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How to Craft an Engaging Message That Highlights What You Do to Increase Sales

Guest post by: Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Article Overview: Is your elevator pitch or 30 second commercial like everyone else? Maybe it is time to focus on what you do instead of how you do what you do?

How to Craft an Engaging Message That Highlights What You Do to Increase Sales

To avoid being pocket poor, sales people including small business owners to C suite executives look to increase sales every month. At the close of each month, the question is simple:

Have the sales targets, quotas or goals been achieved?

If there is an ongoing struggle to increase sales, maybe now is the time to start thinking differently. For example, when you are asked "What do you do?" What is your response?

• Do you begin with your canned elevator pitch or 30 second infomercial.
• Does your response begin with the word I or We?
• Are you confusing how you do what you do with what you do?

What would happen if you responded with what you do instead of how you do what you do? And better yet what results could be achieved if you removed the word "I" or "We" because that places the focus on you and maybe that isn't the best place to begin a relationship?

Imagine adding an “ers” or "ors" to describe what you do such as:

• Accelerators?
• Builder?
• Grower?
• Helpers?
• Partners?
• Streamliners?
• Workers?

Sales Training Coaching Tip: Using words that end "ing" is also another way to describe what you do.

You would then finish your marketing message using another 6 words because the human brain can only process about seven to ten bits of information. More than that is lost.

Would such a marketing statement get the attention of your potential customer better than what you are currently saying? Sales Training Coaching Tip: Having an executive marketing summary helps you in this endeavor.

One of my coaches once said "If you are telling, you ain't selling." When we provide long, detail rich answers to that first simple question we are not building a relationship.Just think about attempting to remember someone's name. Sales Training Coaching Tip: Ask yourself this question: Is my response memorable?

Your marketing challenge to increase sales begins at the very first moment to grab someone's attention and start to build a relationship. Excess verbiage only confuses the person standing opposite you.

As you construct your seven to ten word response consider these three communication tips.

Accuracy - Your response needs to be accurate. This means you need to answer the question. Now some may answer the question with a question. Depending upon your communication style, this may work for you.

Brevity – Being brief in 10 words or less helps the other person to remember what you said. Again your goal is for the other person to speak so you learn more about her or him.

Creativity - Saying what others have said such as "we grow health and wealth" (a common financial advisor response) or "I turn potential into performance" (an often heard statement by business coaches, executive coaches or business consultants) only reaffirms that you are just another gray suit in the Sea of Sameness. To stand out, to be the Red Jacket, demands an investment of your time to develop a truly creative and compelling message. Also, this marketing message may require updating as some others may copy what you say, word for word.

By applying these communication tips to your marketing message, you can be the Red Jacket where people remember you and truly want to become better acquainted with you. Sales Training Coaching Tip: The words you speak along with the behaviors you take are critical to your ability to increase sales.

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Article Tags: be the red Jacket, elevator pitch, executive marketing summary, increase sales, marketing message, sales training coaching



Related Forum Posts
Re: Watch What you Read - I agree. i believe more video's should be like Jeffery Gitomers video's under his Sales rant. They are typically not more than 3 minutes. His model seems to be; 1. Main Message (or Point) 2. Example 3. Next steps to put it into Action take away the extra "blabber" and you've got viewers that will come back.
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
Re: Email Marketing Benefits - Email marketing is a kind of direct marketing used by marketers to communicate with potential or existing customers directly by means of email. In email marketing, sales letters are never sent in an unsolicited way, and every person on an email marketing list, gives permission and agrees to receive email messages from time to time. Here is what you should expect from email marketing service: - Automatic subscribe and unsubscribe. - Automatic removal of bad email addresses. - Automatic message delivery. - Message sending speed and flow control. - Message personalization. With such an email marketing software, you will get a great enhancement in business or e-commerce.
Re: Those Annoying Telemarketers - When I was making phone calls I received 2 different messages that really stood out... Message 1: "We can't come to the phone right now. If you're a telemarketer please remove this number from your records. All other calls...." I never bothered to hear the rest because I wasn't allowed leaving messages anyway. I had to actually talk to the person. Message 2: "This phone number is protected by Embarq Privacy Services (something like that). Please leave your name, phone number and reason for call, and the party you're trying to reach will determine if the call is important to them." I summarized, but you get the point. Embarq is a local phone company. I don't know if it's available nationwide or not. That's a new one on me, though. I utilize caller ID on my cell. Unless it's a local number, I don't bother to answer. If it's important enough they'll leave a message. I use my cell for online and offline business since it has these capabilities as well as voicemail. Gotta love technology.


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