Identifying your product and service benefits

Light beer is less filling. Flame broiling tastes better. Skin cream can make you look younger. The manufacturers and retailers of these products are trying to sell you the benefits of their products, not their features. The brewery may describe light beer as having 30% fewer calories than regular beer, but what you will hear and see in the television commercial is that it is less filling.

As you begin writing product and service descriptions for your business plan, consider the benefits being offered to potential consumers. Don't concentrate on product descriptions and features. Explain how your product benefits the customer. A feature simply describes the product, while a benefit focuses on the needs of customers. A benefit can satisfy a prospect's needs in a variety of ways, such as being the most economical, the fastest, or the most entertaining.

In the following table you will notice that the benefits appeal to the prospects' needs with a description of how those needs will be satisfied.

Financial performance

In addition to describing product and service benefits, it is helpful for readers of your business plan to see the past or anticipated financial performance for individual products and services. For instance, look at the following sample product description for Super PC. Its product lines have been broken down into two categories: personal computers and peripherals. Then the sales revenue and average selling price for these product categories have been itemized for two consecutive years. Not only has Super PC been able to grow its product lines year-over-year, but it also has been able to increase the average selling price of its computers and peripherals during the same period.