Daktronics Inc. of Brookings, S.D., is in the business of electronic signage. Most of its products are relatively small, intended for use in retail stores, churches, parking lots, and other such venues. But because the company is well known as a supplier of giant digital scoreboards for sports stadiums, its competitors tell customers that Daktronics’ products are expensive and overpriced. Regardless of the sales skills they possessed or the sales training courses they attended, the company’s salespeople often got beat up on price before they walked in the door. That is, they used to. Things have turned around since the company adopted sales training programs based on the Action Selling ® system. Here is an email we received recently from Vic Wenner, Daktronics’ sales manager for national accounts: “I had a GREAT sales presentation yesterday. This was the first time I ever did a major product presentation based solely on presenting three TFBRs.  I was amazed at how compelling it was for the customers.  They were so totally sold that I was wishing we had come in with a higher price. They would have paid it.”

A TFB…What?

TFBR stands for Tie-back, Feature, Benefit, Reaction. Action Selling ®’s sales training programs and sales coaching sessions teach the TFBR method as a way to edit standard, generic product spiels into narrowly targeted presentations that are short, sweet, and focused only on specific needs that are vital to the customer. In selling, it’s all about quality, not quantity. Most sales training courses will tell you that it’s important to question customers to uncover needs that are relevant to your products. But no customer has a dozen or a hundred unique, high-value needs that your products can serve. A first-rate sales training course can help you build great questioning skills that might let you uncover three. Once you’ve done that, however, why would you then throw away the fruits of your excellent work by subjecting the customer to a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation that might interest a generic person? That’s where the TFBR method comes in. It is the foundation for mastery-level sales skills in the art of product presentations. T – Tie-back to a high-value need that the customer already has agreed on. F – Present the product Feature that solves the need. B – Explain the Benefit to the customer when the need is solved. R – Ask a Reaction question that lets the customer tell you how the solution will help them. Sales training programs based on the Action Selling ® system teach that this simple formula is all you need to create a genuinely great product presentation. Three TFBRs, tied to three high-value needs, and you’re done. Throw out the rest of your canned pitch; it’s extraneous. That brings us to the rest of Vic Wenner’s email about the first time he used the TFBR method in a major presentation to a client: “A few of my coworkers were present, who had not yet received the Action Selling ® sales training program,” he continues. “They were shocked at how much I omitted from our standard sales pitch. But they couldn’t argue with the results.” For information about how to improve sales skills and make sales training pay huge dividends, contact Action Selling ® at (800) 232-3485.