Keeping Your Career On Track Have you ever studied sales theory? The principles of selling a product and selling yourself are basically the same. Sales theory looks at features and benefits, and says that your job as the salesperson is to make clear to the client what benefit the feature will bring to them. Imagine you want to buy a tablet to take on holiday with you. You want to upload books, music and film. Which one do you select? The packaging lists these Features;- Earphone/microphone Micro SD card This doesnt mean you know if you can do the things you want. You need the sales person to explain;- It has an Earphone/microphone. The earphone means that you can listen to music/videos without interrupting other people near you. Having a microphone means that you can record your voice onto the tablet. It has a Micro SD card which means that the capacity of the hard drive can be increased by buying more SD cards, so you will have more memory in the device, increasing your capacity to upload books, music and films. When explaining features you think “which means that” after the benefit and then complete the sentence for the benefit of the client. Sales theory also says that a good sales person will paint a picture of what life will be like after they have bought the product by talking about how the benefits will work for them. An advertisement for cleaning fluid doesnt talk about the products’ history or what it is made of, it shows you a brilliantly clean kitchen or bathroom. It’s the same with your CV or resume. You want to show the benefit of working with you, not the feature. If your CV says “Leadership Skills “or “Negotiation skills “they could be considered features, but what is the benefit of that to your employer? Better to say;- “Successfully led and managed a team of 10 salespeople, delivering sales across the team consistently 20 % ahead of budget. “Renegotiated terms with Supply chain producing a 5% increase in profitability.” Employers are not interested in your duties and responsibilities, they are interested in accomplishments and results. So ask yourself “which means that “after your key skills and show the recruiter the benefit that skill will bring to your company, what you have accomplished for previous employers so that they can picture what you could accomplish for them. You want to show a potential employer that you have achieved results in each position you have held, and left each one improved after you have moved on. Then they have the expectation that you will improve their business. Paint a picture of what life will be like for them after they employ you –Let them imagine what problems of theirs you could solve. They will want to call you for interview to at least discuss that. That’s what an application should achieve for you.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 08:42:01 +0000
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