Playing on loss or gain too transparently, at times, just seems too crude and blunt an instrument for use in professional sales and marketing. What to do?

You really don’t care, do you? 

As long as qualified people respond, and enough go the distance for you to achieve your objective of getting new and incremental business, you probably don’t care, do you? And like you, I want be proud of what I do, and how I do it.

On one hand…

Imagine that a neighbor wakes you in 3:00 A.M. in the February darkness to tell you that Home Depot is giving away a gas barbeque to the first 25 people to open a credit card account at their new location near you. You would probably think the neighbor was crazy.

On the other hand…

Imagine this same neighbor wakes you in 3:00 A.M. in the February darkness to tell you that you left your garage door open, and a couple of teenagers are wheeling your gas grill out of your garage. You might thank the caller, dial 911, or grab a baseball bat and head for the garage.

Same gas grill; different feelings

The physical feeling of loss is dramatically different from the pull of potential gain. This is how your targets feel. Use it carefully.

OK, so you made your point

The psychologists tell us that fear of loss motivates action roughly two-to- three times more effectively than hope for gain. But at what price?

Is there an option for elegance and grace?

I hope so. Here is the structure of some possibilities:

• “I work with (target market) who are ready to be done with (some high probability of pain for the target market), and get on with (goal or aspiration).”
• “I help (target market) people who want (goal) without (target market pain) as a downside.”
• We help (target market) fix (cure, reduce, avoid, remove, stop, etc.) their (high-probability pain for the target market) and get (whatever it is that is desired).
• We help (target market) improve (measurable element) by (percent, dollars, etc.) within (some specific time frame).
• We help (target) who aren’t actually in (some market pain) but who just need (type of help) to achieve (some aspiration).

And here are some examples that use the structure above:

The trick here is to just use both the problem and the outcome or the pain and aspiration together, without jumping up and down hard on the pain. Consider using the structures above as a starting point for your own efforts.

Testing is the real key

Whatever message you decide to use must be tested. Always build two messages (elevator speeches) and run a test. Use one at least 25 – 100 times in a row and record the results. Then try the other on as similar an audience as possible. You may be surprised that the one you like wasn’t the one that performed the best. More on testing, later.