What did you call that feature?

Many people fall into a trap of using telecom terms (including feature names) when communicating with prospects. You might think you are communicating effectively by calling a feature by its name...because if the prospect has heard of the name of the feature before...you might feel that you can speed up communications with them by using a term they have heard of. For example...if you use the term ACD and the prospect has heard of an ACD before...then the tendency is to think that every time you use that term...the prospect understands what you mean. Actually...this is not a good habit to get into because it has the potential to short circuit your opportunity to show value. For example...the prospect may think that the letters ACD mean "an expensive feature that his company does not need". So every time you use the term you are actually hurting your chances. In one demo...I demonstrated a feature and spoke about it for several minutes. I talked what it did for his business, what problems it solved and how it benefited his business. Then he gave me the ultimate confirmation that I had communicated effectively...he asked me what it was called? I thought to myself...wow...how cool was that? He wants to know what it is called because I never used the name of the feature in my discussion. Another benefit of this approach is that the prospect may not be able to get the same results for his business by buying a product that has a feature with the same name as the one I just described because I never called it by name. For example...if I said the feature is called Speed Dial. And the prospect found Speed Dial in a competing product...he might think that the products are the same in this regard (sometimes this is called a "feature" war or "checking the box"). But what if he needs 100 Speed Dial number capability...what if my product has 200 and the competing product has 70? You get the point...by just using the feature name you do not effectively communicate to the level that you need to and you open yourself up to competition that may have inferior solutions (with the same name). But it is not really about you...it is really about solving problems for the prospect. The prospect is really not being served as well as they could be if you do not dig down into the details of their real needs. So don't let your application discovery work go to waste by taking short cuts in describing your solution. Excellent Selling!