Don't Sell The Steak, Sell The Sizzle

What we mean by the “sizzle” is the BIGGEST selling
point in your proposition - the MAIN reasons why your
prospects will want to buy. The sizzling of the steak
starts the sale more than the cow ever did, though the cow is, of
course, very necessary!

Hidden in everything you sell, whether a tangible or an intangible,
are “sizzles.” Find them and use them to start the sale. Then, after
desire is established in the prospect’s thinking, you can bring in the
necessary technical points.

The good waiter realizes he must sell the bubbles - not the
champagne. The grocery clerk sells the pucker - not the pickles, the
whiff - not the coffee. It’s the tang in the cheese that sells it! The
insurance man sells PROTECTION, not cost per week. Only the
butcher sells the cow and not the sizzle, yet even he knows that the
promise of the sizzle brings him more sales of his better cuts.

- Elmer Wheeler, from chapter one of Tested Sentences That Sell.