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Should You Sell the Sizzle or the Steak?

We've all heard the expression "Sell the sizzle, not the steak", but which one does your business try to sell? Which one should you sell?

For starters, this is a horrible analogy. In fact, it's not really an analogy. Analogies require equivalence or parallelism. Were we to draw parallels between the expression and selling, then sizzle would correlate more directly to hype. After all, have you ever really bought a steak because of its sizzle? More likely, you bought it because of its mouthwatering aroma, its tender texture, or its succulent taste.

Of course, I'm being overly pedantic here, and I do know that the analogy is not intended to be taken literally. By "sizzle" most marketers are referring to the benefits and results your product or service provides. The problem is sizzle itself is not a benefit. Sizzle is not a full stomach or a delicious meal. Sizzle is irrelevant and meaningless. One steak doesn't sizzle any differently than another, or any differently from bacon for that matter.

Am I being too literal? Maybe, but the trouble is that many people do take the analogy literally, and as a result they think that there is some magic to the sales process. They think that if you don't have catchy, urbane one-liners or slick sales patter then, as a salesperson, you're fried. They think that selling involves trickery or deceit. In short, they get so caught up trying to sell something so intangible and irrelevant as sizzle that they lose sight of how easy selling can be.

Translating the weak analogy into plain English, the expression states that you should sell the benefits of the product, not the product itself. And I'll certainly concede that that's pretty good advice.

The trouble is it's an oversimplification of the issue. Benefits are great. Benefits will attract attention. Benefits answer the all-important question of "What's in it for me?" But benefits raise questions too.

For example, your service might include a 100%, money-back guarantee. You'll attract a lot of attention with a benefit like this, but prospects will immediately have questions. How does the guarantee work? What conditions are attached? What would void the guarantee? If I request a refund, will I lose all the work that we've done together? Your sales and marketing materials better follow up pretty quickly with some explanations or many prospects will dismiss your benefits as outlandish claims and hype.

Regardless of what you're selling, in order to sell effectively, you have to sell both the sizzle and the steak in combination. The sizzle (or benefits) will help you get attention; the steak (or the product as it relates to the benefits) will help you keep it.

Now, at no point am I saying bore your prospects to tears with endless feature lists and technical specifications, but please don't focus myopically on only one element of the sales equation.

Prospects need education before they will buy. They need to know that they are making a good choice in buying from you and not your competition. They need to be able to justify their purchase to themselves. By talking about benefits you will help them do this, but to really seal the deal, you'll need to explain the reasons why all these benefits are possible. You'll need to demonstrate the connection between your product or service and those benefits. Doing so adds to the credibility of your offer and makes it significantly more appealing to your prospects.

Putting it into practice

For example, suppose you own a company that produces a revolutionary new kind of insulation that significantly reduces the amount of temperature transfer. You could use a headline like this in your marketing materials:

Do you need new insulation?

Such a headline, however, will probably fail to produce a significant response for a number of reasons. One of the main ones is that it fails to mention a benefit. Your prospects would have no way of knowing what's in it for them based on this headline alone. Some persuasive copy following this headline might lift the response a little, but many prospects won't even get that far. Whether it's a website or a brochure, people won't take long to make up their mind whether or not they'll continue reading.

On the other hand, a headline such as this might work better:

Save 40% on your heating costs

This time we're stating a benefit loud and clear. Who wouldn't be interested in this? Doesn't everyone want to cut their energy bills by as much as possible? But this is not enough on its own. Our headline may have captured a large number of people's attention, but we can lose their attention just as quickly if we don't answer their next question: How?

If revolutionizing insulation technology were your business, you'd know a lot about how your product could save people money on their heating bill. It might have something to do with the polymers used and the way you weave the material together in several layers. Chances are the full explanation would be pretty complex. The trick is to explain the how as fully as possible without getting overly technical. To do this, always keep in mind the benefit you are trying to explain and make everything you write relate directly to it.

For example, you might follow on from the headline with:

"When you insulate your home with Thermalize insulation, you'll save at least 40% on your energy bills. Thermalize is made from a revolutionary new material that is woven together in a patented process allowing it to trap the heat in your house and lock the cold out."

Here we describe some of the details of the product, but in a way that explains how we can make the benefit happen. In this example, we're using both the sizzle and the steak to make the offer more credible and ultimately more compelling.

Sizzle or steak?

So, should you sell the sizzle or the steak? Well, if you want your business to sell effectively, you should sell both. Attract attention by clearly stating the benefits of your offer, and then maintain and build interest by demonstrating the connection between your product and the benefits you're touting. Definitely sell the sizzle, but don't let marketing clichés make you afraid of telling people what it is that's sizzling away on the grill.