How to you help stakeholders parse the difference between what’s a feature and what’s a benefit?

In my opinion, benefits need to describe the outcome of using the feature. The outcome should address a real pain point for the target customer of the feature. The benefit should also be relative to the next best alternative available to the target customer.

When we draft positioning statements for our products at Modern Treasury, we make sure they separately articulate pain points, alternatives, and top benefits for each key product feature. For example, for our Payments product, 'Direct bank connectivity' is a feature and 'Focus on shipping your core product faster instead of figuring out how to integrate with different banks and payment methods' is the associated benefit.