Who are the Best Sales Teachers?
Posted by: Cheryl Clausen in sales coaching, tags: best sales teachers, how to sell with stories, sales stories, stories sellThe best sales teachers are Practice and Experience.
The only way to get good at selling is to get out there and do it. It sure helps if you know what to do to sell without triggering a potential buyer’s resistance. Increasing sales is more than a matter of doing one thing right or several things right… it’s the way you put all the pieces together.
Most business owners, entreprenuers, and sales professionals prefer low risk ways to get the practice you need to increase your sales. There are several ways to practice. You might role play. You might throw caution to the wind and decide to just gut it out and practice with people who might buy your stuff. You’re told if you talk to enough people you’ll eventually sell something to someone. Or, you might practice in the sand box.
Sand box practice is what you do when you test your sales skills with low risk real prospects. You know, your C’s and D’s rather than the A and B prospects. Sand box learning also occurs when you take elements of what you need to do and practice them in unconventional ways.
Stories are a great way to get your point across without triggering the defenses of your prospect. Everyone has a story they just don’t always know how to tell that story in a meaningful way. Beginners tend to tell rambling stories. The listener gets bored and misses the point.
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.
Chris Ramsey was talking about writing a press release when it hit me… Writing a press release is an excellent way to learn your story telling chops while potentially driving some new prospects your way.
It’s a Win-Win-Win
You win because you get to both practice and potentially get the attention of the right people. Your local media gets a story. Your readers find out something they want to know.
Another reason this might be a great sand box idea for crafting your stories is because most people can put together the facts. The challenge is creating interest around the information you have. That’s where a press release can be your friend.
Open up a local newspaper and read the stories you find about other businesses. I don’t mean the Grand opening stories. I mean the interest stories that happen to be about a business. If you can’t find a good example in your local paper all you need to do is look at the Wall Street Journal.
Pick a short story and read it from the perspective of the journalist. There was something news worthy about the story. Don’t confuse new with news worthy because quite often something old becomes newsworthy.
You’ll also notice most stories include some facts, perhaps a quote, things that sound official. Why? Stories include facts, figures, and quotes because it increases the credibility of the story.
Guess what? When you include facts, figures, or quotes in your story it increases YOUR credibility along with the credibility of the story. Whoo hoo. Credibility is a big concern for beginners.
Press releases are short. Try to completely tell your story in 250 words or less.
Start with the most important information first. Start your story off answering the standard newspaper questions:
- Who
- What
- When
- Where
- Why
- How
You probably practiced this in 5th grade. Funny how things come around.
Make sure there’s no doubt about why this story is newsworthy. Newsworthy is equivalent to relevant. Your story must be relevant to the people most likely to buy your stuff. One of the easiest ways to make it newsworthy is to tie your message into what’s going on in the world now.
Wrap up with the contact information for your business. Ideally you’ll want to include a way to get more information. Make sure you offer information the reader will want to get.
Once you write your draft set is aside for a day. Come back and ruthlessly chop all extraneous words and unrelated information from the story. Finally, craft a 2-4 sentence summary of your story.
This last part… the summary, is the really important part. The summary is so important because this succinct version of your story is the story you could tell when talking to a potential buyer face-to-face. You could use this story to grab the attention of your ideal buyers in any communication you send out. Once you have a few good stories you’ll find ways to repurpose those stories to increase the impact of the things you’re doing now.
Now for the bonus. Send a copy of your press release to your local media. You may have to send it several weeks in a row. Unless your story has wow factor it won’t get in used until the editor has some space available. When it does you get free advertising along with the enhanced credibility of your story making the local media.
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