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?

Michael Clark