, and experiences.

Your ultimate goal here is to match the benefits to the features that best suit your customer. In order to do that, letÕs define features and benefits a little further.

Features: Are physical appearances; it's what the product does and how it works; it's a description of a service, and a company's promises. Most of us focus too much on such features versus the more important conversation which should be all about the benefits!!!

Benefits: Are the feelings and experiences the buyer derives from the features that make sense for them and their holiday experience. For example, a cruise ship's feature might be its 13 individual restaurants; the benefit is that you have the option of dining out at a different restaurant every night of the week. People generally do not buy features, they buy the benefits!

Here is a list of some great benefits that you can offer your clients:
CHOICE
OPTIONS
CONVENIENCE
EASE
EXPERTISE
PEACE OF MIND
INFORMATION AT YOUR FINGER-TIPS

All great sales people take the time to identify the needs of their prospective target markets. If you are serious about increasing your sales this year, begin to take the time to think about what your target really needs. When you are able to understand someone's needs upfront then, matching a product's features and benefits to their dream vacation needs will be so much easier!

Now, there's another aspect of features and benefits that I'd like you to consider. That is... YOU are the product for sale as much as the actual cruise or travel package product you are trying to convince your prospective buyer to purchase from you. What are the features and benefits of YOU, the travel entrepreneur? To help you understand my point, I will present some of my own Features and Benefits for you.

One of my features is that I have acquired a CLIA MCC accreditation and am proud to say I have cruised 46 times! The benefit of such a professional travel industry accreditation is that I am very knowledgeable about all major cruise lines, and can objectively sell, market, and position them in the greater travel market place.

Another feature of my personal brand is that I have 38 years of travel industry experience (I grew up stamping brochures in my mom and dad's travel agency, (along with 12 years at many major global cruise lines). The benefit of such experience to my customers in my coaching practice is that I bring a lifetime of well-rounded travel industry knowledge which can assist them in their business needs to increase their sales and grow their business. Still another feature is that I am personable and the benefit of that is I am easy to work with.

I could go on but, I think you get the idea. Make sure your clients know that they benefit by choosing to work with YOU. Remember... Sales is not just winging it and talking aimlessly. It's all about following a process that helps the client buy you first and then the product or service you are trying to offer them.

Until next month, good selling!!!