Keep in mind, that if your customer's problem isn't strong enough, and urgent enough, they won't be motivated to seek out and pay for a solution.

Example: iPod You like to listen to music but your CD Walkman only lets you carry one album at a time and it frequently skips if you're being active. There are new MP3 players on the market but they are super hard to use.

Example iPod: With the iPod you can carry your entire music collection with you and it never skips when you're being active. It's an MP3 player but our software and hardware design makes it super easy for anyone to use.

Until you can empathize with a customer's emotional pain, its very hard for them to believe that you have a viable solution and can make them feel better. And unless there is an emotional discomfort, there is rarely any motivation to buy a solution.

Example iPod: It's frustrating not being able to carry all your favorite music with you when you leave the house. It's annoying when your walkman CD's skip while you're dancing. Trying to work out how complicated MP3 players work makes people feel stupid.

Example iPod: Music is the soundtrack of your life, an iPod allows you to express yourself wherever you are, and whatever you're feeling. The software makes you feel in complete control of your entire music collection. You're free to move and free to dance without your music skipping a beat.

We don't just measure ourselves against our own values. We measure ourselves by the values of our family, peers and community. So our social status is about how capable we feel in front of the people who matter to us. And how confident they feel about us.

Example iPod: Swapping cassettes and CD's with your friends feels a little outdated these days. But the new digital MP3 players are so complex only a rocket scientist would understand them.

Example iPod: The iPod design is slick and sophisticated, this is a device for people who really care about music. You can be cool, whatever music you love to play.

Example iPod:
Feature: 0.2 inch thick 5 Gb Hard Drive.
Benefit: Big enough for your entire music collection.

Feature: Firewire connector.
Benefit: You can download an entire CD to your iPod in 10 seconds.

Feature: Rechargeable lithium-polymer battery.
Benefit: 10 hours of continuous music playing.

What we're saying here is, "If you love product X then you will also love our product.", "If you believe Y, then you will love our product.", "If you own Z, then owning our product is the obvious choice."

Example iPod: If you love music, you'll love iPod.

Example yoga mat: If you're a conscious consumer you'll love our new bamboo fibre yoga mat.

Example jerky: If you're passionate about paleo, you'll dig our preservative free beef jerky.

Make a determined effort to collect and present credible testimonials, they are an essential selling tool. And if appropriate to your product, more detailed case studies of how your product solved your customer's problem.

A case study follows the same format as your own sales pitch, but uses your customer's own words as a more credible and trustable source of the information.

If you don't have any customers yet, use an illustrative scenario.

Example: This is Bob, Bob loves listening to jazz as he commutes on the NY subway every day, but Bob didn't have enough pockets to carry around his cassette collection, so he tried the new iPod and he loves how...

Example: (It also helps to visually show your customer's peers.) The iPod TV and outdoor ad campaigns featured a wide variety of customer types, enjoying different music genres (pop, dance, jazz, classical) demonstrating visually that whatever your musical tastes, other people just like you also enjoyed their music through iPods.

Example: U2, The Beatles, Bob Dylan and other musical heroes were used extensively to promote the iPod launches.

If you can't demonstrate celebrity endorsement yet, show how the values and beliefs behind your product are shared by those celebrities. You can often do this by creating content, like an interview, with someone in an authority position and talking with them about your shared values. Association rubs off, you do not necessarily need explicit endorsement to get started.

Example: Apple's Think Different campaign, one of the most successful of all time, merely alluded to the shared values of a wide variety of historical icons like Ghandi, Picasso, Einstein etc.

How are you qualified to solve this problem? Why are you committed? How is this personal for you? Why is it about more than making money? Be vulnerable and human. Do not try to sound corporate and professional.

Example: Steve Jobs positioned almost every hardware device Apple produced as a solution made "to scratch our own itch". The first Apple computers were "made from spare parts in our garage for us and our friends".

Example: Similarly, the iPod was positioned to take advantage of the iTunes music library software that came before it, "we made it for ourselves because no other device was up to the job."

Example: If you buy now you'll gain something extra...
"Sign-up and for today only you'll receive this bonus"

Example: If you buy right now we'll reduce the price...
"Half Price Holiday Sale"
"Book your holiday in winter for 30% off"

Example: If you buy right now you'll be special...
"Pre-order and be the first to receive."
"Exclusive access for the first 100 ticket holders."

Example: If you don't buy now, the opportunity will disappear...
"One offer, one time"
"New Year's Day Clearance Sale"
"Only 10 Places available"