I was asked the other day, "How can I sell more of these training DVDs? Do you know any places on the Internet where many people get together who would be good customers and buy them?" I thought about it and said, "Have you done a benefits analysis?"

The person looked confused and said, "No, you misunderstand, I just want to sell more of them, see?"

This made me laugh and I said, "Seriously, have you done your benefits analysis, can I see it?"

The person in question shook their head and said, "No, seriously, I don't want to talk about benefit analysis, whatever that is, I just want to sell more DVDs, can't you understand that?"

This time, I tried not to laugh and said quite seriously, "Ok. Let me talk for about five minutes here and explain myself. Don't interrupt and keep any further questions for when I'm finished, can we do that?"

They shrugged their shoulders, looked at their watch, sighed, and said reluctantly, "I guess so ..."

So I began.

"What you do is you take your training DVD and you look at it, frame by frame, with a clipboard containing many sheets of blank paper. You try to find BENEFITS - good things that happen to people who buy this DVD. This includes all sorts of benefits - short term such as "This DVD is great fun to watch, very entertaining, you have a good time while you watch it," and mid term benefits such as, "As soon as you have finished watching the DVD, you WILL be able to start flying right away ..." and the long term benefits, "After you have flown for a while, you will find your way to love, joy and a long and healthy life because you bought this DVD".

"Then, there are the problems you solve or avoid altogether - these are also all benefits. Like, "Avoid the terrors of ..." or "Save yourself from disaster by ..."

"So you sit there and go through your DVD frame by frame and you write down every little thing that's good about it on your sheets of paper. When you get to the end, you'll have many sheets of paper with many benefits.

"Now, you go through each page and pick out the best ones, the ones that really jump off the page at you as being very valuable. You write those on new sheets of paper. Now, you take those and again pick out the very best ones, and you go on until you have seven benefits, the best benefits of your product."

The person looked as though they were going to sleep by now, looking up, drumming their fingers on the table. I continued regardless.

"Now, and believe it or not, you have on that sheet of paper in front of you THE VERY WORDS AND PHRASES THAT WILL SELL YOUR PRODUCT.

"NOW, and ONLY NOW, do you actually know what to SAY to your customers, and now you don't only know what you need to put on the cover of your DVD case so that someone who picks it up will actually buy it, but also, what you have to say:

• on your website
• in your letters to your mailing list
• in magazine advertising
• on the telephone to a potential customer
• to entice new retailers to stock the product
• in a classified ad
• in a press release
• in the product brochure

"Now, do you see?"

The person had woken up during this part and was starting nod. The light was going on - at last.

"Wow," they said. "That's amazing. That's exactly what's been missing! Now I understand! We had the product but - my God, I guess we never really told the customers why they should buy it, what's in it for them! We tried a few times with a few ads - but I understand why they didn't work, why we didn't get any response! This isn't about trying to find new markets at all yet, is it?!"

"No, it isn't," I said happily because I could see they were finally getting with the programme. "Not yet, anyway. You haven't even BEGUN to sell your product. Telling people you have "a training DVD" is NOT selling it. That's not marketing. The truth is that you can't even start marketing until and unless ..."

"... you've done the benefits analysis!" the person exclaimed and clapped their hands with excitement.

"That's exactly right. So now do you know what to do?"

"Yes! I can't wait to get the paper and the pen, see what I can find!"

"Ah, very good," I said and smiled. "And once you've done that, we even know what to say to retailers in your market, and what to say to people on the Internet as well, so we increase the customer database. And in the meantime ..."

"... I think I start with our existing customers first of all, and send THEM a mailing!"

"What a wonderful idea, indeed. Now you're thinking, my friend ..."

And I went home thinking that had been a job well done, and the good news of the Benefits Analysis, the true 101 of ALL marketing and of marketing ALL and ANY product, service, person or event had hopefully saved another soul from a life of failure in the market place.