Enough with the superlatives

Starting in the early 1980s, I came up through the technology ranks as a sales engineer. The sales representatives that I worked with and…

Starting in the early 1980s, I came up through the technology ranks as a sales engineer. The sales representatives that I worked with and the senior sales engineers that trained me always reminded me to focus on “FBA” when talking about our products. “FBA” was sales engineer shorthand for “features, benefits, and acceptance of benefits.” You started with understanding your prospect’s requirements and problems, and you demonstrated your product’s “features” that solved those problems. When you demonstrated a feature that solved a problem, you mentioned the “benefit” that your prospect would get from using that feature. Whenever possible and practical, you attempted to get the prospective customer to “accept” that your product’s “feature” solved it. Feature, benefit, and acceptance of the benefit.

The process is slightly different in seminar situations (or webinars, Zoom meetings, etc.), where there were lots of different prospects, all gathered together in one session. Since each prospect might have different requirements and problems, it was impractical to tailor the feature descriptions to each customer’s needs. In this case, we highlighted key features, particularly those that were missing in our competitors’ offerings. We tied these features to generic benefits for the customer class as a whole.

One thing that we NEVER did was fill up our descriptions with superlatives.

I sat through a day-long Microsoft virtual event last week for their PowerApps platform. I found it difficult to follow many of the sessions because the speakers used tons of superlatives when discussing product features. In particular, they seemed to favor the word “cool.”

… here’s something really cool…
… I like this cool feature…
…this is the coolest thing that I ever saw…

This isn’t the first time that I’ve noticed this “superlatives” phenomenon — and I hate it.

“Cool” is not a feature (unless you are talking about refrigerators or air conditioners). Demonstrate a product feature for me, and explain the benefits to me as you see them. I’ll make the decisions on any superlatives thank you very much. I feel the same way when a waiter elects to tell me about which dishes they like best at a restaurant. I don’t give a flying fork (<- see what I did there) about what YOU like. You aren’t me. And I don’t care what you, sales engineer or product manager think is “cool.” Lathering your presentation in superlatives will cause the audience to stop listening to your product pitch.

Show me the feature, explain the benefits, and I’ll take care of the rest.