WIIFM… What’s In It For Me?

Today, I want to talk about the most famous radio station in sales. It’s called WIIFM, or What’s In It For Me. The famous Zig Ziglar used to talk about this all the time, that it’s the only radio station, the only information that your customer is worried about — what’s in it for them.

So when you think about your role as a CSR, Comfort Advisor, or Service Technician, you always have to make sure you’re communicating to your homeowners what’s in it for them. As an example, oftentimes, when we’re setting sales leads, the homeowners won’t make it easy to have both homeowners present. You might be talking to the wife, and she might say, “My husband isn’t gonna be able to be here.” Or vice versa.

We need them both there, right? We’ll be way more successful on the sales call if we have both homeowners present because if you only have a so-called one-legger, that’s the biggest excuse they’ll have: “I can’t make a decision now; I have to talk to my spouse.”

But if we can make them understand that something’s in it for them if they are both present, we’ll be far more successful.

It can sound something like this:

Comfort Advisor: “It’s really important we get all the homeowners present when we visit. What I mean by that is that we’re going to design a system that’s custom-made for your home and we want to make sure that everybody is involved in the design process. We would hate to design a perfect system for you and then your spouse might hate it. So it’s really best to get all homeowners present during the design process.”

By the way, don’t say decision-making process, that’s kind of a red flag, the design process. If you’re in the field as a service technician or as a comfort advisor, one of the most important phrases is “…and what that means to you is…” It’s very important.

Whether you’re talking about an HVAC system, a repair, or a new system, there’s always a feature and a benefit. The feature is something special about a product’s design; the benefit is what it does for the homeowner.

For example, a variable speed motor is a feature.

Comfort Advisor: Mr. Homeowner, this thing has a variable speed motor.

At this point, they don’t know what’s in it for them. So that’s why you have to use the phrase, “…what that means to you…” That will force you to translate the feature into the benefit for the homeowner.

Comfort Advisor: Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner, this has a variable speed motor. What that means to you is that the air will gently recirculate throughout the house over and over again and keep all the rooms more evenly cooled and heated.

Or the feature is its efficiency.

Comfort Advisor: This is a high-efficiency system, Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner. What that means to you is that utility bills are going to go down.

So any feature that you have, you have to translate it into the benefit for the homeowner. What’s in it for me? That’s the main thing they care about. They don’t care about features. They care about how it benefits them. So use that phrase, “…what that means to you is…”

When you’re setting a service call, setting a sales call, you can use that as well.

Comfort Advisor: We’ll have somebody out between 5 and 7 p.m. That means you don’t have to wait around all day. We’ll get you in a very narrow window so you can get on with your business.

Any feature, anything that you think they’ll enjoy about a particular system, is game.

Comfort Advisor: Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner, this system is extremely quiet. What that means is that when you’re out back having a barbecue next summer, you’re not going to have that condenser screaming in your ear.

Always translate the features into benefits for the homeowner. W-I-I-F-M. What’s in it for me?