Make Storytelling Your Revenue Superpower. Here’s How You Do It.

Here’s how you become a Sales Superhero

My sales prospecting tip for you today is simple: NEVER start a prospect engagement sentence with "We."

Why? Because it makes you focus on you, your products, your services, your business and on your sales targets, not on your prospects and their challenges.

So, focus instead on addressing your prospect's needs and wants. This way, you're helping them to immediately see the relevance of your services to their own situation, making it easy for them to decide to engage with you.

Storytelling is the ideal way to engage with a prospect.

Why? Because it appeals to the ancient parts of your prospect's brain.

Human brains find it much easier to remember stories than facts and figures. When our ancestors were still living in caves and wearing loin cloths, there was no written word. All knowledge was conveyed through storytelling around the campfire. Like the Australian aborigines, many tribes still practice this method today.

To make the storytelling concept easy to adopt, I teach my clients my 3-step storytelling formula in this way: Use a a case study as an excellent example of how you've helped solve a business problem that's similar to the one your current prospect is also facing right now. Here's how:

Storytelling Step 1.

Describe the situation your client found themselves in when you first met. Include a description of the impact their situation had on them personally, how stressed and worried they were, how important it was for them to solve this problem and what would happen if it weren't solved.

Storytelling Step 2.

Describe what you did (feel free to mention your product, but do not describe how you did it) and how long it took to fix the issue.

Storytelling Step 3.

Describe what changed for your client as a result of Step 2 above. Highlight the relief they felt when the problem disappeared. Emotions are important in sales, after all, people buy with their head and with their hearts.

Then wait for your new prospect to ask you a question.

Why? Because the moment they do, they have inadvertently given you their permission to sell to them. You get all this from just telling a story. Because stories don't make your buyers feel like they're being sold to. It doesn't feel like selling to the seller either, because, hey, you're just telling a story.

Will you try storytelling in your sales engagements?

Let me know if you need a little help, I'll be happy to coach you and your team.

Here’s to your sales success!

Peter Strohkorb

Sell smarter, not harder, with Peter Strohkorb Sales Advisory