Why did the client hear you out, nod — and say “I’ll think about it”? Because there is a set of scales in his head: price on one pan, value on the other. “I’ll think about it” is equilibrium. The job of a selling presentation is to make value outweigh. Not with a discount — with meaning converted into money.

This book is the technology of that tipping. The FBMS formula: feature — benefit — monetization — story. The fifteen-second mini-presentation that makes a person turn around. The structural thinking matrix: a theme, rhemes, and premises that hold up a three-minute conversation or an hour-long talk equally well. Slides that sell rather than hypnotize. Openings that seize attention before the first word about the product. And the through-line skill of the whole book — counting the client’s money where he doesn’t count it himself.

Inside are live breakdowns of real talks given by salespeople in the construction materials market: with mistakes, refinements, and ready-made phrasings you can take word for word. At the end there is a thirty-point master checklist for the selling presentation.

The author is a business trainer with twenty years of experience training sales teams.

In the “Sales Technology” Series

Book One. SPIN Selling: how to sell what doesn’t sell itself.

Book Two. The Selling Presentation — the one you’re holding now.

Book Three. Objection Handling — in preparation.

Contents

Chapter 1. The Scales in the Client’s Head

Chapter 2. The Punch Combination

Chapter 3. The Structural Thinking Matrix

Chapter 4. Insure at Full Value

The Selling-Presentation Master’s Checklist

Chapter 1. The Scales in the Client’s Head

Picture a salesperson who spent a whole hour preparing for an important meeting. He gathered the data, cleared the prices, put on his best shirt. And now he sits across from the customer and delivers: “We have prepared an individualized commercial proposal for you, reflecting the best prices in the region, prompt logistics, and an optimal solution with the finest technical parameters on a minimal budget.” The customer nods politely and says: “Thank you. I’ll think about it.”

Curtain.

Tell me honestly: how many times have you said something similar about “best prices” and “optimal quality”? And how many times have you heard “I’ll think about it” in reply? Is there a connection between the first and the second? That is what this book is about.

I love the subject of presentation. For me it’s daily practice: speaking, telling, teaching, directly instilling ideas in people. If needs discovery — to which the first book of this series was devoted — is a difficult technology, a technology of extracting the truth from people, then presentation is easier. It’s even more fun. And you use it far more often. The bitter truth sounds like this: proper work with the client’s problems and needs is something we almost never do. But a presentation we do always, one way or another. Every day. So this will be easier for you: we’re not building a new skill from zero, we’re re-tuning the one you already use daily.

But there’s a catch. Precisely because everyone gives presentations, everyone’s presentation is the same. However many companies I’ve trained — from porcelain-tile plants to jewelry chains — the same averaged text sounds everywhere. And it sounds at your competitors’ too. Which means you have a chance: my assembled presentation technology contains an element that almost everyone skips. Once you master it — and I’ll hand it to you in this very chapter, like a punch combination in boxing — you will gain one more superpower in working with clients. And you will differ sharply from everyone who walks, in parallel with you, into the same customers’ offices. The technology is called monetization. Today I’ll immerse you in it; we’ll turn it over, play with it, and in the following chapters land it on specific clients and specific working situations.

If you’ve read the first book, you know how to ask questions, extract the problem, and rock it back and forth until the client himself says: “Well, go on, tell me what you’ve got.” Here it is, that moment. The client looks at you and waits. Everything you’ve built up with questions will now either turn into a deal or shatter against the phrase “I’ll think about it.” The moment of truth arrives — the presentation.

1. The Most Frequent and the Most Worn-Out

Let’s begin with the two words that determine everything. A presentation has a HOW and a WHAT. How I present — and what I present. And I’ll say it straight away: the HOW matters more. The same information, delivered limply and delivered vividly, produces different deals. So take this directive from this very page: speak vividly with all your might. But the book is built honestly: first we’ll sort out the WHAT — the content, the substance, what a presentation consists of. Because if there’s emptiness inside, the most vivid delivery is just beautiful wrapping around nothing. And then, closer to the book’s finale, we’ll take up the voice, the openings, and the slides — the whole toolkit of the HOW.

Before moving on, do one thing. Formulate a request to yourself: what, in your presentations, doesn’t come out well? This is actually the most important question. I ask it of every group of salespeople I work with, and the answers are always revealing.

One manager says: “I want to hook the people watching my presentation. I think mine is boring. I want to make a show out of it.” A strong statement. I rarely hear anyone say so consciously about themselves: “My presentation is boring.” That’s worth a great deal — with a request formulated like that, the person will definitely grow.

Another puts it differently: “I’d like to work through a slight nervousness. At a meeting the dialogue can go wrong: counter-objections, the wrong tone — and you’re no longer a lecturer, you’re making excuses.” A third asks for prepared lines: “Phrases that hook. You say one-two-three — and the person pushes his own affairs aside and focuses on you.” A fourth is about retention: “Sometimes you’re leading a negotiation and you see it: whoop — the person has switched off. And now you’re telling things to someone who isn’t interested.”

Notice: you can make the same mistake on experience your whole life and not even understand that it’s a mistake. Twenty years of tenure cure nothing by themselves. What cures is a formulated request: when your brain asks for specific information, it will get it — from this book, from practice, from observation. And without a request, the most useful technique will fly right past.

Remember: in a presentation the HOW matters more than the WHAT — but first you must put the WHAT in order. Emptiness cannot be delivered vividly.

Check Yourself

— What comes out well in your presentations, and what comes out frankly weak?

— How does the averaged presentation of your industry sound — those phrases that both you and all your competitors say?

— Why does long experience by itself not guarantee that a person presents well?

Practice

Take a sheet of paper and write your request to this book in one phrase: “I want to learn to…” Then rate from 1 to 10 how well your presentation sells today. Write the number in the margin — you’ll come back to it at the end of the book.

2. What You Call a Presentation

The word “presentation” conjures different pictures for different people. For some — slides and a projector. For others — a conversation at the shelf on a sales floor. Let’s figure out where your presentation lives, because the toolkit depends on the format.

I ask salespeople: to whom, and how, do you give presentations? Where does it physically happen?

One answers: “For me a presentation is a relaxed conversation with the decision-maker. Introducing a new product, an attempt to spark interest. Most often on the sales floor or at the client’s office.”

Another adds: “For me it’s usually standing on the sales floor. Shoppers walking past. In an office — extremely rarely, only with the big chains. Mostly sales floors or markets, right in the pavilions.”

A third describes an entirely different life: “I bring the information to the distributor’s category manager, then train his salespeople: the sales department, the wholesale department, the retail one. I arrive at an outlet — people gather in small groups, and you perform in front of them: samples, comparison with competitors, full communication.”

A fourth works with design institutes and developers: “My presentations are a meeting with the site manager at the construction site, or office meetings with the developer’s management. A tablet, catalogs, samples, references of completed projects, technical models of assemblies. Plus internal briefings at the company.”

Notice: fundamentally different things are mixed together here. Let’s separate them.

The first format is the in-passing presentation, face to face, in the flow of an ordinary sale. You’re standing with the client at the shelf, sitting in his office, driving around the site with him. No grandeur is needed here. More than that — this kind of presentation should be, as it were, invisible. It’s stitched into the conversation so that the client doesn’t notice the transition: click — and he’s already understood everything.

The second format is the presentation as an event. A separately created meeting at which you perform before people: training a dealer’s salespeople, defending a solution before a group at a developer’s office, a seminar. Here it’s the reverse: it must be a show. People have set aside time, gathered, they’re looking at you — and limp mumbling will kill everything.

And the third format is online. Video negotiations with a remote client, where you switch on screen sharing and walk the person through the material. Most salespeople still use this format little, and that’s a mistake: it saves weeks of road time and lets you show calculations visually.

The good news: the content — that very WHAT — is built by one and the same technology in all three formats. What changes is the delivery. So everything we break down in the coming chapters will serve you at the shelf, on the stage, and on Zoom.

Remember: the in-passing presentation must be stitched into the conversation so that it can’t be seen. The presentation-as-event is obliged to be a show. The content is one — the delivery differs.

Check Yourself

— Which of the three formats — in passing, event, online — exist in your work, and which of them brings in the most money?

— How do the delivery requirements differ between the “in passing” format and the “event” format?

— Which format do you barely use, and what are you losing because of it?

Practice

Recall your past working week and write out every situation that could be called a presentation: where it was, who listened, what you showed. Next to each, mark the format: “in passing,” “event,” or “online.” This is the map of your battlefield.

3. Warm-Up: Sell a Person

Before selling a product, let’s train on the most complex and most expensive product in the world — a human being. The exercise is this: choose a colleague and prepare his selling presentation. So that a business owner, hearing you, would say: “Yes, this is the guy I need — I’m hiring him at any price.”

What is worth learning and saying about a person? First, his strong qualities — character: drive, persistence, the ability to see things through to a result. Second, experience and skills. And do separate them: “I’m driven” is a quality, while “I know how to build relationships with the customer’s technical specialists so that they work only with us” is already a skill, a person’s hard side. And third, examples of successes. Ask your colleague: what was your coolest deal? And tell it: “He once closed a deal so big the plant ran for five years on that one contract.”

Watch how salespeople do this when I give them the assignment.

One introduces a colleague like this: “I propose we consider a candidate for the position of regional manager. A maximally driven person; he will always find a common language with the decision-maker. At his previous job he negotiated his product range into a large regional chain — and that chain has been running on his range for more than five years now.”

Another leads with a number: “I have a super-profitable proposition for you. Dmitry is a professional at his craft. But his main achievement: he grew distribution of a new product line from zero to twenty percent of the active client base in just nine months.” Admit it — “from zero to twenty percent in nine months” carries more weight than “he’s a good salesman”.

And a third doesn’t start with the person at all: “Colleagues, the labor market today is in a difficult state. It is very hard to find a person who is willing and able to work well. It is with great pleasure that I present to you Viktor…” See the move? He started with a problem — and pulled people in. The listener hasn’t yet heard a single fact about the candidate, and he’s already nodding: yes, finding people is hard — go on, go on.

Why do I begin a book about product presentation with the presentation of a person? Because the bricks are the same. Specific features instead of general words. Proof in numbers instead of adjectives. Usefulness for the one who’s listening — an employer doesn’t want “a good communicator,” he wants the one who will bring in money. Memorize this feeling: when you hear “driven and diligent” — boring; when you hear “he brought his range into a chain, and it’s been running on it for five years” — interesting. Your client listens to your product in exactly the same way.

Remember: the selling presentation of anything — a person, an insulation board, a service — stands on three bricks: specific features, proven successes, usefulness for the listener.

Check Yourself

— In presenting a person, how does a quality differ from a skill — and which of them sounds more convincing to an employer?

— Why does the opening “it’s hard to find a good person on the market” engage the listener more strongly than a list of the candidate’s merits?

— What numbers from your own career could play the role of “from zero to twenty percent in nine months”?

Practice

Write a selling presentation of yourself in five to seven sentences: qualities, hard skills, one success story with a number. Read it aloud. If it sounds like a résumé — rewrite until it sounds like an advertisement after which someone would want to hire you at any price.

4. The Presentation Is Not an Island

A short but important clarification without which we can’t go on. When we communicate with a client, we pass through the same stages every time. First we establish contact. Then we uncover and shape needs. Then we give the presentation. After it, if the presentation didn’t impress or we didn’t work the needs properly, we have to handle objections. And then — closing the deal.

Look where the presentation stands: exactly in the middle. And that means two things.

First: the presentation’s effectiveness is influenced by more than the presentation itself. How well have I established contact with the audience — be it one person in an office or twenty salespeople on a sales floor? How well do I understand these people’s pains, and have I let them see their own pains — so that they’re motivated to hear my talk as an answer to their pain? If there’s no contact and the pain hasn’t been raised, the most technically polished presentation falls into a void.

Second: after the presentation, the work isn’t over. Am I ready to follow through — to clear objections, to move people toward the deal? Even if you’re speaking to a room of twenty, you’ll still have to walk all the stages with them: establish contact, work the pain, deliver the talk — and then, for people to start doing what you want, you’ll still have to nudge them over the line somehow.

So the presentation is not an island but a link in a chain. In this book we focus on the link itself, but keep in mind: to its left stands the entire first book of the series; to its right will stand the third one, about objections.

Remember: the presentation stands in the middle of the five stages of a sale. Weak contact and unsurfaced pain before it, no follow-through after it — and the best content won’t save you.

Check Yourself

— Between which stages of the sale does the presentation stand, and how do the “before” stages influence its result?

— Why does a presentation to a group of twenty still require contact and work with pains?

— In your practice, what kills the deal more often: a weak presentation, or the absence of follow-through after it?

Practice

Recall your last collapsed deal. Honestly lay it out across the five stages and find where exactly it broke: before the presentation, during, or after. Write down the conclusion in one sentence.

5. Goal One: Narrow the Choice

And now the main question that begins our immersion in the subject. Every stage of the sale has its own particular goal. What is the goal of the presentation stage? Think before you read on. Formulate your own version. There are two goals, and neither is what people usually answer.

When I put this question to salespeople, the guessing starts. “To offer the customer a solution.” Well, that’s what a presentation is — offering a solution; but what’s the goal? “For him to buy.” Of course, to buy — that’s the goal of everything we do; that’s pop-chart stuff. “For him to want it.” That’s an emotional goal, and I’m asking about the intellectual one: what must the client clearly understand after your presentation? “To show the benefit.” Benefit — not bad, but that’s a means, a process. Everyone knows about benefit. “To create interest.” Also a means. “To show that our product is necessary.” The product is always necessary — the question is who they’ll buy it from: you or a competitor.

We’re looking for the pearl. And here it is, goal number one — narrow the choice. Make a note: you have most likely never heard this anywhere. I never read it anywhere myself — I stumbled onto it some twenty years ago while running one of my first trainings for a jewelry chain. I looked at their presentations and understood how foolish what they were doing was. And since then, with dozens of companies, we have returned to this theme.

What does narrowing the choice mean? Imagine: your company has many product lines, many different offers capable of solving roughly the same client problem. What does the ordinary presenter do? He tells about everything. “Look how great we are — we can do it this way and that way. We have the little green one and the little red one, the thin one and the thick one. The thin one in three layers and the thick one in a single layer. We can do it diagonally, on adhesive, on nails, on screws.” What happens to the client at that moment? He says: “All right, guys, I’ll think about it. I’ll be sorting this out for the next six months.”

And when does a person buy quickly? When there’s no more thinking to do. When in front of him stands one thing that he needs. Test it on yourself. You come to a store for a jacket, and there are a hundred jackets. How do you feel? Personally — bad. I think: forget it, I’m leaving. It’s much better when there’s one jacket hanging there, two at most. And I go: works for me. This one or that one. Let it be good, expensive, beautiful — but one. I need one jacket, not a wide selection of jackets.

That is the presentation’s first task. First — at the needs stage — you gather information about the client. And then you say: “Right, I’ve understood. This is what you need.” And the presentation is aimed at focusing on one solution. Two at most, if your sale implies a “pricier — cheaper” fork, but still within the frame of one solution.

Remember: the client who was shown five options leaves to think. The client who was shown one precise solution buys. The presentation’s first goal is to narrow the choice.

Check Yourself

— Why does the wide selection a salesperson takes pride in slow down the client’s decision?

— What must happen at the needs stage for you to have the right to narrow the choice down to one solution?

— In which of your sales is a two-option fork appropriate, and how do you keep it within the frame of a single solution?

Practice

Take your latest presentation or commercial proposal and count how many solution options you offered the client. If more than two — rewrite: one solution, a fork at most. Note what you had to throw out and why throwing it out felt frightening.

6. Goal Two: Value Heavier Than Price

Goal one is fixed — and we move on, because goal two is the more important. When a person decides whether to buy from me or not, a set of scales always appears in his head. Draw them right now on a sheet: ordinary scales with two pans. On these scales, two things are weighed — price and value.

Now a question with no trick in it, a literal one. What is price to a buyer? The first answer is usually: “what he’s prepared to give.” True, but let’s pick a scarier word. Price is what I will lose.

Feel it. Imagine you’re holding fifty thousand rubles. Ten five-thousand notes, right there — a chunk of your salary; you earned it. And you’re standing at a jewelry counter, because you’ve decided to buy your wife a holiday present. Fine, fifty is a bit much — let it be twenty-five. I can’t stand jewelry, by the way, but I know my wife loves it. So I stand there, looking at the counter, there’s something for twenty-five thousand, and I understand with perfect clarity: in a moment I will not have this money. I will flat-out lose it. I worked a long time to get it. And so I stand there hunting for an excuse to leave this store. That is price. It lies on one pan of the scales and presses down.

And what is value, the thing lying on the other pan? Value is what I will receive in exchange. What I will have. I’ll give away twenty-five — and what will appear in my life?

Now watch how the scales work. Three states.

State one: price and value are equal. I’ll give twenty-five and receive, by my own feel, twenty-five’s worth. A twenty-five-thousand brooch — a twenty-five-thousand little stone. What do I tell the salesperson? “I’ll think about it.” What does “think” mean? It means: seems okay, but somehow there’s no gain. I give as much as I get — might as well do nothing at all, that’s even better. Well, at the very worst, since a present is needed, I’ll consider you. But for now I’ll go take a walk.

State two: price is heavier than value. I’ll give twenty-five and receive, by my own feel, fifteen at most. What do I say? “Definitely not, goodbye.”

And state three: value outweighs price. I’ll give twenty-five and receive fifty’s worth. Not in banknotes into my hands, but in benefits — plus some emotional pleasantness on top. And I say: “Now that’s excellent! Of course, yes. Bring it.”

And now back to us, the salespeople. If your product is more expensive than the competitors’ — and with strong brands it almost always is — then what is your presentation’s main task? To make value outweigh price in the client’s head. And when that happens, the price stops mattering.

A trap hides here, and faulty logic falls right into it. It whispers: “Let’s lower the price — the scales will rebalance and we’ll win.” No. You need to believe this, to internalize it: the client is not actually looking for a cheap price. The client is looking for large value. When we buy a car, we’re not looking for the cheapest car — you can find a bucket of bolts for a hundred thousand. We’re looking for the car that, within our budget, will bring maximum value. I, for instance, have a personal rule: I don’t buy a car costing more than a month’s income — that’s my cutoff, my motivation. But even within that budget I want to see: hold on, there’s seat heating here, and adjustments, and the full package — and I’m not paying all that much. And when value outweighs in my head — done, I hand over the money with pleasure.

And here is the main thing. The product is the same. Nothing in it changes. The salesperson’s task is to show that this product’s value is higher than its price. That is exactly why you learn the product’s specifications: not to shine with erudition, but to find and show value with the specifications as your footing. How exactly — that is the content of this whole book. But let’s formulate goal number two right now.

Remember: “I’ll think about it” means the scales are in equilibrium. “Definitely not” — price outweighed. “Bring it” — value outweighed. The presentation’s second and main goal is for value to outweigh price in the client’s head. The client is looking not for a cheap price but for large value.

Check Yourself

— What does the client’s phrase “I’ll think about it” actually mean in terms of the price – value scales?

— Why is lowering the price the wrong answer to the scales’ equilibrium, and what is the right one?

— Recall your last major personal purchase: what tipped the value pan for you personally?

Practice

Write out the last three times a client told you “I’ll think about it.” Next to each, write: what lay on the price pan, and what you placed on the value pan. Assess honestly: was there anything there capable of outweighing?

7. Marketing Cellophane

Before handing you the tool, I’ll show what a presentation without it looks like. I ask one of the salespeople — let’s call him Mikhail, he works with developers — to act out a scene with me. I play his client, the customer commissioning a warehouse complex he’s building for himself. Contact is established, needs are uncovered — begin the presentation.

Mikhail begins: “Proceeding from your design solution, our team of technical specialists and I have worked it through. In accordance with the test results obtained, we have offered you our roofing assembly, which comprises such-and-such materials. Proceeding from our long-term relationship, we have prepared an individualized commercial proposal reflecting the very best prices in the region, prompt logistics, possible services in terms of reserve warehouse storage, delivery to the site according to construction readiness…”

I stop him: “Hold it. Do you think any of this hooks me? Do I understand any of it?”

Mikhail is surprised: “But how — we’ve already made initial contact, I’ve uncovered your needs.”

“Fine,” I say, “but what specifically is supposed to interest me? So far this is a preamble that put me to sleep before the presentation even started. As the client, I’ve already mentally left: time is short, get to the point. What are you offering?”

Mikhail gathers himself and delivers the final salvo: “The highest-quality materials suited to your technical solution. The very best price. Prompt logistics and deal terms. Plus I have a contractor who will execute your order in the best possible way, with our supervised installation and on a fast schedule. He is certified, authorized by us. Accordingly, you will receive an optimal solution with the finest technical parameters on a minimal budget.”

Now I ask him to hear himself through my ears. “Look at what you said: I’ll give you the best price for the best quality with an optimal solution and a super-duper contractor. And I, the client, reply: hold on, Misha. Someone exactly like you just came through here. And said, word for word, the same thing. He even wrote it down for me on a slip of paper: best price, optimal quality.”

I gave this phenomenon a name: marketing cellophane. You chew it around in your mouth — “working with us is very profitable,” “a very good price,” “an optimal solution” — and the client doesn’t understand how to swallow it. Cellophane has no taste and doesn’t digest. And the beauty of the situation is that Mikhail sells anyway! He manages — on energy, relationships, persistence. Imagine what happens if we tune up the content a little: he’ll start tearing those customers up.

I assume most of you have roughly the same text. It’s not your fault — it’s the averaged-out presentation of the market; everyone has it. Marketing departments across the country produce cellophane by the ton. But that is exactly why the first person to switch from cellophane to specifics starts to sound like the only living human among robots.

Remember: “best price, high quality, optimal solution” is marketing cellophane. The client has heard it three times today — from you and two of your competitors. Cellophane doesn’t create value; it masks it.

Check Yourself

— By what signs can you recognize marketing cellophane in your own speech?

— Why doesn’t the phrase “the very best quality at the best price” move the scales in the client’s head?

— Which three cellophane phrases do you say most often? Write them out verbatim.

Practice

Record your typical product presentation on a voice recorder — two minutes, as if to a client. Listen back and underline every phrase that any of your competitors could deliver without changing a word. That is your cellophane. Keep the list — in the coming sections we will replace every phrase.

8. FBMS: The Formula That Flips the Scales

Now the tool. Draw a table with four columns. This is the technology I call FBMS — after the first letters: Feature, Benefit, Monetization, Story. The abbreviation is mine; the individual elements I didn’t invent — they’ve been known for a long time — but the idea of assembling them into a sequential formula, into a punch combination, is mine. The formula has one job: for the value of your offer to take shape in the client’s head — and outweigh the price.

Let’s take each element apart.

The feature is information about you. Who I am, who we are, what we can do, the product’s specifications, the company’s qualities. Features are also advantages: it’s precisely thanks to good features that you differ from competitors in some way. The feature answers the questions: who are we? what are we like? what do we have? what can we do?

The benefit is what the client gets by using your feature. The benefit answers the question: what does this give the client? I have twenty years of experience — that’s a feature. Thanks to it, you’ll get solutions you’d never have thought of on your own — now that’s a benefit.

Monetization is the conversion of the benefit into concrete money. You will earn this much. You will save this much. Here it is, the pearl almost everyone skips — and it’s the first thing I want to teach you: converting abstract benefits into concrete sums.

The story anchors everything said with an example from experience. “Here, for instance, one client…” The human brain is built so that it can dispute a sum — but a story it remembers.

The combination sounds like this: we have such-and-such a feature. It will let you gain such-and-such a benefit. Converted into money, that’s this much. And here’s a case in point. Four steps — and onto the value pan drops a weight that can actually be weighed.

Remember: FBMS — Feature, Benefit, Monetization, Story. The feature says who we are. The benefit — what it gives the client. Monetization — how much that is in money. The story — why it can be believed.

Check Yourself

— What question does each of the four FBMS elements answer?

— How does a benefit fundamentally differ from a feature, and why are they so often confused?

— Which of the four elements is most often missing from presentations — including yours?

Practice

Draw a table with four columns: feature, benefit, monetization, story. Don’t fill it in yet — just hang it where you can see it. In the next two sections we’ll fill it in together, first on a toy example, then on your product.

9. The Trainer: Selling a Phone

Before going into your price list, let’s play with an object lying next to you right now — the phone. We’ll run its presentation through the FBMS logic. A toy example — but it’s exactly where the formula becomes tangible.

I ask the salespeople: name some feature of the phone. “A good camera,” says one. Excellent, that’s a feature. Now on to benefits. Explain to me, the buyer, what the point of this camera is for me. What will I get?

Nikolai tries: “It will let you take high-quality pictures. Indistinguishable from a professional’s.”

Watch closely: this is the trap almost everyone falls into. “The camera lets you take high-quality pictures” is still a feature. Expanded, prettier — but a feature. And what will those high-quality pictures give me, the consumer?

Nikolai makes a second attempt: “You could start working as a photographer. And earn money. A photographer’s average salary is two hundred and fifty thousand rubles.”

Warmer — money has appeared! True, there’s a catch: the benefit has to land in my life. Becoming a photographer is too complicated a line of destiny; that’s not what I came to buy a phone for. One feature can have several benefits — we’re looking for the one that’s about me. “Shooting quality stories for social media, running your own channel” — yes, that’s a benefit; that’s about an ordinary person’s life.

And now — money in the moment. Dmitry finds the move: “Thanks to this camera you won’t have to buy professional equipment, which costs a hundred and fifty thousand rubles. A friend of mine shoots on his phone — and earns very well.”

There’s the combination! We write it down: a camera with such-and-such specs — no separate camera body needed — converted into money, you save a hundred and fifty thousand rubles. And the story about the friend on top.

Now the catch question: is a hundred and fifty thousand for this phone expensive or not? Feel what happened? I’m already breaking even: the phone paid for itself with the camera alone — and I still have the phone, with all its other functions. The scales trembled.

And we keep loading the value pan. What else does the phone have? Say it’s a well-known brand’s flagship — new, presentable. What will that give me? Think not about the hardware — about life. It’s an element of your professional packaging. In negotiations, a status phone works toward a credit of trust — that’s what status things are bought for. And now we count: if you sell, and your deal’s average ticket is a hundred and fifty thousand rubles, then the client trust created by your quality external packaging will bring you at least one extra deal a month. Converted into money — another hundred and fifty thousand a month. Converted into a year — one million eight hundred thousand.

Stop for a second and register what we’ve done. We took an ordinary banality. Of course the phone has a camera — who doesn’t know a phone has a camera? Everybody knows. Of course it’s new and pretty. That’s banality. And we, professional salespeople, turned banality into money. And the client looks at the calculation and says: “Seriously? I never even thought about that. Turns out there’s money behind every feature.”

Right here let’s also fix the principle by which any monetization is built. I call it “concrete money on an assumed volume.” I don’t know exactly how many deals the status phone will bring you — I invent “one extra deal a month.” But leaning on a concrete fact — your real average ticket — I name a concrete sum. The volume is assumed; the money is concrete. It is exactly this construction that moves the scales: to “you will earn more” the client’s brain is indifferent; to “plus one million eight hundred a year” — no longer.

Remember: banal features turn into money by the principle “concrete money on an assumed volume.” Not “you’ll save on equipment,” but “you’ll save a hundred and fifty thousand.” Not “more deals,” but “one extra deal a month — one million eight hundred a year.”

Check Yourself

— Why is the phrase “the camera lets you take high-quality pictures” not yet a benefit, and how do you turn it into one?

— What does the principle “concrete money on an assumed volume” mean — what in it must be concrete, and what may be assumed?

— How did one phone feature produce two different monetizations — through savings and through earnings?

Practice

Take any object from your desk — a pen, a mug, headphones. Run its presentation through the full combination: feature, benefit, monetization, story. Out loud. One feature, one branch. If it came out funny — excellent: the brain trains on toys and earns on the product.

10. A Feature That Sounds

Now we take a real product. For the example I’ll use a manufacturer of construction materials — insulation — with whose salespeople we filled in this table. You will have your own product, but the mistakes and moves are universal, so follow the logic.

The first column is features. Some features belong to the company, some to the specific product. We start with the company. I ask: dictate what you’ve got.

“We’re the production leaders in our category,” says one. Stop. An utterly useless phrase — my kid can say “I’m a leader.” Give me specifics: what does “leaders” mean, who called you that? The salespeople clarify: “We hold first place in production and sales on the market.” First by what criterion? “We produce and sell the most.” How much more? What if you sell two boards more than your main competitor? And here a number is born: “Thirty percent more than any competitor.” There! “We produce and sell thirty percent more than any competitor” — now that’s different. That sounds.

Next: “Everybody knows us.” What is “everybody knows us”? An abstraction. Everybody knows me too, you know — widely famous in narrow circles. We tune it up. “Our range is stocked in ninety percent of stores in every city” — now that’s specific. Or through research: “According to such-and-such marketing agency, our brand recognition is the highest in the category.” And one salesperson put it beautifully: “Any extruded insulation on the market gets called by our name.” The brand became a household word. Nice — though that’s more a blank for a story than a feature, and we’ll come back to it.

Next: “We have many plants.” How many? “Thirteen plants, twenty-seven years on the market.” Guys, if you have a real superpower — thirteen plants — then say it specifically! “Many plants” could be two. And then tune up even the number: what if they imagine thirteen garage workshops? Add scale: thirteen plants, each two thousand square meters or larger.

And the control example: “A wide range.” Tell me, what do you want to communicate to the client with the phrase “a wide range”? It’s nothing information. “More than fifty items”? Same nonsense, just with a number — a number by itself doesn’t save you if it’s unclear what the client needs it for. The right tune-up: “Thirty items that cover such-and-such blocks of tasks.” See? Even features have to be sold — before any benefits at all.

A separate remark about the household word — there’s a flip side worth thinking about. Recall copy machines: in the popular mind, “Xerox” means any copier, though it’s a brand. And if in my head the word isn’t tied to a specific manufacturer, I come to the market and, without a twinge of conscience, buy a “xerox” of another, cheaper make. Same with diapers: “Pampers” is a brand, but people buy anything at all under that word. So “we’re called by a household name” is a strong card, but it has to be played carefully: by showing in which situation this is the client’s benefit, not just a point of pride.

How many features should be in your master sheet? For a working presentation, six or seven are enough: four about the company, three about the product. But ideally, when I do this work for a company on a turnkey basis, I end up with fifty or sixty items: about the company, the materials, the logistics, the service. Not because all of it should be dumped on the client — remember narrowing the choice! — but because from a big sheet you will select, for each client, the three or four features that are needed by him specifically. That is the next chapter.

Remember: a feature must sound specific and selling. “A wide range” is trash. “Thirty items covering such-and-such tasks” is a feature. If you have a superpower — name it with a number.

Check Yourself

— Why is “we produce thirty percent more than any competitor” stronger than “we are the market leaders”?

— Why doesn’t a number by itself save a feature, and what else must be added to “more than fifty items”?

— What is the benefit and what is the risk of your brand having become a household word?

Practice

Write out six or seven features: four about your company, three about your main product. Now walk through each with the question “More specifically?” — and tune it up to a number or a fact a competitor cannot utter. Nothing formulations — “wide,” “quality,” “well-known” — cross out mercilessly.

11. To Whom, and What It Gives: From Feature to Benefit and to the First Money

We fill in the second column. Benefits answer the question: what does this give the client? And this is the most important thing: if there’s no benefit, the feature loses its meaning entirely. Though let me clarify right away: most important does not yet mean most convincing. Most convincing is money. But meaning is the foundation.

There is a language test here that instantly shows where you are. Watch the first word of the phrase. “We can…”, “We have…”, “We produce…” — those are all features: the subject is we. A benefit begins with the words “This will let you…”, “You will get…” — the subject switches to the client.

Let’s train. Feature: we produce thirty percent more than any competitor. What does this give the client? One salesperson answers: “Product availability at the warehouse; we can supply large volume.” Hear it? “We can” — a feature again. We flip it: “This will let you cover any of your customers’ needs in any volume.” Now a benefit. And now we spin it deeper. Realize this: your dealer doesn’t need insulation at all. Doesn’t need it! What does a dealer need? Profit. So we tune it up all the way: “This will let you win and hold large, solvent customers — and grow your income.” Now the dealer hears: “Yes, that’s what I need.”

Another example. Feature: twenty-seven years on the market. What’s the benefit? Someone says: “Quality proven by time.” No, that’s a feature again. Someone else: “No need to spend money on advertising — recognition.” That is a benefit, but of a different feature. “Twenty-seven years” has a value of its own, and it must be delivered: it is a guarantee of your business’s stability, dealer. If we’ve been on the market this long — we’re reliable. Work with the reliable and you’re reliable yourself. But if you work on the cheap with the unreliable, they’ll burn you tomorrow — and you’ll go bankrupt. With us you’ll pay a little more, but you will never go bankrupt. Feel how the boring “27 years on the market” came alive?

And one more, to lock in the mechanics. Feature: the board’s service life is fifty years, confirmed by laboratory testing. The benefit for a reseller: no warranty claims — you’ll be confident the buyer won’t come back to you with a complaint. And environmental certificates aren’t “aren’t we great” — they are a door onto special projects where you’re not allowed without a certificate.

Along the way, note two rules. First: one feature hides many benefits behind it, and different features can lead to one benefit — these are normal, indirect connections. Second: when you sell a product, sell it first to the end user — at least in your own head. Understand how to sell to the user, and you’ll sell to the dealer too: “Look, take this product, and you’ll sell it to the person who wants exactly this.”

The third column remains — monetization — and I’ll show the first touch right now; we’ll pick up speed in chapter two. Take the benefit “cut your delivery costs”: our plant is in your region, the competitor trucks in from another one. We count out loud, in front of the client, on paper. Bringing a truckload from another region — say, thirty thousand. From the local plant — twenty. Savings — ten thousand per truck. How many trucks a month? Ten. So a hundred thousand a month. And a year — one million two hundred thousand. What I just did — that is monetization: writing out calculations. Not “you’ll save on logistics,” but “one million two hundred a year — here’s the worksheet.”

Remember: a feature begins with “we”; a benefit begins with “this will let you.” The dealer doesn’t need your product — he needs profit. Tune every benefit all the way to the client’s money.

Check Yourself

— What language test instantly distinguishes a feature from a benefit?

— Why is “quality proven by time” not a benefit, and what real value is hidden in a company’s long history?

— How did the benefit “cut your delivery costs” give birth to the calculation “one million two hundred a year” — reconstruct the chain step by step?

Practice

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