---
title: "Good Performance Is Not About What You Sell, But How You Sell"
description: "A story about a cat and fish illustrates that sales success depends on how you present your product, not just its attributes. The FAB sales method—Feature, Advantage, Benefit—should be applied strategically, considering the customer's personality, experience, and spending power, to effectively communicate the right selling points."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2015-03-23"
language: "en"
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# Good Performance Is Not About What You Sell, But How You Sell

> A story about a cat and fish illustrates that sales success depends on how you present your product, not just its attributes. The FAB sales method—Feature, Advantage, Benefit—should be applied strategically, considering the customer's personality, experience, and spending power, to effectively communicate the right selling points.

Let me start with a story about a cat and a fish:
A cat was hungry and wanted a big meal. At that moment, a salesperson pushed a stack of money over, but the cat showed no reaction.
The cat lay on the ground, very hungry. The salesperson came again and said, "Mr. Cat, I have a stack of money here that can buy a lot of fish." But the cat still showed no reaction.
The cat was extremely hungry and wanted a big meal. The salesperson came to the cat again: "Mr. Cat, look, I have a stack of money here that can buy a lot of fish, so you can have a big meal." As soon as he finished speaking, the cat quickly pounced on the money.
Don't Mistake Attributes for Features
FAB sales method is a classic sales technique that every salesperson should be familiar with. F stands for Feature, A for Advantage, and B for Benefit. In every sales training class, when I ask salespeople to recommend products using the FAB method, I find that many do not do as well as we imagine. Instead, they often indiscriminately introduce all the product's selling points to the customer at once. Among these selling points, some are benefits, some are advantages, and some are features. To illustrate my point more clearly, let's take a towel as an example to break down the use of FAB.
When salespeople learn to recommend products to customers using FAB sales techniques, they will find that the number of selling points they can talk about suddenly increases, and the logic becomes clearer, completely changing the phenomenon of grabbing everything at once and talking nonsense. Traditional FAB sales training has changed the habits of many salespeople, and those who eventually come into contact with FAB sales methods have benefited. After communicating with many salespeople, I found that there is still room for improvement in the use of FAB.
1. Order of Introducing Overall Product Selling Points
Each product may have multiple selling points, from material to production process, from appearance to service life. I participated in a product knowledge training for a well-known domestic electric vehicle brand, and they split one product's selling points into 28. With so many selling points, where should you start? Some people say that whatever the customer's buying point is, we should give them the corresponding selling point; the customer's buying point equals our selling point. I agree with this view. But the problem is, what if customers are unwilling to tell us their true thoughts?
After every world-class sports competition, reporters interview the winning athletes. An interesting phenomenon appears: one type of athlete is very happy facing the camera, holding the trophy high, proudly declaring, "I am the world's number one, I accept flowers and congratulations, I want to prove to the world that I am the best." Another type of athlete cries bitterly, saying excitedly, "My years of hard work have not been in vain. If I hadn't won this trophy this time, how could I face my parents, my coach, and the expectations of the people of my country?" Every athlete's gold medal is hard-earned, but why do the same world champions show such different performances? Everyone is driven by motivation to do things, but some people are naturally optimistic, competitive, and driven by gold medal motivation, which we call positive-minded people. Others are naturally pessimistic, always avoiding risks, hoping not to be hurt; we call these people driven by hound dog motivation, or negative-minded people.
Customers who like to discuss price, product lifespan, safety, environmental protection, and energy saving are particularly concerned about risk control. For such customers, when using FAB techniques, we should talk more about the hound dog motivation selling points. Customers who like to discuss value, brand effect, comfort, ease of operation, and appearance are those who focus on benefits and advantages. For such customers, we should talk more about gold medal motivation selling points. The key is, can we judge from the first moment whether the customer is driven by gold medal motivation or hound dog motivation? When this judgment is difficult, we can classify the product's selling points and then recommend them in an order of first a gold medal selling point, then a hound dog selling point. While explaining the selling points, pay attention to whether the customer focuses more on gold medal or hound dog selling points. Whichever type the customer pays more attention to, we should talk more about that type in the subsequent conversation.
2. Order of Using FAB for Individual Selling Points
When introducing product selling points to customers, which should be said first: F (Feature), A (Advantage), or B (Benefit)? Many salespeople habitually start with A, first talking about their own features, then advantages compared to competitors, and finally the benefits to the customer. This order is acceptable from the perspective of learning product selling points, but it is debatable when applied in the sales process.
First, there are many types of customers. According to the famous four personality types, customers are divided into four categories: Choleric, Sanguine, Melancholic, and Phlegmatic. Choleric customers are decisive and straightforward, liking direct communication; the representative is Sun Wukong. Sanguine customers are extroverted, like to chat, and are informal; the representative is Zhu Bajie. Melancholic customers are rational, hesitant, analytical, and overly critical; the representative is Tang Seng. Phlegmatic customers are silent and unwilling to share many thoughts; the representative is Sha Seng. Facing four different types of customers, you cannot start with F (Feature) for all. For customers like Zhu Bajie, they pursue comfort and experience during the purchase process. For Zhu Bajie-type customers, you just need to make them happy, and a B (Benefit) can win them over. Tang Seng-type customers are relatively knowledgeable; they have a lot of product information and like to compare details. For such customers, you need to talk more about A (Advantage), using a lot of data and cases for rational persuasion. Sun Wukong-type customers are always self-centered; you should talk about what they care about. If you keep introducing the product yourself, it will only provoke their rebelliousness. Sha Seng-type customers usually remain silent, so salespeople should cover all aspects from F-A-B.
Second, let's talk about the customer's purchase experience. Some customers have bought such products before or are familiar with them, such as drivers who are familiar with the standards and process of buying a car. Some customers have never bought similar products, such as first-time car buyers. For customers who have bought similar products, you not only need to explain B (Benefit) clearly, but also F (Feature) and A (Advantage). For those without purchase experience, you should talk more about B (Benefit). For experienced customers, we need to make them buy us rationally by comparing with other brands. For inexperienced customers, we need to make them buy us impulsively after knowing the benefits we can provide.
Finally, let's discuss the customer's spending power. For high-end customers with spending power, they usually don't care how the product is made, nor how much better you are than competitors or where you are better. Many high-end customers are brand-driven consumers, so when dealing with high-end customers, you should talk more about B (Benefit), and also talk about emotional benefits. Low-end customers are relatively more concerned about cost performance; every penny must be worth it. Therefore, for low-end customers, emphasize F (Feature) and A (Advantage) more.
FAB sales method is a sales technique that every salesperson must master, and it is being familiarized and used by more people. In the practice of FAB techniques, there are still many issues to be discovered and corrected, so that we can do better.
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