ArticlesBase.com - Free Articles Directory
Free Online Articles Directory
15.10.2008 Sign In Register Hello Guest
Email:
Password:
Remember Me 
forgot your password?


The Sales Training Series: Selling With TFBRs

Author: Duane Sparks Author Ranking Blue | Posted: 22-04-2006 | Comments: 0 | Views: 344 | Rating:  (51) Article Popularity - Blue (?) Got a Question? Ask.
Sign Up Now!

You have asked great questions and uncovered at least three important customer needs that your offerings can address, and you're ready to begin your product presentation. Know what you're going to do now? If you're like most salespeople, you're going to lose all of the momentum you've built—and maybe the sale, as well—by launching a long, boring, and standardized recitation of product features. Your sales presentation won't even focus directly on the key needs you took such pains to identify.

People don't buy product features. They buy solutions to their own needs.

Customers don't care about your product features or even about the benefits those features offer to the world at large. Customers care about one thing only: How can you help me solve problems or seize opportunities that matter to me?

What you need is a simple, structured method for product presentations that lets you stop rambling about features that may be irrelevant to this customer and start presenting solutions to specific needs instead—solutions that are crisp, clear, brief, and to the point.

There is such a method. It's called TFBR. Here is how it works.

T - Tie-Back: Tie the conversation back to a need you identified with your earlier questions:

"You told me earlier that you want to match the products that you stock with the unique needs of each region."

F - Feature: Describe a product feature that meets that need:

"Our regional purchases history reporting will show you exactly what the most popular products are in each region."

B - Benefit: Explain how that feature will serve this customer's specific need:

"What this means to you is that you will improve service to your customers while minimizing the inventory needed at each location."

R - Reaction: Ask for the customer's own view of how the benefit would serve the need. This confirms that you correctly understand the need. Also, importantly, it turns the product presentation into a dialogue with the customer instead of a monologue by you:

"How will this information help you improve your business?"

Cast each product feature or capability you present in the TFBR format. And present only features that represent solutions to needs you have already uncovered and agreed upon.

The TFBR method will shorten your product presentations dramatically and make them far more powerful. Why put your customers to sleep when you can instead engage them in a problem-solving dialogue that makes them very happy they agreed to meet with you?

In The Field:

The TFBR method isn't just for salespeople who meet clients face to face. The marketing professionals who support your company's sales efforts can use the TFBR format to help salespeople zero in on ways to present products as solutions that address key customer needs. Marketing people should think in terms of the TFBR process when communicating product information to the sales force and to customers.

Connie Fuller, manager of human resource development at Ball Seed Company, put it this way: "When marketing presents information consistent with the Action Selling sales training concepts, it is immediately more useful to our reps. It also supports our training efforts and creates a wonderful synergy."

Rate this Article: Current: 0 / 5 stars - 0 vote(s).

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/sales-articles/the-sales-training-series-selling-with-tfbrs-23995.html

Print this Article Print article   Email to a Friend Send to friend   Publish this Article on your Website Publish this Article   Send Author Feedback Author feedback  
About the Author:
Duane Sparks is chairman and founder of The Sales Board, a Minneapolis-based Sales Training company that has trained and certified more than 300,000 salespeople.
Submitting articles has become one of the most popular means of generating quality backlinks and targeted traffic to your website. Join us today - It's Free!

Article Comments

Comment on this article Comment on this article
Your Name
Your Email:
Comment Body
Enter Validation Code: Captcha


Got a Question? Ask.

Ask the community a question about this article:

Q&A Powered by:
Powered by Yedda 

Latest Sales Articles

Benefits of Marble Countertops
By: Brayan Peter | 15/10/2008
Marble is a crystallized limestone and so can be polished to a mirror-finish, which brings depth in its color and looks gorgeous. Limestone is a chalky, dusty rock, while marble is hard and compact.

A Frock to Go With Your Bag
By: David | 15/10/2008
We all know that the lucrative accessory and fragrance lines stamped with a designer's name support the international ready-to- wear industry but, at last week's Paris collections, this message was hammered home to the point of no return.

Strategy for Best Sales Letter
By: raman pal singh | 15/10/2008
Your goal is to make the sale today, in order to put food on the table and pay the bills. If you fail to close the deal today... you'll have to go to bed with an empty belly and ignore the growing stack of bills for another day.

Defensive Running, a Safety Running Advice
By: Parmod Kumar | 15/10/2008
Safety equipments non lethal and effective during any eventuality, use self defense equipments to overcome an y eventuality.

Sales Training – Four Poor Sales Skills not to Ignore!
By: Patricia Weber | 14/10/2008
In selling, the most analysis many salespeople consider is, “Did I make my goal?” There are mile markers along the sales road to watch and listen for that could minimize potentially costly sales mistakes.

Sales Training – Daily Recovery Important for Introverts
By: Patricia Weber | 14/10/2008
Like automobiles, which require regular fuel fill ups, people who sell require attitudinal and personal activities to refuel. In particular if they have more introvert tendencies, are shy or even reluctant, daily fill ups are vitally important to maintain energy to do the job of selling successfully.

Say it With Vintage Posters & Make Your Past Alive
By: Patrick Arden | 14/10/2008
Vintage posters help you have a glimpse into the bygone eras. They are invaluable source of knowing about history and people. Read on for more information.

Buy Calendars and Gift Them to Your Dear Ones
By: Patrick Arden | 14/10/2008
The given below article tells that a person can buy calendars at discounted rates and gift them to all the dear ones.

More from Duane Sparks

The Sales Training Series: Keep Selling Your Company
By: Duane Sparks | 22/04/2006 | Sales
If you hear words like "I didn't know that!" from an existing customer who likes and trusts you but who just bought something from one of your competitors, you have no one but yourself to blame. It was you who blew the opportunity and left the door wide open to the competition.

The Sales Training Series: Dealing With Sales Objections and Stalls
By: Duane Sparks | 13/02/2006 | Sales
Most salespeople think of "stalls" and "objections" as synonyms. Wrong. Stalls and objections are both things you may hear after you have asked for commitment, but an objection is a specific reason not to buy. In a stall—"I need to think about it"—the

The Sales Training Series: Stopping Objections Before They Start
By: Duane Sparks | 28/01/2006 | Business
"Your price is too high." "We're loyal to our current supplier." "I prefer your competitor's product." Classic objections such as those are very hard to overcome when they pop up near the end of your sales call after you have presented your company and

The Sales Training Series: Sell By Agreeing On At Least 3 Needs
By: Duane Sparks | 27/01/2006 | Sales
Salespeople know that they're supposed to sell to the customer's needs. Here is the classic—and tragically wrong—way they usually learn to do it: Uncover the first need. Begin a product presentation, covering features and benefits, and then attempt to un

The Sales Training Series: Gaining Commitment
By: Duane Sparks | 27/01/2006 | Sales
Employers value salespeople based on their ability to Gain a Sales Commitment. Improving this sales skill has never been more important than it is today. So, what are you doing to get better?

The Sales Training Series: Selling With Leverage Questions
By: Duane Sparks | 27/01/2006 | Sales
If he had a long enough lever and a place to put the fulcrum, the Greek mathematician Archimedes said, he could move the world. "Leverage questions" offer that kind of power to salespeople. These are open-ended questions designed to uncover the hot-butt

The Sales Training Series: Buying The Salesperson
By: Duane Sparks | 15/01/2006 | Sales
In any major sale, a prospect makes a predictable series of buying decisions that lead up to the final purchasing decision. The first and most important of these is: "Do I 'buy' the salesperson?" This decision is always made before the prospect will ser

The Sales Training Series: Listen to the Customer
By: Duane Sparks | 15/01/2006 | Sales
Blessed with the "gift of gab" are you? That's nice. But true sales professionals know that before they start gabbing to customers about their product features or anything else, they need to listen to what the customer has to say - and demonstrate that

Article Categories






Give Feedback

Sign up for our email newsletter

Receive updates, enter your email below