If you read this blog regularly and/or work with me in a coaching or workshop capacity, then you know I make no bones about the fact that I face many of the same challenges my clients face running my own business. One of these challenges has been convincing clients to actually write their business plans.

I got to thinking…how can I get more people to do their business plans?  Why are most of us so &(#$&%(*U#% resistent?  The answer finally came to me: I’ve been selling a feature, not a benefit.  I’ll illustrate:

Suppose I asked you in an enthusiastic voice: “How would you like to have a business plan?” Unless you need one because you’re going to ask someone for money, you would probably say, “Hey, great idea, but no thanks, not now. Too busy. Have it in my head already,” and a bunch of other excuses.

Now imagine me asking you, ”How would you like your business to increase revenue by 62 percent?” (A real number from one of my clients who wrote her plan.) Or “How would you like to know who your perfect customers are and how to find and talk to them?”

Having a business plan is a feature. Earning more money because you have one is the benefit. It’s important to distinguish between these two things so you can effectively market–and sell–your product or service.

Human beings (also known by market researchers as consumers) want to know how x, y, or z product will make our lives better, faster, easier, etc. Here are other examples of features vs. benefits. The examples with links are from some of my coaching clients:

Examples of Features vs. Benefits

Feature: Clean your carpets

Benefit: Extend the life of your carpets; create a sanitary environment for your kids to crawl around on; create a hygienic environment for your home.

Feature: Invest your money in stocks and bonds
Benefit: Create a secure financial future for your family and you.

Feature: Sell you a house
Benefit: Find the perfect house for you that meets your needs, fits into your budget, in the neighborhood you want, and feels like home.

Feature: Teach you to pronounce American English

Benefit: Teach you to pronounce American English so that your friends, colleagues, students, teachers, can understand you perfectly without having to get rid of your accent.

Feature: Plan a company meeting for you

Benefit: Create a meeting for you, and your employees and stakeholders so everyone gets to know each other on a more personal level and people leave the meeting able to work together more collaboratively and productively.

Feature: Prints 30 pages a minute

Benefit: Prints at a speed that guarantees your employees won’t waste time standing around the printer waiting for it to finish.

Feature: Do your email newsletter for you

Benefit: Do your newsletter for you so that you get it out regularly, communicates important information to your clients and prospects, and generates leads.

How to tell if you’re talking about a feature or a benefit:

If you’re wondering how to tell the difference between features and benefits in your business, try this: State what you think is the benefit. Here’s an example: “Edit your book.”

Now add “so that…” For example, “Edit your book so that there are no embarrassing typos, it flows logically and well, and a publisher is more likely to buy it.”

See how “Edit your book” is the feature, and “No embarrassing typos…etc.” are the benefits?” Easy to tell the difference, isn’t it?

So to us, a retreat is a benefit.  I conjure up relaxing on a beach or in front of a roaring fire, sipping hot chocolate or pineapple juice and contemplating my place in the universe.  In other words, when someone says they’re having a retreat, I make up my own benefits.

But for normal people, a retreat isn’t a benefit.  It’s a feature.  Just like a fast engine in a car, or a laptop with a long battery life, or a house in the right school district.  If you’re really a fan, you translate the feature of “fast engine in car” to benefits like: “I can drive really fast, I’ll look cool, I’ll accelerate away from the stoplights faster than anyone else.”

If you’re a hardware geek, you make up your own benefits for “laptop with long battery life” to be:  “I can work longer on the plane, I can work longer in other places (outdoors?) where there’s no power.”  A family will translate “house in good school district” to: “kids will get a better education, be surrounded by other families and kids who care about education, they’ll get into better colleges.”

But most people need help translating features into benefits. The more in love you are with your product or service, the harder it is to remember that what you view as a Benefit!!! your clients may view as a feature.   You have to help them see the benefits that are intuitively obvious (to you).

See how my client, Deb Roffe, and I did on her retreat flyer.