Here’s a challenge for you.  Describe your advertising and its most important benefits in 60 seconds or less?  In sales this is called the elevator pitch. We call it a KISS – Keeping It Short and Simple. Theoretically the elevator pitch, or KISS method, is only beneficial when you have a really short time to persuade a prospect on how fantastic advertising with you will be for them.  However, there are quite a few other good sales lessons you can learn.

First, it teaches you to narrowly focus on the most important benefits of your publication or website.  Faced with just one choice to pick the very best thing you have to offer, which do you pick? Now how does that make life better for the prospect?  Second, it allows you to find the simplest, easiest method to communicate those benefits.  The KISS approach forces you to find language that makes your product easy for anyone to understand.  Jargon takes time and is not always the most effective way to convey a message.  Third, being concise teaches salespeople time management.  Time is very important in sales.  Too much time and you risk miring them in information they don’t need or worse, boring them.  Valuing a busy prospect’s time shows respect.  It also shows you are about business and don’t waste time.  When prospects consider who to give their business to, these qualities are usually considered.  Additionally, a concise and comprehensive pitch leaves ample time during the meeting for the prospect to ask their questions.  This allows you to focus on tailoring the rest of your presentation to what’s most important to them.  Finally, if you can pitch your product in one minute, you can pitch it in 5 minutes or 10 minutes under any other circumstance.  Your one minute pitch should be a framework for a longer pitch.  Use the most important product benefits and from there elaborate into secondary benefits if time permits.

For more ad sales tips follow us on Facebook and Twitter!