Stop piling features and benefits. Less is more.

There's a beautiful parable in sales about seagulls and a mistake that too many salespeople make. This parable uses the image of a child and a seagull. It goes like this:

Nancy, a primary school pupil has painted a picture with her house and the sun on the left-hand side of the canvas. Her teacher looks at her drawing and suggests adding a seagull to balance the picture. But Nancy gets angry. Things escalated. His father complained to the teacher, then to the headmaster. And as the parable takes place in the United States, the skirmish ended up in court.

After a trial, the judge ruled in favour of Nancy, who didn't want the seagull in her painting.

What does this have to do with selling? This parable actually teaches us that we have to be careful not to alter the mental image that our prospects have of their worlds and what needs to be added to them. Once the problem analysis has been done and the ideal solution identified for the prospect, all too often sales people tend to get enthusiastic and add something extra that the prospect hasn't even mentioned. This leads to friction and risks changing the prospect's mind.

Rather than adding seagulls to your prospects' drawings, ask questions to find out if they are interested in a particular aspect of your service rather than trying to push.