B2B sales – is more better?

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When selling, how many reasons should you use to produce the most positive impression of a product or service? Is there a magic number? Or, is it simply more is better? Or, is it all depends?

According to Kurt Carlson and Suzanne Shu (of Georgetown and UCLA respectively), the answer is 3. In Carlson and Shu’s study, more claims were better – until the 4th. When you reach the fourth, customer skepticism begins to rise. [If you want to read a brief summary of the study, you can find it in the New York Times.]

But, as is always the case, it’s wise to examine the study details. And, as usual, this yields a word of caution. The professors constructed six persuasive scenarios and had hundreds of undergraduates read the scenarios and play the buyers role. Each scenario was then followed by one to six reasons to buy in. But the study was about B2C sales.

Because of the type of sale and the buyers, the study construct does raise some flags about its applicability to B2B selling.

However, when we turn to our observations from hundreds of sales calls over the years, we believe there is merit to the argument. Although we would quibble with the general notion of finding an exact number, all too often, we’ve seen salespeople just throw out product features – believing they’re benefits – assuming the more reasons introduced, the stronger the argument and the more likely they are to close the sale.

In reality that idea is a good example of a myth. A myth that is still being repeated time and time again even in B2B sales. But back to our study, we agree with the authors that at some point the value of adding more reasons (whether features or benefits) turns from positive to neutral to negative (skepticism).

The takeaway is the strength of your proposition can be diluted. Value can be eroded unless every feature of the product being offered matters to the customer. So no, more is not necessarily better.

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Janet Spirer
For more than 30 years Janet Spirer has worked with the Fortune 1000 to craft sales training programs that make a difference. Working with market leaders Janet has learned that today's great sales force significantly differs from yesterday. So, Sales Momentum offers firms effective sales training programs affordably priced. Janet is the co-author of Parlez-Vous Business, to help sales people have smart business conversations with customers and the Sales Training Connection.

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