A Five Opportunities sales skill exercise.

Part of my initial professional sales training was learning and memorizing as much as we could about the products and solutions we sold. One important segment was centered on Feature, Advantage and Benefit statements, or FAB’s. You could leverage a FAB for general responses relating to various features of your offering. If you were being pushed in a meeting, or felt a little uncomfortable with a question, you just resorted back to a FAB. I find myself using this tactic even to this day. At the core of a FAB are four simple statements to follow. Practice and burn FAB’s into your memory and they will never let you down.

FAB Statement: Because of, you can, which means to you, and the real benefit is.

Because of … this FEATURE

You can … have this ADVANTAGE

Which means to you … this BENEFIT

And the real benefit is … always SAVING TIME, SAVING MONEY OR INCREASING REVENUE

The Purpose
The purpose of this statement was for each salesperson to become so comfortable with the FAB’s of our products and solutions, that we could blurt them out at will, by memory, and whenever needed.

The Matchstick Challenge
Scattered throughout our training (2-weeks’ worth, including weekends) was an exercise that included a matchstick and FAB statements.

The Matchstick Challenge goes like this:
Light a matchstick and see how many FAB statements you can say before the match burns your finger, you let go, or in some cases the matchstick goes out.

You can say the FAB’s out of memory, or you can have someone say the Feature, and you repeat the FAB statement.  All participants determined how many of the FAB’s were valid for each salespersons challenge.

You know how these social media challenges go, so nominate a few friends or colleagues and let the burn begin.

Happy Selling!

Disclaimer:
As always, use caution when playing with fire and Five Opportunities is not responsible or liable for any damage from the practice of this sales skill.

Five Opportunities is forward-thinking consulting firm that recognizes data is the highest profile asset for every organization and should be leveraged to its fullest to positively impact your bottom line.  We develop and provide professional content and workshops that guarantee a smooth Digital Transformation.  www.fiveopportunities.com