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TSE 498: Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale
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Sell with a Story. Paul Smith is going to share with us a load of insights into how you can improve your storytelling so you can improve your sales.
Paul teaches the art and science of storytelling to leadership groups and sales teams. He helps people dive deeper into how they can craft their own stories to be much more effective.
Here are the highlights of my conversation with Paul:
Paul’s impetus behind writing a book about storytelling:
- Storytelling has not been thoroughly explored in terms of sales technique
- Keep using whatever process you’re using but storytelling is something you can add to your skill set and your current process
- Adding stories to your sales process and skill set can help you achieve more success
What is a sales story?
A story is a narrative about something that happened to somebody. A story has the following elements:
- Time
- Place
- Main character
- The goal of the main character
- Someone or something getting in the way of that goal
- Resolution
- Events happening along the way
How to use a story effectively:
Don’t replace your sales pitch with a story; instead, add a story to your sales pitch.
Types of stories you can tell and add to your sales process:
- Value-adding story
It literally adds value to the product or service you’re selling and it makes it more valuable to your prospects. It creates an experience for your customers.
- Why I do what I do
This helps in the rapport-building part. Help the buyer understand why you’re even in the business you’re in.
- Founding of your company
Nobody ever started a company for a boring reason.
- How you’re different from your competitor
- Story about your product’s invention or discovery
- Explaining the problem
This is a story about the quintessential problem that your product or service is designed to solve that your buyer can relate with.
- Stories we tell ourselves
People that heard or told themselves stories about the benefits of what they’re doing for the customers did much better at sales than the ones that told people stories about themselves or didn’t tell stories at all.
- Stories you tell other salespeople in your company help them learn from your lessons
- Personal motivation story
- Stories to help people relax and take the stress off of a call
How to make clients tell their story:
- Shut up and listen
We tend to hate silence in conversations so we quickly fill it up with our own voice. Just be quiet for a moment and the other person will feel awkward that they’ll start to open up and share something.
- Ask open-ended questions about specific moments in time
“Tell me about the moment that you realized your biggest problem was your biggest problem.” Help them give you a specific kind of problem by asking a specific type of open-ended question.
- Find something in common
Look around the buyer’s office and find something personal to comment on or find something in common to elicit a story.
- You tell the story first
Tell the kind of story you want to hear and your buyer will reciprocate with a similar story.
Telling stories with data: The discovery journey story
- Turn your ideas into their ideas. People are more passionate about pursuing their idea.
- Tell the story about you and the analysis process you went through right up to the moment you had your brilliant idea and conclusion.
- Stop and let them have that aha moment themselves.
- Your idea becomes their idea because you let them have that aha moment themselves.
Paul’s Major Takeaway:
Storytelling is a skill you can learn. You just have to study. Read a book on it. Take a class on it. Learn the skill and then put it to use.
Episode Resources:
Sell with a Story by Paul Smith
Connect with Paul Smith on www.LeadWithAStory.com and find his books and podcast.
List of 25 types of sales stories: http://leadwithastory.com/category/podcasts/sell-with-a-story-series/
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