Top 10 Principles of Great Sales Messaging

Sales Messaging – the stated reasons you give people to buy from your firm – is the foundation on which all your sales and marketing efforts rest. Sadly, most companies lack a definition for their sales messaging, let alone a methodology for developing and deploying it. The results are millions of dollars in lost revenue, higher sales costs and missed bonuses.

Sales messaging is the foundation for all your sales and marketing efforts

Here is your chance to break from the pack and enhance your competitive advantage. Use these top 10 principles to create a definition for great sales messaging that will enable your company to win more orders, increase market share and improve margins.

1. Specific to One Offering. Sales messaging is about selling one offering --a complete product or service. If you sell a number of products and services bundled together, then you can think of this as one offering. If the products or services are sold on a standalone basis, then you must have separate sales messaging for each offering.

2. Target Each Buyer. There are a number of buyer types to consider, including the prospect, customer, channel partner, industry analyst and investor. There are also buyer roles like User, Technical and Financial. It’s important to identify buyers by offering, by title and by role so that the sales messaging resonates with each buyer’s interests and perspective.

3. Answer Buyer’s Primary Buying Questions. Each buyer has different buying questions. For example: Prospects are asking, “Why should I buy your solution rather than a competitive option?” Customers are asking, “Why should I keep buying from you?” Channel Partners are asking, “Why should I distribute your product or service?” Each buyer’s questions are different and thus require tailored answers.

4. Support the Product and Sales Cycle. In the early stages of a product life cycle, the most important buyer question to answer is “Why should I change what I currently do and buy a product or service like this?” The question has nothing to do with your company. It’s about educating the buyer on why they should make a change. The primary goal is to create a buying event.

In the later stages of the product life cycle, when market demand is established, the primary buying question shifts to “Why should I buy your solution rather than a competitive option?” It’s about competitive differentiation and educating the buyer on why they should buy your offering. The primary goal is to create an order for your company.

Great sales messaging supports each phase of the sales cycle

Like the product life cycle, the sales cycle has distinct phases. For example, let’s say you’re selling an early stage product. At the beginning of the sales cycle, the primary buying question to answer is “Why should I meet with you?” Once you have a meeting, the next phase in the sales cycle is answering, “Why should I change what I currently do and buy a product or service like this?” The final phase of the sales cycle is then answering, “Why should I buy your solution rather than a competitive option?” Great sales messaging supports each phase in both the product life cycle and sales cycle.

5. Determine the Key Differentiation Factors. There are 5 important differentiation points including Time, Money, Risk, Strategic, and Personal. The more of these differentiation points you appeal to, the more likely you are to attract and create buyers.

6. Apply the Black and White Factor. Numerous studies conclude that the brain comprehends best when presented with clear contrast between opposites. Statements like “We are one of the leading…” is not as compelling as “We are the leader in…” Use lots of sharply contrasting adjectives like Only, Fastest, Easiest, Best, etc. to create powerful sales messaging.

7. Test Against the Me Too Factor. In order to have truly effective sales messaging, especially for competitive differentiation, no other company should be able to make the same claims that you do. The buyer must perceive that your company is different from all the other competitive options and vendors.

8. Organize into Three Points. People remember things best when they are presented in groups of three. The brain works this way, so optimize your sales messaging for maximum effectiveness by incorporating this important principle.

9. Summarize on One Page. The answer to each buying question must be simplified to a one-page format for a few of reasons. Your sales reps cannot remember and articulate more than this and your buyers surely will not. In order to be effective, sales messaging must be delivered to the buyer in digestible amounts.

10. Provide Proof Points. Most buyers consider your sales messaging to be claims. To add more credibility to your key points, you must provide lots of evidence that your claims are true. The more evidence you have, the more believable your claims. The best way to validate that your claims and evidence are true is to use proof points such as customer testimonials, case studies, etc. The second best proof points include third-party organizations like International Organization for Standardization or Gartner Group, etc. The next best proof points are a demonstration or proof-of-concept.

Great sales messaging gives your company the foundation on which to create more meetings, buying events and orders for each of the products and services that you offer. Since most companies do not know what sales messaging is, and you do, you have a tremendous opportunity right now to gain a competitive advantage. This advantage has been proven to increase sales, reduce costs and improve margins. To learn more about how to develop and deploy great sales messaging go to: www.silverbulletgroup.com/training.shtml.

© Copyright 2005 by the Silver Bullet Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Michael is Founder and CEO of the Silver Bullet Group and creator of the Silver Bullet Sales Messaging System. He was featured on the front cover of Self Employed America Magazine and has made guest appearances on radio programs like Entrepreneur Magazine and the American Marketing Association’s marketing matters LIVE! Michael has spoken to numerous audiences across the country including the Alliance of CEO’s, the Institute of Management Consultants, the Precision Metal Forming Association, TEC International, and the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, the Silicon Valley Association of Start-up Entrepreneurs and many more. For more information, visit silverbulletgroup.com or call 925 930 9436.

Related Information of Interest:

Internet Wealth through Affiliate Programs
Oil tycoon, J. Paul Getty stated, “I’d rather one percent of the efforts of 100 men than 100 percent of the efforts of 1 man.” He also stated, “money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells.” So what does this have to do with affiliate marketing and what is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the revenue sharing between online advertisers/merchants and online publishers/salespeople, whereby compensation is based on performance measures, typically in the form of sales, clicks, registrations or a hybrid model.

Many sites on the internet earn more income from affiliate sales than they do from sales of their own products. Some site owners don’t even sell their own products; they only market the products of their affiliates. Take a look at most any site and you’ll see what I mean.

The Amazon associates program was the first online affiliate program of its kind when it launched in 1996. Today, it is the largest and most successful online affiliate program with over 1,000,000 members world-wide. They pay 10% in referral fees on all qualifying revenue made through their links.

An affiliate relationship with major site owners can raise a virtually unknown to a major player in a short period of time. This is the reason intelligent marketers know that affiliate relationships are a smart business decision. Instead of the marketer paying for the advertising, his affiliates take care of that when they market their own site--a win/win situation.

An example of an affiliate only website would be fatwallet.com Here you will see links to anything from books and magazines, computers, video games to Viagra. They even pay you $5 in cash back when you sign up to learn more about their hot deals.

Some sites provide information only and use their affiliate status to generate income.

Starting a site can be something even a novice to the internet can do. With a little bit of ingenuity and creativity, you could be on your way to a part-time or even full-time income thru just your affiliate relationships.

See what I mean about J .Paul Getty’s quote in my first paragraph: you have many people carrying the burden of advertising with affiliate marketing, thus taking the burden off the product seller. And by having many affiliates marketing for him, many people may see his advertising several times before they purchase.

For more information and a free e-course, visit www.internetwealthmethod.com

7 Winning Tips For Article Marketers
1. Follow up with your readers.

For example, you could offer a subscription to your ezine or
you could offer a free email course in your resource box.

2. Use lots of white space.

Increase your article's white space by going over it for
sentences you can shorten and also paragraphs you could
break up into two or three shorter paragraphs.

3. Use numbered lists.

Use your numbered lists to convey points in your articles or
your steps in your "how to" article.

Numbered lists can also be used to create the content of
your article, like I did with this simple list article.

4. Use the word "you" a lot in your articles.

Make your writing feel more personal by using the word you a
lot within your article.

That way your readers will feel like you are talking
directly to them and you'll be able to better draw them into
your article's content.

5. Write to one person.

Choose a person such as a friend or spouse to write your
article to.

By doing this, you will naturally use the word you a lot
within your article, and your readers will feel like you are
talking to them one to one.

6. Offer an article announcement list.

Keep people up to date on your latest articles by publishing
an email list that announces your new articles.

You could also announce your new articles by RSS to
publishers and webmasters that like your writing.

7. Let your affiliates use your articles to earn
commissions.

Make your articles available to your affiliates to publish
on their sites or in their ezines with their affiliate links
in your resource box.

You'll be able to successfully raise your profits by turning
your articles into an effective promotional tool for your
affiliates.

Ken runs the Net Pro Marketer where you'll find informative articles on business, marketing, and ezine publishing. Browse through the articles or submit your own at: www.netpromarketer.com

Drive traffic to your website by posting free articles

With well over a billion web pages worldwide, there is only one sure way to get a web surfer's attention. It's not banner ads, popup windows or any number of gee-whiz marketing gizmos. It's content--pure, solid, usable information that will make visitors come to you again and again. The Internet is driven by information, and the fact is, people are more concerned with information than they are with how fancy your site is. That's what makes article submission the number 1 way to drive targeted traffic your site.

There are hundreds of "free article submission" sites that will gladly accept your articles written to provide readers with useful information (Here is a list of hundreds of article sites and mail lists: Article Post Robot, Post Your Articles Automatically! ). As long as these articles are not thinly disguised sales letters, but provide solid content, these sites will accept them for publication, copyright free. In turn, they will then make those articles available for reading--and for publication--for anyone else browsing their article archives. Ezine publishers hungering for good, quality information to provide to their subscribers will include some of these articles in their own publications. Soon, your articles are making their way across the Internet. And at the end of each article (and as a stipulation for free publication), is your resource box, a brief description of you--and a link back to your web site! Soon, you are getting targeted traffic from visitors who have read your article, found information about you in the resource box, and clicked on your web site link provided there. It doesn't take long for the famed "viral effect" of marketing to take place, and you've got traffic coming from all over!

David is the leader of a software development team, whose developed www.ArticlePostRobot.com, the software which can post articles to hundreds of article sites and mail lists automatically.

Profiting With Affiliate Programs
One of the main reasons more people are not making money on the Internet is that they don't have a product or service they can market. Most people find it too difficult to develop a product, promote it with a website, and create a marketing plan to get it front of the right people. Most do not have the knowledge or expertise to even get started and are frustrated before they even begin. Does this sound like you? It was for me until I discovered affiliate programs.

Affiliate programs work like a joint venture where you partner with someone who has already developed a product, created a marketing plan and are promoting it with a website. Most affiliate programs will provide you with a product you can market, free website promotion tools, and free training to show you how to promote the program. You drive traffic to the website and they will process and fill the order, handle customer service, collect payments and handle returns. You keep as much as 50% of the profits for your efforts. It's a great way to start earning money right away!

Where can you find a good affiliate program? You will find thousands of opportunities using an internet search under "affiliate programs". Many of the websites you are visiting now may already have an excellent affiliate program established. You can join it and make money in an area that you enjoy or already have expertise in. The best site I have found for affiliate programs is clickbank.com. This site lists hundreds of successful affiliate programs people are using to make money with today.

Now I am going to let you in on a secret that can explode your affiliate marketing profits. Capture the email addresses of those interested in the affiliate program you are trying to promote. Why? You will develop your own opt in mailing list that you can send repeated emails to capture additional sales. You can also market other products and services to this list once it is developed. You will create an asset that can be used over and over again, multiplying your online income!

Promoting affiliate programs is an excellent way to start earning money on-line right away. It is also a great way to break into new markets. If you already have a large email list to market to, you can send out an endorsement email and generate sales within minutes. The possibilities are endless. Check out affiliate programs today!

To your success!
Steve Scoresby

For more FREE information on marketing affiliate programs, developing your own products, and setting up your own website check out www.internetprofitprofessor.com