InvestMed: Top Story

In consultative selling there are a number of skills you can develop that will directly improve your ability to close deals. One of these skills is known among sales people as F.A.B.Z. and is an ideal closing assistant during sales presentations. F.A.B.Z stands for FEATURES, ADVANTAGES, BENEFITS, and the ZINGER.

Pre-F.A.B.Z.: Before you ever get to a point where you can employ F.A.B.Z. as a closing assistant, you have to spend some time preparing to get the sale by asking questions and listening. Find out what the office's "hot-buttons" are (important features) and what they're struggling with. Once you know the important issues that your specific prospect is dealing with, you can then turn to F.A.B.Z. for some assistance during the closing process. I generally approach F.A.B.Z. by casually saying something like, "If I can show you how our system will fix the problems and issues you've discussed with me at an incredible value, would you agree to get my product?"

Features: A "Feature" is one of the specific options or solutions that your product provides. Perhaps this prospect has had a difficult time keeping track of new patients, and their current appointment scheduler doesn't give them an easy way to see if a patient is existing or new. The "custom color coding of appointments" in your medical software package may then be a feature of interest to your clients.

Advantages: An "Advantage" is the universal benefit that your feature provides anyone who uses your product. For example, your "custom color coding appointment feature" provides all offices with an easy and customizable way to view appointments based on a criteria that they, the office, decides.

Benefits: The "Benefit" is the specific solution that your feature will provide to the unique client you are demonstrating. You might approach the benefits phase of the feature demo by saying, "You mentioned earlier that you were having a difficult time keeping track of new patients. Our system let's your office color code patient appointments so that you can easily tell who is new. You may use orange, for example, for new patients. Blue for follow-ups. Red for physicals... This can be customized to your offices needs."

Zinger: The "Zinger" provides you with an opportunity to make sure that you have shown the office the specific solution to their problem. At the end of this specific feature demo you may pull out a zinger like, "That feature alone would fix your problem with keeping track of new patients, wouldn't it?" If they say "No," there maybe other features that are also tied to this problem that you might have to show the office. If they say "Yes," you can then move on to their next "hot-button."

Example of other F.A.B.Z. with various other medical software features might include:

Feature	Advantage	Benefit	Zinger
Customizable Passwords and Security	Unique logins for employees help office to maintain HIPAA compliance	The customer maybe having a difficult time with users having too much access to the system or sharing logins.	"Would our security help fix your system HIPAA compliancy issues?"
HL7 Lab Imports	Huge time saving feature that allows for importing and management of HL7 lab results auto-applied to each patient account.	This lab intensive customer may save up to 4 hours a day by not having to enter lab results by hand.	"With the 80 hours a month your employees would be saving, would that feature alone make our product worth the investment?"
Hand-Held Device Superbill or Fee Slip Quick Charge Entry	Saves time and acts as a charge capture allowing a doctor to capture procedures and diagnosis at the point of care.	The customer tells you that audits show they are frequently missing Superbills (i.e. Fee Slips) and losing money because of it. Using this feature would make sure every charge is captured and make the office more profitable.	"The estimated $500 a month you be capturing alone would make our software worth the investment, wouldn't it?"
On-line Patient Registration Form	Saves time and paper by securely allowing patients to enter their own information in the office's practice management system via the Internet.	The front desk for the client will save hours in data entry time as well as save money each month on office supplies. Additionally, data entry mistakes made by entering illegible patient forms will be minimized.	"Earlier you shared with me your specific concerns about data entry mistakes and office inefficiency - this software would fix those problems wouldn't it?"

Closing Statement: Once you have successfully F.A.B.Z.ed all of the offices "hot-buttons," you should be ready to give the office your closing statement. "Are their any other office issues we didn't cover?" You then might casually ask with a genuine smile, "Okay, so that pretty much covers the solutions to all your office problems, right? Hey -- I take cash, credit card, or check - which would you prefer?"