Getting the Employer to See The Value of Your Solution!
Lesson 6 Module 3
Features & Benefits.
In Marketing we talk about the idea that all parties bring something to the exchange that is perceived as valuable by others in the exchange. This perceived value is what motivates the exchange to take place. A need is perceived to be addressed if an exchange takes place.
The theory, in the reality of our employment business, is that to meet an employer’s need, you and/or your organization must have a product or service that fulfills the need.
That product or service needs to be sold to the employer. In marketing terms, it needs to be described by its features, and sold by its benefits. These two ways of referring to a product are fundamental to all selling, and this includes selling in the employment field.
For us, features and benefits represent the best means of talking about employment solutions we have to offer the employer. Features and benefits are the terms by which the match between the need and the product is most adequately explained.
Features
A Feature describes the product itself through the qualities, characteristics and attributes of that product or service. Features of a candidate, for example, are the skills he or she possesses. The features of your service are what the organization will do, for example, follow up, pre-screening etc. Features are real. They describe your product by its component parts or characteristics.
Benefits
Benefits describe the pluses of the features and their perceived value delivered to the person with the need. The benefit can be seen as the expected or perceived advantage, such as “increased production”, that comes from selecting a particular solution to one’s needs.
The point to keep in mind is that benefits are what something will do for us. Benefits are not what the product has, but the advantage the feature offers. Everyone buys benefits no one buys features.
We must know the benefits offered by a feature to make the feature relevant to the buyer. We do this by linking the benefits to the feature based on the expressed need. Showing the application of the product’s feature in solving the need does this. In solving the need lies the identification of relevant benefits.
Features always exist. They are reality. Benefits describe the advantage to the user of a feature. There are no benefits without features. People only buy because they have been informed of the benefits.
Our business is to understand what benefits our candidates and services offer the employer through the features of our candidates and services. We sell through benefits not features.
