Every sale begins with a story, and every strong story starts with a clear concept. Your concept is the heart of your message. Once you know it and use it to create strong sales ideas, you move beyond selling features and start offering real value.
To do this effectively, let’s break the process into clear, actionable steps so you can turn a core idea into compelling messages that customers can’t resist.
Framing Your Concept (1–2 Sentences)
Let’s start with this: a concept should always be one or two sentences. The reason? Clarity wins every time.
For example:
‘A subscription service that delivers healthy meals in 30 minutes.’
‘A platform that guarantees 99% uptime by fixing problems before customers see them.’
Keep it short and precise. This helps your team stay on the same page and makes a strong impression on your customers.
Defining Creative Techniques
Once you have your concept, the next step is to generate sales ideas from it. This is where creative techniques help, including both vertical and lateral approaches.
Vertical thinking uses logical, step-by-step methods to turn your concept into practical sales ideas.
- SWOT Analysis: This involves examining strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. For instance, if your concept is about speed, a SWOT might reveal that your strength is quick delivery, your opportunity is premium customers who value time, and your sales message becomes, ‘We save you hours every week.’
- SCAMPER: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse. If your concept is fast service, SCAMPER could generate sales ideas like offering a “speed guarantee” or combining service with automatic renewals.
Lateral thinking means making creative jumps that help you break old patterns and assumptions.
- Reverse Thinking: Instead of asking, ‘How do we sell more?’ try asking, ‘How could we make it impossible for customers to buy?’ The answers will reveal obstacles you can remove, which can then become strong sales hooks.
- Metaphors and Analogies: Compare your concept to something outside your industry. If your concept is reliability, compare it to a “trusted airline pilot” or “a bank vault.” These metaphors become powerful sales messages.”
Evaluation Criteria
After you come up with several sales ideas, it’s important to evaluate them. Not every idea will work, and that’s actually helpful. The best ideas become clear when you use specific criteria:
- Customer Appeal: Does this idea directly solve a pain point your ideal customer cares about
- Differentiation: Does it set you apart from competitors, or does it sound like everyone else
- Feasibility: Can you deliver on this promise consistently?
- Profitability: Will this idea bring in profitable customers, not just more volume?”
Selection, Validation, and Refining Results
Select your top 2–3 sales ideas and validate them. Test with customers through interviews, surveys, pilots, or A/B tests.
Ask: Does this idea resonate? Would you pay for it? Does it solve your biggest problem?
Refine based on what you learn. You might find that customers love the guarantee, but the price point needs to be adjusted. Or they like the speed but care even more about reliability.
Validation turns bold ideas into market-ready sales strategies.
Benefits of This Approach
What’s the benefit of this process? You base your sales ideas on insight, creativity, and evidence, which takes the guesswork out of the process.
- You stop wasting time chasing ideas that don’t land.
- You create sales messages that hit exactly where your customers feel the pain.
- You gain the confidence to sell on value, not just price.
In short, this approach helps you turn your concept into a strong sales tool.
Research is Ongoing
Remember: research doesn’t stop after launch. Continue to listen, measure, and refine. The best companies continually test and adjust their sales messages to stay ahead.
Conclusion
So here’s the big picture:
- Start with a crystal-clear concept that you can sum up in just one or two sentences.
- Use vertical and lateral techniques to generate multiple sales ideas.
- Evaluate them with rigorous criteria.
- Select, validate, and refine until you have messages customers can’t resist.
- Keep researching and adjusting as the market evolves.
To sum up: This process gives you clear concepts, helps generate winning ideas, ensures rigorous evaluation, and provides ongoing refinement so your sales messages truly stand out.
By following these steps, you do more than keep up; you take the lead. Clear and compelling sales messages give you a real advantage.
Cheers, Jim Zitek
I turn complex product problems into creative success
with a competitive advantage.
