Episode #142: Presenting Manufactured Products

Industrial products are rarely sexy. They tend to be very technical, specification heavy and chunky. They are normally being presented in a catalogue of products. The pricing, quality and the after sales service tends to be the differentiator with the rival suppliers. The salespeople presenting these often boring, utilitarian products, are also usually do so in a boring, functional manner. Not much pizzazz going on.

This flies in the face of what we know though about buyers buying us, buying our confidence and being injected with our belief in the product. We don’t have to present these types of products in a dull way. The features of the product are usually a mass of measurements. This can be dry as a subject for getting buyers excited. However what about the benefits of the product? This is where we should be able to shine in our presentations. Intellectually, we all know we don’t buy the product. We buy what the product will do for us. Describing that part of the occasion is where we can stand apart from our competitors. The problem is we forget about this bit and we just drone on and on about the spec.

Talking about the benefits of the product purchase are absolutely fundamental in sales. However, rather than just talking about the benefits of the product, we need to be outlining how the benefit can be applied in their company. Having a benefit and doing something with it are not the same thing. We need to be drawing out word pictures of how our product can help them in their business. Usually it is through better efficiencies around life of the product or better quality, leading to fewer maintenance issues. It might be the ease of use of our product when compared to others or the ease of instillation. Whatever it is, this is where we need to capture the attention of the buyer. By taking the discussion beyond the spec, to the integration into the customer’s systems, their staff’s daily interactions with the product, the their customers happiness with the finished item, then we can bring a dry subject alive.

Numbers lend themselves to comparisons very easily, so we can contrast our product with the alternatives. We can break the cost down, amortised over a long period of time. The lifetime of a lot of industrial products can be quite long, so long range number crunching works well. It has to be related back however, to today though. We need to provide context about how this long term saving will translate into financial benefits today. There may be some speed of delivery elements creating savings on inventory or storage costs. Improved quality deliverables may create benefits for the customer, which allow them to pass on savings and gain market share. Tax savings and investment costs amortization allowances may in fact save money. The key is to find things which can be applied to today’s bottom line. If there are less maintenance issues, then we can calculate the labour costs and down time savings that it brings. If it is easier to install, then we can talk about the diminished disruption to overall operations, the lesser need for technical specialists or the speed of installment leading to cost savings.

Finding creative ways to express these differences is one part of the equation and the other part is the way we present the information. Charts and graphs are basic but good visual clues for our buyer to see the difference for themselves. These days we can have video delivered via our iPads, which can tell the story of how great this will be for the buyer. Seeing is believing and it doesn’t have to be all spreadsheets, still photos and matrices. This is particularly so around marshaling evidence to prove what we are saying. Seeing the product installed and operating gives a better sense of reality to the buyer. Interviews with happy customers and them talking about the advantages is very compelling.

The humble blender became a viral social media sensation in the hands of some creativity. Blendtec, like many manufacturers, producers blenders. To demonstrate the toughness of their blender they hit upon the genius idea of shooting a video called “Will It Blend”. Twelve years ago they started blending mobile phones, iPads, glow sticks, hockey pucks and other unlikely items. The one on glow sticks got 12 million views on YouTube and the iPad video got 18 million views. Tom Dickson, the President, is dressed up in a lab coat, has the industrial glasses on and away he goes. Today they are still getting hundreds of thousand of views of their videos. Everyone else is just making blenders.

My point is industrial products don’t have to be boring in the hands of a skilled salesperson. Yes going through the spec is critical, but that is not enough. By the way, is that all that your salespeople are capable of doing? Are they fully boned up on describing the benefits to the buyer. Can they then take those benefits and integrate them into the client’s business and show how when applied they bring tremendous benefit to the client. Do they have visual evidence like Blentec has been using to create resonance with the buyer? If they don’t and your competitors salespeople are doing all of those things, then buckle up for a rocky ride.