Question 1. Should elicit a list of product features and benefits. If you get a very short list (say less than five) without the corresponding benefits, your sellers have some work to do.

Question 2. Should describe an end-state, a positive experience delivered by the benefits described as answers to the first question. Ideally it will describe a customer’s problem state that the feature/benefit provides a perfect answer to. This is your customers’s “reason why”, their prime motivator to buy your proposition. If your sellers are not clear about this, then they (and you) have a problem…

Question 3. is all about differentiation. Why you and not your competition? The answer to this should be framed around an evidence based descriptor of superior product performance. “Our xyz widget carries an 18 month warranty period and was award widget of the year award at the Widget of the Year Conference”. The answer to this may be based on a service component, “because 97.86% of our customers’ orders received by 3.30pm, are received by them by 10.00am the following morning”.

If you hear the answer “because we’re cheaper” as an answer to any of these, unless you actually are the absolute cheapest proposition in the market, and can confidently expect to stay there because of some unique business advantage, your sellers have some serious work to do.

The easiest money that sellers ever get to spend (your’s, or your shareholders) is the money that your sellers give away in un-required discounts.