Selling the benefits

I don’t know who we are indebted to for this story about the salesman from Minnesota but it serves well to illustrate what selling is all about. When you are in a selling situation you can talk all you like about features and advantages but, if you want to make the sale, sell the benefits.

Ole, the smoothest-talking Norske (a person of Norwegian ancestry) in the Minnesota National Guard and a natural born salesman, got called up to active duty.

Ole’s first assignment was in a military induction center. Because he was a good talker, they assigned him the duty of advising new recruits about government benefits, especially the GI life insurance, to which they were entitled.

The officer in charge soon noticed that Ole was getting a 99% sign-up rate for the more expensive supplemental form of GI insurance. This was remarkable, because it cost these low-income recruits $30 per month for the higher coverage, compared to what the government was already providing at no charge.

The officer decided he’d sit in the back of the room at the next briefing and observe Ole’s sales pitch. Ole stood up before the latest group of inductees and said…”If you haf da normal GI insurans an’ yoo go to Afghanistan an’ get yourself killed, da governmen’ pays yer beneficiary $20,000. If yoo take out da supplemental insurans, vich cost you only t’irty dollars a mont, den da governmen’ got ta pay yer beneficiary $200,000!”

Now, Ole concluded… “Vich bunch you tink dey gonna send ta Afghanistan first?”

Remember… always sell the benefits!