Remember your last trade show?

Think about your booth or poster presentation for a minute. Is it jam-packed with data? Now ask yourself, how many people out of ten that walk by are pausing by your display? How much time does it take to grasp your message? Does your display tell a story that people will remember? Can you use your display to engage people in conversation?

Click here to learn more, or call us at (314) 772-1185.

How well are you relating to your audience? Are you making it easy for them to see themselves working with you? If you throw data at people you are forcing them to search through information and make judgments about what may be relevant. So, for the data hounds among us, who is really telling your story; you or the viewer?

On the other hand if you show that you understand your audience by reflecting their immediate concerns in your display, they will want to talk to you. And isn’t that why you came to the show?

Click TellingYourStory.com to learn more.

Join us for "Coffee with the Experts" Wednesday, June 13th, 8:00am at the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Washington University. The panel of experts will include:

Rex Reed, Executive Director for Community Relations, the YouthBridge Association, www.youthbridgeassociation.org, addressing the structural needs of children’s charities by blending entrepreneurial thinking with the best business practices of successful social agencies

Dan Davison, Founder & CEO, BentonsEdge LLC, www.bentonsedge.com, sales and marketing for technology companies

Mary Kay Digby, Social Entrepreneurship Collaboration Coordinator, Skandalaris Center

If you would like to make a 10-minute appointment with the panel, to have some coffee and talk about your idea, contact Jane Yorker at yorker@wustl.edu or 314.935.9134. If you haven't already done so, you will be required to post a brief description of your idea to www.ideabounce.com prior to the Coffee.

Originally published June 7, 2007, as an e-mail sent from the BentonsEdge web site. Written by Dan Davison.

Emotion: "Homeless. Will Work for Food" Works!

People are moved to action more by a single example—as in one sunburned, long-bearded guy at the exit ramp, or one poor up-gazing child—than by the statistics that describe an entire population. Just think about Al Gore’s approach when he ran for president against George Bush. Compare that to his approach selling the concept of Global Warming with his movie, Inconvenient Truth. In the movie, Gore sells a bleak vision. Though he uses statistics extensively, each instance is backed up by a story.

Sell against the pain

Gore moves us to action by showing us what we are losing. Remember, ‘loss’ is more real than ‘gain’ because I can see and touch the elements of my loss. When selling against pain, the communications challenge is much easier. We need only demonstrate significant risk to stir emotion. So seek out pain and risk, find sources of fear, and find headaches. There, you will find emotion. Use stories to show how you can eliminate pain, risk, fear and headaches. Your point of view becomes naturally attractive.

Selling to the pain helps you as the communicator. By focusing on the alleviation of pain, you are more likely to understand your listener’s self-interest. You are more likely to be relevant and you can borrow existing emotional power.

When you must sell the benefit

Future benefits are more abstract. Future benefits require people to envision something that they have never seen. And few benefits elicit an emotional response powerful enough to move people to action. For example, it is difficult to get people to forgo current spending (creates PAIN today) to save money for the future (may offer GAIN in the future).

But when you sell future benefits, use inspirational stories and legends. The schoolteacher retired rich by living modestly. Scrawny, poor kids Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich became world-wide cycling legends by always working harder than anyone else. Warren Buffett cites the Russian immigrant who built a $100 M furniture store chain on $500 cash and hard work.

People only feel for other people, not abstractions. So use stories about people. Relate your facts to people.

Grab Their Attention Visually

Get more click-through from your e-mail campaigns with visuals, especially illustrations. BentonsEdge helped promote an event for a software consulting company, Brown Smith Wallace Consulting.

Our custom illustrations, e-mails, and web-based lead-generation programs encouraged CIO’s and IT directors to sign up for BSW’s online software trade fair, the “Virtual Trade Fair.” Visitors can browse vendors online, talk to experts, and learn about new software and the change it brings in their companies. In fact, you can drop by the virtual event for free, TODAY, at http://www.virtualtechfair.com/.

BentonsEdge interviewed CIO’s to uncover their pain points, especially the pain implementing change within their own companies. Download the latest case-study to learn more.


BentonsEdge illustrated the pain of change, and built a visual lead-generation program around it. Download the 'change roadmap'.pdf.

Customers know that all high-end software and services require change to occur. You can tap into that fact to promote your programs. Get the 'change roadmap' and lead-generation case-study. And call me for more information at (314) 772-1185.

Craft Your Value Proposition This Friday!

Come work with me for free this Friday, April 27, 2007, at Washington University. I will be working with managers and innovators like you during the Innovators and Entrepreneurs Workshop from 2:30 to 3:45 at the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. For more information, see the Washington University Skandalaris Center web site. I am looking forward to seeing you there!

Please sign up to get the next issue of the BentonsEdge Reporter and receive your free visual story.

Originally published April 26, 2007, as an e-mail sent from the BentonsEdge web site. Written by Dan Davison.