Any chance at a sale hinges on your ability to transform what you offer into benefits your prospects understand. Confuse your audience and they'll go searching for a message they can comprehend -- and you probably won't see them again.

The best way to eliminate confusion is to communicate using your prospects' language. In most cases, they'll understand you better if you use simple words with clear concepts.

So don't be afraid to write casually, especially when your target market is consumers. Not only can you still sound professional using basic language, but your text won't read like it was generated by a corporate machine.

Also, when presenting facts, take them a step further by explaining how they benefit your prospects. A trick that makes this task easy is to follow your facts with the words "so that."

For example, let's say you sell water-based markers with bullet tips. The features (or facts) are the bullet tips and that the markers are water-based.

Here's what you might brainstorm to identify benefits:

The markers have bullet tips ... so that ... they don't squeak when you write on white boards ... so that ... your audience doesn't get distracted while you're presenting ... so that ... attention remains focused on you at all times ...

The markers are water-based ... so that ... you can write on paper without worrying about ink bleeding through ... so that ... your presentations look clean and vibrant ... so that ... your message is more memorable to your audience ...

Get the idea?

And, finally, here's an exercise to help you determine how prospects describe needs related to your product or service:

First, go to http://www.ask.com. Then enter a term related to your industry in the search box.

Once the results come up, look to the right side of the page under the "Related Searches" section. You'll see a section called "Ask Q&A." Below this phrase will be an active link telling you how many questions have been asked about your term.

When you click this link below "Ask Q&A," you'll get a list of questions people have entered into search engines or added to their websites/blogs. Scroll through several questions and you'll get a good idea of how prospects refer to your product or service.

Please feel free to share this e-mail with the people in your network.

Sincerely,

Tom Trush

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