Sales Journal

Product Knowledge- Jeeps anyone?

My first sales job- and my first 'real job' after University was selling cars in Ottawa. Jeeps to be exact at a place that was the number one Jeep/Eagle sales room for years, but recently slipped to second in the city.

Even though I was green- I was hungry! And even though I was young- I was not the youngest guy there.

I did a fax blast and got a number of interviews for car sales guys around the city. This one made the first offer, after a number of gruelling interviews testing how well I could think on my feet, my personal skills, how I build relationships, etc...

I remember being over joyed when they gave me the job.
I also remember the sliminess of the sales men; racist, sexist, two-faced jerks who would step on their mother for a sale.

I remember two important things that I learned in that job and still use today though:

1) Learn the technical information about your product.
2) Forget the technical information about your product.

OK- what I mean by forget the technical information is that if you start going on about "This sprocket has a 0.5 mm variance..." your prospect is going to either lose interest or nod off.

The only people that technical specs mean anything to is engineers and they'd rather look up the technical specs than talk to you. What matters isn't features- it's Benefits!

That being said- you have to remember the product specs. You have to know them, know what they mean, and how they improve the product, and translate into benefits for the customer. Why do you have to know it?

It's your job.

posted by Mike @ 11:23 AM