One of the most important concepts participants learn about when going through an Advantexe 
Business Acumen skill-building workshop is that differentiation of products/services is how you execute a strategy and attract customers. Differentiation through product development is a controllable investment that companies can make and typically focus on such as enhanced:
- Sustainability (green factor)
- Reliability
- Consistency
- Features
Recently, it has become apparent to me that many organizations and business leaders have lost sight of what features are and what they mean to the success of their businesses. One hypothesis for this decline in embracing the importance of features is a prevailing sales mentality that “You sell benefits, not features.” As a result of that mindset, it feels that “features” – and selling features - have taken on too much of a negative connotation in today’s VUCA business world.
So what are features and why are they so important? In business, a product feature is a distinguishing physical characteristic that provides value to customers. For example, let’s take a look at a simple coffee cup sleeve. If you love a great cup of hot coffee, you know that the optimal temperature of coffee should be around 195 degrees Fahrenheit. While that may be a great temperature for the coffee, it’s not a good temperature for your hand. Thus the coffee cup sleeve was created. Unfortunately, most sleeves are the type you see below; a thin, flat, piece of cardboard that barely does the trick.
Companies like Green Mountain will buy these sleeves, slap their logo on it and think they are offering positive value to their customers. In a world without sleeves, there is of course some value in having a sleeve instead of no sleeve, but…
Not as much value as in this sleeve that is provided to customers of Peet’s coffee. I took a picture of this sleeve and the sophisticated design of the inner ring. In this design, the sleeve provides a multi-layered approach that keeps the heat of the coffee away from the customer’s hand and the air pocket ensures that there won’t be any overheating. In this design, it is almost impossible to get burned.
This great future may add some cost and expense to the cup of coffee, but the question becomes is there a significant value proposition to the customer as a result of this feature. The answer is, absolutely yes! A small cost greatly enhances the customer experience and the customer is more likely to buy this cup of coffee from Peet’s again and again.
I think it’s important to point out that there really is no market more commoditized than coffee cup sleeves, but through imagination, innovation, and design, a unique solution has been created to differentiate and offer a better value proposition.
The challenge to business organizations stuck in what they think are commoditized markets is thinking innovatively about the product or the selling process. If you are selling coffee sleeves to the purchasing department, they are only looking at price. If you are selling to an executive and you sell the feature of the insulated sleeve that will increase sales and profit, then you are selling the features, the benefits, and the business results!
