What's the difference between 'importance' and advantage? What's the difference when I say 'importance of something' and 'advantage of something'?

An advantage statement is one where the seller has assumed that the buyer has a need or requirement In other words, taking our previous example, if the customer had not specifically expressed a desire to use less disk space, then the previous statement is in fact an advantage and not a benefit.

So the challenge for us as salespeople is to uncover what the customer actually needs, before we start talking about the "benefits" of our products.

While I imagine there would be a number of sales people reading this and thinking "that's obvious - the rep didn't do his homework", I am constantly surprised at how often experienced sales people also fall into this trap.