When my daughter was young my wife and I took turns reading to her every night. Countless renditions of 'Goodnight Moon', 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar', 'Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?' and many others seem to have paid off with a girl who has grown into a very intelligent (and well read in her own right) young lady. We all have an innate desire to hear stories - I truly believe that people listen more attentively to a story than they do to a case study. ...but this article isn't about my daughter, it's about the power of storytelling in sales.
Many salespeople seem to wait for Marketing to create formal customer stories and case studies before getting into the storytelling mode. In my experience, this is a huge mistake, and while the polished presentations that today's marketing teams create have their place - authentic stories from someone who has been there and seen it will ALWAYS have more value to a customer. It's like the difference between hearing about a major event from someone you know that was there and seeing it on the news - the personal story almost always resonates more strongly with the audience!
For me, there are a lot of good reasons to use storytelling as an integral part of your sales process:
- People like Stories: Think about the early days as children, then later with stories around a campfire, or ghost stories at Halloween, the best dinner party guests - The commonality is almost always good storytelling.
- Complex concepts can be easier to visualize in the story format where you focus on outcomes, rather than trying to explain the technical intricacies in detail. Some in your audience will never understand the complex operation of the "Fujipucker" but everyone will appreciate the story of the Operations manager doing cartwheels because of the downtime reduction it created.
- People simply retain data that's told as a story better than they do facts and figures: Not only will the performance that your product provides be retained better but YOU will be remembered more than the next guy who put up yet another PowerPoint slide.
- You've probably guessed this already - but sharing the success as a story builds credibility for you and helps along the way to becoming a 'Trusted Advisor'.
- It's just FUN - for you and the customer and that makes everyone's experience better!
So, what are my recommendations for best practices in storytelling?
- First, make sure that the story is authentic to your experience. Tell stories about real customers and real applications that you've experienced. Have you ever heard of the 'Telephone Game' The story changes as it decays through multiple storytellers - you want the authenticity of an example you experienced, not the watered-down version that's second or third-hand!
- Second, Don't exaggerate the results! - You'll only be setting expectations that your product likely can't deliver. You want to be a trusted advisor and this means setting realistic expectations from the start. Where you can exaggerate is the reactions - The really happy operations guy, can be doing cartwheels in your story, because that helps visually tell of his excitement and doesn't impact the results or expectations.
- Third, ideally, make the story about a customer and application that is as close as possible to the customer and application that you are presenting to. This isn't always possible at NPI, but start to catalog and record your success stories early and you'll likely be able to find close matches. There's a reason that we tell our children stories that often include kids around their ages: the similarity creates a stronger connection - It's really no different with adults at a company making a purchase decision - the closer the story is to their experience the more powerful it will be for them.
- Fourth, Always remember that you are looking to solve the Pain that your customer or prospect is experiencing: Make sure your story gets to this point! Even a story that is disconnected from their Pain Points can help build relationships and trust - but only a connected story is really going to move your project forward.
- Fifth, be personable - the power of storytelling is the connection it creates while getting across important product or service benefits. You don't want to do this in a dry boring style - Try and tell the story like you would to a friend or a buddy - this authenticity will come through and your story will have more impact with a personable delivery.
- Sixth, Share your stories with marketing and get permission to create formal case studies. The formal case studies can help your colleagues - but ALWAYS remember that your personal experience stories are more powerful than the marketing-created case studies.
- Finally, ask your customers for their permission to share their stories - It always resonates more when you can share the specific company name and location in the story. Most are happy to give you verbal permission to use their story in anecdotes, even while they are much more hesitant to share a formal case study.
Storytelling is one of the secret 'superpowers' that will help you become a stronger salesperson. It's especially effective in building trust through authenticity - I'm not talking about tall tales or making things up with storytelling - but telling stories truthfully about real applications and deployments that you've been a part of. The storytelling approach builds an emotional connection that most of your competitors won't offer in their approach. It's a super-accelerator to becoming a trusted advisor, but AUTHENTICITY is critical. The line between 'Amazing storyteller and 'BS Artist' is very fine and one that you absolutely don't want to cross!
