The Secret to Selling Your Brand With One Sentence

You believe in the importance of your vision, but how do you get others to stop and listen to you? There will be many instances when you don’t have a lot of time to grab someone’s attention, be it a potential investor or a licensee. That’s why you need to be able to summarize the benefit of your business idea in a single, powerful sentence -- a sentence that is so direct and compelling, it stops whoever reads or hears it dead in their tracks. A good one-line benefit statement should make someone think: "I want to know more about that."

I’ve learned that if I craft just the right sentence, it’s all I need to get people to listen to my pitch, open my emails and answer my calls. I still remember the day the iPod launched and Steve Jobs called it “a thousand songs in your pocket.” Wow. That's captivating. He didn’t have to explain any further. We wanted it already!

People don’t care about how something works.They want to know what it’s going to do for them.

Newspapers, tabloids, and these days, Twitter have been making use of the headline for years. How often do you find yourself on a webpage you never intended to visit, all because a headline was so tempting, you had to click on it? That should give you an idea of what I’m talking about. Creating excellent one-line benefit statements isn’t an easy skill, but it’s an important one, because it can be used to explain your idea in so many different kinds of situations in an attractive, successful way.

Sometimes, you only get one chance to make an impression. Cut through the clutter to make it count! Here are three ways to create an awesome one-line benefit statement:

1. Make it emotional. Why should people care about what you have to say? Grab them with something they can relate to. Benefits sell ideas, not facts. What is your idea going to do for the consumer or the world? Don’t be afraid to use emotion. People are motivated by their emotions more often than they are motivated by reason. Emotion also evokes visual imagery -- if people can begin to see your idea, that’s a good thing. Some emotional words include: "free", "incredible" and "unbelievable."

2. Keep it short. Like -- really short. I’m talking no more than 10 to 12 words, ideally less. Remember, you don’t have much time. If your statement is too long, people may move on before they’ve even finished reading or hearing it. Don’t be intimidated by using fewer words. This is a really good exercise in general. Too often, I ask an inventor or entrepreneur to tell me about his or her idea and I’m overwhelmed with a five-minute speech. "What is he talking about again?" I find myself thinking. I’m not even sure. Brevity forces clarity.

3. Use numbers. Numbers convey specificity. Look around you. Headlines with numbers dominate our world. One has only to look at Buzzfeed to understand the power of numbers.

Here are some examples of one-line benefit statements my students and I have used with great success in the past:

“The most versatile organization system available.”
“The store all, carry all, go anywhere elevated pet feeder.”
“This label will increase space on your packaging by 75 percent.”

Try out potential statements on everyone you know. Which one has the greatest impact? Ask for feedback. Then, start using this line all over the place. When someone asks: “So what is it you’re working on again?,” you will have a great answer!

Stephen Key is an inventor, author, speaker and co-founder of InventRight, LLC., a Glenbrook, Nev.-based company that educates entrepreneurs in how to bring ideas to market.