Concept selling is a approach to marketing and sales that involves framing unique selling propositions as a story that customers can easily relate to, rather than focusing on technical details. This approach is designed to help customers better understand and connect with a product, service, or asset, and to make the sales pitch more compelling and persuasive.
Concept selling involves using storytelling and imagery to create an engaging and relatable narrative that presents the product or service in a way that resonates with the customer. This can include highlighting the benefits and features of the product, as well as showing how it solves specific problems or meets specific needs. By creating a compelling concept that connects with the customer’s values and aspirations, concept selling can help increase the likelihood of making a sale.
Concept selling is often used in marketing and advertising, as well as in sales pitches and presentations. It can be effective for a wide range of products and services, and can be adapted to different audiences and markets. By using concept selling to create a compelling narrative, it is possible to engage and persuade customers in a more effective and memorable way. The following are some examples.
Specifications
As opposed to saying “this apartment is 45 square meters” a real estate agent might say it’s “a small efficient space that’s perfect for students and young professionals.”
Capabilities
A software salesperson doesn’t pitch an integration adapter they pitch the ability to access your enterprise data from mobile.
Design
An aircraft salesperson doesn’t go into engineering details about an aircraft’s wings but states they are 2x stronger than a previous model and mentions interesting sounding materials such as quartz-fibre reinforced plastic.
Functions
A chair salesperson doesn’t tell an office manager about all the position settings available in an ergonomic chair. Instead they explain how the chair reduces costly repetitive strain injuries.
Performance
A salesperson doesn’t explain the high availability features of cloud-based software but simply mention that the platform was down for less than 4 minutes last year.
Risk
A fleet automobile salesperson shows a customer a crash test video alongside that of a competitor to show why their model is safer.
Quality
A mattress salesperson describes the quality testing process for a mattress that simulates a person jumping up and down 70,000 times on the product.
Status
A cosmetics salesperson mentions a celebrity who was in the shop and purchased the same item a customer is considering.
Culture
A green tea salesperson tells a colorful historical story about the terroir of their tea. For example, a story about how historical crop burning practices resulted in a large amount of soil carbon on the plantation.
