How to Put Life in Your Sales
Posted by: Cheryl Clausen in marketing, tags: how to use stories to sell, sales story, stories that sell“Marketing tells a story that spreads. Sales overcomes the natural resistance to say yes.”
While larger businesses have marketing departments who create your story and package that story in a memorable way many marketing departments do this poorly. Plus most entrepreneurs, business owners, and sales professionals don’t have a department to create their story. So you enter the relationship with your prospective buyer facing a full head of resistance steam.
However, it doesn’t have to be that way. Everyone from the sole business owner to the international conglomerate has a story. You just haven’t discovered how to tell your story in a succinct memorable way. But you can…
The Story that Separates You
photo credit: waferboard
Without a great story you’re just another… insurance salesman, chiropractor, equipment manufacturer, etc. When you connect with a potential buyer they’re thinking, “Yeah, so what? There are a hundred guys just like you lined up outside my door. Why should I pay attention to you?”
When that same person could be thinking, “Hey, that’s exactly what I’ve been looking for. Tell me more about that.”
The story that opens your connection with potential buyers is what makes your offer more inviting and interesting. This story is what makes you findable to the people most likely to buy your stuff.
photo credit: Collin Grady
Domino’s is just another pizza joint, yet they told a story about delivering fresh hot pizza in 30 minutes or it’s free.
photo credit: David Boyle
Fed Ex is just another delivery company, yet they crafted a story about delivering your package overnight.
You have a story that makes you unique and more valuable than the competition. You simply need to uncover and tell your story.
The Story that Sells
Your marketing story brings them in. Your sales story reduces their resistance. It makes you credible and trust worthy. It demonstrates your value to the potential buyer. Bottom line… good stories make your job a whole lot easier.
Elements of a Good Story
A good story is short and powerful. It can be as short as 1-3 well crafted sentences. While it’s a lot easier to tell a long story, long stories unless extremely well crafted bore people. As you develop your short powerful story include these elements:
- Curiosity - Incorporate unexpected things, open a loop with an incomplete thought you have to stick around to finish
- Make it about the people who buy your stuff either explicitly or implicitly
- Keep it logical - Stories have a plot. Therefore, a person like the people who buy your stuff must have an urgent challenge or problem that is resolved as a result of the actions they took.
Domino’s and Fed Ex condensed their story down into a tagline. Yours doesn’t have to be that short. It does need to:
- Speak to the right people
- Share the right message
- Tell your story the right way
- Connect with people at the right time
- Focus on the right reasons people want to act
Craft Your Story
Go ahead and craft your 2 most important stories, the story that separates you and the story that sells. The story that separates you opens the connection with the other person. The story that sells extends and solidifies the story that separates you. Here’s how to craft those stories:
- First, just start telling your story about how you came to be in the business you’re in, and what’s most important or unique about the way you do business or what your stuff does. Either write it out or make a recording of yourself talking.
- Next make sure your story is specific to the people most likely to buy your stuff, it speaks to something they want now, and helps them see themselves getting what they want.
- Then ruthlessly chop that story down until you have an interesting easy to understand emotionally engaging story.
- Finally, test your story on real people.
What’s the best story that separates you or sales story you’ve ever heard? Feel free to share it here.
Entries (RSS)
June 19th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Exelent post!
I started teaching salespeople to use stories about 10 years ago, and within 9 months one team grew revenues 146%.
Very quickly they build trust and help salespeople become authentic.
thank you,
Mark
June 19th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
That’s great Mark. Stories make it easy for both the sales person and the person they are talking to don’t they?
Congratulations on your fantastic results. You folks must be some fantastic story tellers.
Thanks for sharing!
June 20th, 2009 at 3:25 am
What a fantastic post! I’ve always emphasized this in all my training programs because when I started my sales career, I realized this naturally, luckily and just built on it. Our guys began to enjoy their jobs and found it easier to build customer relationships and get referrals, because they were ’so good’ to deal with.
And needless to say - sales soared.
In our business, which was Office Automation, we found that describing a problem faced by a similar business and how we solved it - and how they are currently benefiting (in quantifiable terms) helped. We made it standard operating procedure to get a customer reaction document to the solutions we provided and that helped, too, as a testimonial.
June 20th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Thanks Vidya for telling us how you used stories to sell and sharing how you maximized this process.
A great way for anyone to get a lot of value from their stories.
I love your customer reaction document!
Sometimes people starting a new business get a little stuck when it comes to developing their story because they don’t have any customers yet.
However, you can develop stories that make your point without the story being based on a customer experience.
Has anyone had to do that?
July 1st, 2009 at 6:15 am
[…] is the way she teaches you. You see Leanne is a master story teller. Knowing how to tell stories that sell is huge. I recommend you read the book once to get the direct knowledge then read it a second […]
July 8th, 2009 at 6:06 am
[…] Stories sell and everyone needs to both uncover their stories and relate those stories quickly. Selling stories are one of the pieces in the big picture to increase sales. Some people are naturally good story tellers. The rest of us have to work at it to develop these skills. […]
August 24th, 2009 at 4:24 am
[…] be defensive? Cheryl Clausen helps us understand what it takes to write a good story in her blog: How to Put Life in Your Sales […]