Raise Your Elevator Speech to the Top Floor With Powerful
Emotions
If your elevator speech sparks a buyer's curiosity, it's only
doing half the job. Your elevator speech should not only spark
curiosity but also awaken powerful emotions. Small business
owners can learn success from the Madison Avenue and branding
experts about how to design advertisements and messages that
drive consumers to feel and act upon their emotions.
While networking with other business leaders, I'm often
surprised at how few utilize these techniques to their
advantage. Below are a few examples of how to spark curiosity,
make customers feel great and grow your business.
Here's a tagline, "We develop lasers that will cut your waste
20%." Sounds good; everyone loves saving. That should work,
right? Not necessarily. Savings alone isn't enough. What if your
competitor is telling prospects, "Our lasers cut your waste by
20% and that's the difference between staying in business or
leading your industry." By adding the emotionally packed
difference, the impact is doubled and takes the job away from
you. Your competitor's "industry leading" emotional pitch
demonstrates to prospects how the savings benefit will make them
feel. Utilizing emotions constructively can be a real key to
increasing sales.
One executive organizer I know claims in her elevator speech
that she gives executives an extra hour each day. That's great,
but think how much more effective her pitch would be if she
added an emotional component to it. Let's say she's talking to
an executive who obviously works out regularly and she says to
him, "With that extra hour, you can work out, stay fit, and not
feel guilty about the time you are taking away from your
family." She just tied together an ego boost for working out and
family pride. Surely that will earn her additional sales.
You've probably heard a lot about selling by benefits instead of
features. Combining inspiring and thought-provoking emotions
with exceptional benefits moves your message from the bottom
floor up to the Trump Tower level. Here's an example of
combining an emotion that goes along with a benefit. If you're
selling a man on a dozen red roses, which is the more powerful
selling statement? "Women love roses. You can't go wrong with
them." Or,"Send a dozen of these to your wife at her office and
all the other women will be envious. Your wife will love you for
boosting her watercooler esteem." The second message ties in two
very strong emotions, pride and love, and makes the buyer eager
to receive the benefits.
In order to find the emotions to power your elevator speech,
analyze your products' benefits and find at least three strong
emotions that you can bond to each one. Practice different ways
to utilize these emotions in your pitch. And keep it positive!
Fear is old school.
If you follow the steps outlined above, I guarantee you'll
profit by setting more meetings and receiving additional sales.
Won't it feel good to be the one relaxing on a tropical beach
enjoying the benefits?
Want to learn more about creating a successful small business?
Find me at http://www.biznbeyond.com and download your free copy
of From Vision to Action -- The Five Step Plan for Small
Business Success.