You’ve been there. At a networking function someone asks you what your company does, and you freeze like a deer in the headlights. You haven’t thought it through so what might roll off your tongue is a lengthy speech that says absolutely nothing. Worse yet, you might default to spitting out a feature/benefit dump that also does nothing, except perhaps turn off your potential client! Later, you cringe at the memory and beat yourself up for not doing better.

Learn to tell your story.

Here’s the real deal when it comes to marketing and selling your products and services. Your potential customers do not care about the process of how you get things done. Nor do they really care about the technical details. What they care about is the actual RESULT they receive when they buy from you.

Let’s say you sell SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services. The worst thing you can do is spend a lot of time droning on and on about the technical bits and bytes related to your service. What you want to do is hook them with something compelling that causes them to want to know more. You must tell them what’s in it for them if they buy from you. For example you might say, “We guarantee that our services will bring thousands of buying customers to your internet door each month.” Now if I’m talking to you and you tell me you can bring buying customers right to my doorstep and you guarantee it – you have definitely got my attention. So that’s the key. You want to get your prospect engaged and thinking…hum, I can certainly use more clients. Now they are wondering how you do that and more importantly they are wondering if you can prove it.

To be successful with your sales and marketing efforts, you need to determine the one compelling reason your target client would want to buy from you. That’s what you focus on whether you are talking to them in person or providing information to them in writing.

Here are a few more examples to help you:

• I help your company sell more, more often. More revenue, more of the time. That’s my promise!
• Coaching clients who work with me earn 3 times more than their colleagues. I can help you be a top earner in your industry with 6 months.
• Our graduates are 2 times more likely than their peers to earn 20% more income in their first year as a business professional.
• Readers tell us that when they advertise with us people call about their services.

Remember, find the hook. Take the time to think about what you are selling from your prospect’s point of view. What do they care about? What problem can you help them solve? What challenges do they face? Once you can answer these questions, you focus your message on “what’s in it for them” – the results you deliver.

So, stop talking about you and focus on what your prospect wants and needs to more effectively capture their attention. That’s the first critical step to getting them to buy from you and not someone else.