Big words can get you into trouble. Consider the report this week from Aliso Viejo, California where "City officials were so concerned about the potentially dangerous properties of dihydrogen monoxide that they considered banning foam cups after they learned the chemical was used in their production. This was before they learned that dihydrogen monoxide (or H2O) is the scientific term for water."

In the car business, sales and service professionals often use what I like to call "technospeak" when describing things to customers. Gear ratios, foot pounds of torque, or a loss of contenuity are things that most customers don't understand and, frankly, don't care about. You can't prove that a car will accelerate quickly by explaining that it has a 1.9 coefficient of drag. You must get the customer in the car and step on the accelerator! So why do so many of us use technical jargon?

Part of the challenge is that there is a heavy emphasis on product knowledge training in our industry. This is good when it is used properly, but in many cases the information is used to data dump rather than explain benefits to the customer. When this happens only one thing is certain: You've lost a sales opportunity.

Here's our recommendation: Explain benefits or repair solutions to a customer using the Feature - Function - Benefit model in the simplest possible terms. The following is a comparison of how one might explain engine performance to a customer.

	Technospeak	Simple Terms
Feature	This is a 2.0 inline 4 engine.	This vehicle comes standard with a four cylinder engine.
Function	It turns out 250 horsepower at 6500 rpm that develops incredible 260 foot pounds of torque at only 3500 rpm.	It's specifically designed to provide you with maximum power using very little engine effort.
Benefit	It goes 0-60 in only 5.3 seconds! That beats the closest competitor hands down so there's no real competition	This enables you to get on to the freeway quickly and pass other vehicles when you need to

In either case you would follow the above with the statement: "Shall we take it out for a drive to ensure that it meets your expectations?"

At Auto University we also teach "Tie-downs" so we would add, "and that makes sense, doesn't it?"

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