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In October 1977, I started Music Man mobile DJ service, with my friend Scott Foell. The office was in my apartment, in a tiny den. The equipment was kept in a storage unit made out of recycled box cars. Shoestring and part-time, for sure. About two months later, along came ‘Saturday Night Fever,’ and everything changed.

Scott and I were both working full time jobs and were dependent on a live answering service. They would page me when messages were taken, and I would call in to retrieve the messages, when I could.

One day a fellow named Tom Gilmore called me after seeing Music Man perform at a lunchtime event, outside our bank.. Tom worked for an Office Equipment store, and wanted to sell me an answering machine system. I tried to give him the immediate brush off. I mean, I had a live answering service.

• Tom asked, “Do you know how many rings it takes for them to pick up?”
• “They are supposed to pick up on the 5th ring.” I responded
• “Well, I’ve called you four separate times, and your service has never picked up before the 10th ring. Why don’t you test them, yourself, and see how they do. If they don’t live up to your expectations, maybe it would be wise to meet with me, and I’ll show you a different solution.”

Needless to say, the answering service failed, miserably, so I made an appointment with Tom. Tom was ahead of his time. He showed me a $500 answering machine, wired together with a $400, automatic phone dialer, that would dial my pager, after the answering machine had received a message.

He coached me on the specific outgoing message to leave on the machine. “Thanks for calling Music Man, this is Andy. I’m unavailable to take your call, but right now I’m paged by electronic radio paging to be notified of your message. As soon as I’m available, I’ll call you back. So please leave a message beginning with your name and telephone number, and the nature of your needs, and I’ll take to you, soon. Thanks again for calling Music Man.”

His bottom line was this: “Your bookings are worth several hundred dollars each. Your answering service isn’t getting it done. The worst that will happen with an electronic system is that you will get the occasional hang up, and some calls will not be urgent; however, you have a new business and you cannot afford to miss any calls. Don’t you agree?”

One more thing: Tom said he would install the system at my home office, and give me a 30-day money back guarantee. If the system didn’t work for me, he’d buy it back.

In the old days of no cell phones or fax machines, spending almost $1000 on a cobbled-together 2-function answering/paging system, for a part-time business, seemed like a huge amount of money. It was a lot of money - I bought it, the system worked…. brilliantly. The business went full time in six months.

Tom Gilmore figured out my needs, how to solve them, and developed a clear Return-on-Investment framework for me. Not only did the system pay for itself, it did so in less than a month.

Whenever I’m selling to a client or considering a purchase for myself, this story reminds me of the difference between features and benefits.

Certainly, every sales situation is different. When you’re selling intangibles, it’s quite different. But it all starts with an understanding of the prospects’ goals and needs. When one understands those elements, making the sale is always easier. Don’t you agree?

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written by Andy Ebon