Bring Your Message to Life – in 3D

“I’m a visual person.” How many times have you heard people say that? How many times have you said that yourself? The truth is most of us are “visual people.” Of the five senses, the Old Brain—the decision-making part of the brain – responds most strongly to the visual sense.

When you think visuals, you probably tend to think of imagery and infographics and video. But there is another type of visual that can also have a tremendous impact – a three-dimensional object. That’s right, a prop.

In fact, people use props all the time. If you’ve ever been at lunch and explained something to someone by moving glasses of water around to show how it works, you’ve used props. Here’s a perfect example from the movie The Blind Side.

The great thing about props is that they are memorable. But there is also a potentially bad thing about props – they are memorable. You should only use them to make an important point. If you don’t, you run the risk that they’ll seem silly or cute, and that’s not what you want. But do consider how you can use a prop to tell your story – and bring your sales message to life.

Props break the pattern of what’s expected.

It’s probably safe to say that no one looks forward to sitting in sales meetings. Most of them are predictable and, as a result, your prospects will have trouble focusing on your messaging and presentation. Using a prop creates the signal that this sales meeting will be different. And that makes it easy for your prospects to stay focused on what you are saying.

Props make a metaphor or analogy tangible.

Metaphors and analogies are great tools for helping people understand new or abstract concepts. Props can take your metaphor or analogy one step further to bring them to life. Consider the sales rep selling a payroll and benefits system to a midsize company. Her message was that the system enables you to run your business on truly valuable information, not “yesterday’s news.” Her prop was a copy of the Wall Street Journal. She noted that today’s issue was worth $2. Everyone in the room agreed that last week’s issue was not very valuable. Then she asked how much tomorrow’s issue would be worth if you could have it today? They got the connection. Instantly. The sales rep could have made the same argument in words, but having the physical copy of the newspaper drove the point home in a more memorable way.

Props create a physical reminder.

In another example, one sales rep was selling a sales lead management solution and his target prospect was typically the vice president of marketing who, he knew, spends a lot of time thinking about the sales funnel. This rep would bring a funnel to every sales meeting and use it as a prop to “illustrate” his message about how his solution improves the efficiency of the sales funnel. As he left the meeting, he would leave the physical funnel behind. Whenever he did a follow-up meeting, he’d always see the funnel somewhere in the prospect’s office. What’s the funnel doing for him the whole time he’s not in the room? It’s selling for him – reminding the VP why she needs his solution.

Consider your typical sales call, and see if you can’t up the “wow” of your message with a prop that brings your story to life.

Filed under: Business-to-Business, Deliver Conversations that Win, Props, Sales Tagged: The Blind Side, visual