By: Susan Boydell | sboydell@barlowmccarthy.com
Are you feature-dumping or benefit-selling? I bet most of us would say we are benefit-selling but when it comes right down to it, we probably spend a lot of our time communicating the features we have without even knowing it.
Let’s start by defining the difference between the two. A feature is a factual statement about a product or a service. The benefit answers “so what’s in it for me?” The most convincing benefits provide some sort of emotional payoff. Think about it this way: an emotional payoff makes the customer feel better. In our world, the payoff comes when the referring physician feels confident his or her patient is being taken care of. To be even more specific, you need to answer how a physician’s patient or practice or life, in general, will be improved by using your services instead of who they are using now
I’m going to warn you, this is hard work. But there is a significant payoff at the end if you dig in and do the work. Below are four steps to get you started. But there is one caveat to all of this. You can’t have a conversation about the benefits of your services without knowing if it’s an important need for your target physician. So, make sure you have done a good job asking the right questions to learn about what’s important to your target physicians. Here’s a tip: if you do a good job understanding your features and benefits, it will help you craft better questions to uncover the needs of your customers.
Step 1: Create your features dump. This is the one time you get to do this. Pick a specific area within one of your targeted service lines. For example, choose breast cancer as opposed to the overall cancer service line. Write down all the features for your breast cancer service line. Your list might include how many breast surgeons you have, what specific training or expertise they might have, any special diagnostic equipment, how many locations, your breast navigators, and so on.
Step 2: Determining the benefit. As you read your list of features, ask yourself why should anyone care about any of these? Having the latest, greatest diagnostic equipment means nothing unless it’s more accurate at finding cancer or is more comfortable for the patient, or maybe allows for a cancer answer quicker. All three can answer how your new technology can improve their patient’s health. This will be one of your hardest steps. With every benefit that you create, step back and ask yourself does this matter to the referring physician and their patients? If the answer is no, delete it. It’s important to remember benefits are not answered by you, it’s only answered by the buyer; your target physician.
Step 3: Understanding differentiation. Once you feel good about your benefits, the next step is to see how you stack up to your competition. Let’s remember that nearly every referral we are trying to earn will need to be taken away from someone, most likely your competition. Needless to say, to complete this step you will need to have good knowledge of your competition. If you are unsure of how you stack up use this as an opportunity to do some research.
Step 4: Packaging your message. Now it’s time to put it all together. Craft your compelling messages using the features and the benefits you identified. Think about what questions you would ask to uncover a need that can be met by the benefits your products/service provides. Remember, you are looking for an emotional payoff. Try it for a week and score your effectiveness. Did your messages resonate? Did the conversation advance the relationship? Think about those areas where you didn’t feel confident and work to improve.
This is hard work, but the payoff is well worth it. This will not only help you better position your organization, but because you’ve done your homework, it will also help you stand out in the crowded world of those who want time with physicians.