Which Emotion Does Your Company Sell?

A plumber sells family peace and quiet and a lack of embarrassment.

A hairdresser sells that winning feeling of gliding into a room knowing that your.  hair.  is.  shining.

A t-shirt printer sells the emotion of free speech.

What Emotion Does An Eco Company Sell?

A maker of green products would say he’s selling you a smaller ecological footprint.  I say he’s selling you the emotion that you’re helping, that you’re part of something larger than yourself, something you can be proud of.  He might then say he’s selling you the emotion that you’ve discovered a new partner to join you in the fight to protect the planet.

Writing these is fun; which ones can you add?  Let’s see…

What Emotion Does Apple Sell?

Apple sells minds gone wild with the power of searching and seeing and choice.

Nike sells hope.

Go Deep

Financial planners say they sell “peace of mind”.  That’s a good start.  I’d like to suggest that what they sell is the look on your face when they tell you you have enough stashed away to quit your job and start your own company.

As of Aug 2014 I’m not selling anything on this site, but through my words I sell successful days at work for business developers and risk takers.  I strive to fulfill a brand promise where my readers, at the end of the day at work, take a breath, offer up a slight smile, and have this emotion:  “I took that risk and I did well.  This was a successful day.”

What Emotion Does Your Company Sell?

What emotion does your company sell?  You might answer “peace of mind” or “confidence (in their refrigerator)”.  That’s a good start.  But “peace of mind” and “confidence” are everyone’s answer.  So take a moment and dig deeper.

What emotion does your company sell?  The answer is wrapped up in an emotional way with your company’s brand and your brand promise.

Or an easy way to pin down the emotion your company sells is that it’s the same as your brand.  Have you ever thought of it that way?  Some people may not respond well to the statement that your brand is “that winning feeling of gliding into a room”, but phrases exactly like that are what we can build a brand experience on.

Can You Sell Her More Time?

If you’re at an engineering firm, you sell your client not just engineering solutions at a fair price.  I hope you sell her the feeling of a worry-free, easy day at work with more time to work on her other projects.  How do you do that?  Because your solutions always work and are always on time and on budget.  Because you submit your reports as a few slides, already in the style she likes to use for her presentations.   (All details, calculations, etc are in separate brief attachments on stick drives she can pass out.)

Sell Her An Easy Day

You make her day easy and give her the emotion of free time when your solutions are easily implementable, when you send along a highly usable, extremely brief training program without being asked and whenever it’s needed, complete with webinar slides with a few bullets each waiting for her in the cloud  (it didn’t cut into your profits much because it’s THAT short, which is how the client wants it anyway).

You give her the feeling of an easy day when her coworkers compliment you to her saying that your team gives prompt, concise, easily understood answers and that you’re a pleasure to work with.  She feels good because she chose you.

By the way, this exercise applies just as much to non-profits as it does to any other firm, just as much to bloggers as to architects.

What emotion does your company sell?  An easy day?  A feel-good day?

Please comment.  Please add to our list of what emotions people sell to you.  What emotion does your company sell?