I was addressing the need to communicate benefits, not mere features.

I mean that you should have a clear story that a customer would
readily recognize as a solution to a problem they face or an
opportunity they want to seize.

I mean:

1)concise: even if your target audience needs much detail, start off
with a brief summary to engage your audience and frame your pitch.

2)real-world: illustrations (omitted here to remain concise) help a
prospect envision how they will use your offering and what difference
it will make to them.

3)day-to-day advantages over the other options (do nothing, build it,
buy from your competitors): Two idea -- first, as highlighted in the
Oracle vs. PeopleSoft trial, your prospects' options include doing
nothing (or trying to build in house). Second, a friend is pitching
his hosted applications around the advantage (which he elaborates
upon) over limping along in house with antiquated and under-supported
internally-hosted applications.

This list is hardly comprehensive. Nevertheless, when I did not go
with these guidelines in particular, deals took longer to close
(which postponed revenue) and competitors won more. As an example,
when I was one ERP software company, our early stage sales cycles
were long and prospects needed many demos. Concurrent with building
the product and customer base, we refined our pitches to the point
that we began winning large deals (>$500,000 US) with only one or two
demos.

So, these are a few of the selling faux pas I have seen.

Here is a question for everyone on this list. What faux pas have you
seen, and what solutions worked?