Benefits versus features: the cart before the horse?
Benefits of enterprise high tech products are usually pretty similar: you save cost, time, increase productivity, security, scalability, flexibility. Starting your presentation with these benefits will not really make them stick. Everyone is saying exactly the same thing on their page 1 of the their presentation.
You have to reveal a bit of what it is you do before plunging into the benefits. "We automate all manual processes in order picking". Right, now I can see where all these benefits come from and tell me how big they are.
In business and marketing seminars we are always told to talk benefits, not features. Talking product gets you boxed in as too detailed, too middle management, too engineering, too much missing the big picture.
I disagree, people who have a story with real substance have an edge here. There is too much hollow marketing speak out there.
Art: Edgar Degas, Aux courses en province (At the Races in the Country) c. 1872; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
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