When it comes to standing out in your market, it can be challenging to know exactly what you should be focusing on for your small business sales strategy – especially when you are first starting in business! As creatives, a lot of times, we happen to become business owners due to our passions, but can struggle when it comes to understanding the business side of things. If you struggle with feeling confident in your ability to sell naturally and move people to your offers consistently, there may be a big mistake that you are unknowingly making that can keep your business stuck.
The biggest mistake so many make when selling is that they are trying to sell based on facts, not emotion.
Top Small Business Sales Strategy to Sell Naturally
When we are trying to sell our offers, we like to focus on the facts of the offer to make it seem “better” instead of focusing on what the offer brings to our client in the form of emotion or helping them with a problem they are facing.
Example – If you are a photographer trying to sell a mini session, you could sell it in two different ways.
Fact-Based – “I am hosting 20-minute mini sessions this weekend downtown for mother’s day! You can get 15 images for just $200! We have ten spots open!”
Emotion-Based – “Moms, do you feel like with every day your babies are growing up right before your eyes? Do you feel like time with them as a “baby” is running out, and you don’t have many photos of just you and them? Are you the one usually behind the camera instead of in the photos with your baby wrapped in your arms? Next weekend is our Mommy and Me mini sessions and I want you to be able to get those precious images of you and your baby so you can hang those memories on your walls and smile each time you pass by them.”
See how much stronger the emotion-based pitch was? When you can sell based on the idea of emotions or outcome of the offer, then your services appear much more valuable and more natural to sell, making your small business sales strategy much easier to execute.
Here are three reasons why emotions sell better than facts.
1. People connect with emotion
Your clients can have a hard time connecting with facts when they don’t know how those facts relate to them.
Using the example above, if a photographer tries to sell their mini session offer based on the fact that they give 20 images vs. another photographer who provides 10 images, those facts don’t mean anything until you put a meaning behind the images they receive.
It would be best if you focused more on what those images will bring to your client. The joy they will have hanging them on their walls and what those images will mean 10 years from now. That is a much stronger small business sales strategy and selling point than the number of images ever will be!
The same goes for any product or service, the facts of the offer are good to know but you should always rely on the emotion to hook your clients and sell the offer!
2. Emotions bring more value
When you are at a point in business when you need to raise prices or ready to switch into a more luxury market, emotion-based selling can help make this transition smoother! The more emotion-based your offer and pitch can be, the more valuable it will become in your client’s eyes.
Again using the example above for a selling point –
10 Images of a mini session aren’t something that feels overly valuable
10 Images of Mom and her first baby that she will look at 18 years from now as he goes off to college – that holds value and emotion, which helps you sell at a premium price!
As much as we all wish that clients understood the value of our time, investments, and even gear or business tools that we need to run a successful business, they usually can’t connect with it or put a price tag on it, unless they have been in a similar situation. Emotion-based selling allows you to be able to connect with your clients and those higher prices in a way that makes sense to them. That is a much easier small business sales strategy than trying to get them to understand something (like your time) that they can’t easily put a price tag on.
3. Emotions make your offer stand out
The reality is markets are saturated. Every market feels like it can be hard to make a name for yourself, and it can be even harder when your offers, services, or packages look similar to others in your area. One of the best ways to stand out is to again base your pitch on emotion. This helps you stand out because even if you and 5 others have a similar offer in your area, if you are pitching to your ideal clients with a clear pitch full of emotion that speaks directly to that client and their needs, then every offer will sound different and attract the right clients for your services.
Facts don’t help clients see if something is or isn’t the right fit for them, speaking to the outcome of an offer or the emotional aspect will help them see what is right for them!
As you can see, speaking to emotion is what will ultimately help you stand out no matter how much you may feel your business blends in right now. The truth is, we can only offer so many variations of services or products. Still, we can all speak to different pain points, different clients, and emotions our clients can face. That is what will ultimately allow us to stand out and increase profit in our businesses by being able to naturally sell our offers!
Ready to sell well & book more clients? Get our Small Business Sales Strategies Ultimate Guide.
Plus, 5 more posts you might like:
- How Having a Clear Customer Journey Can Improve Your Small Business Sales Process
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- How to Increase Your Sales with Printed Products as a Photographer
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