Boost Your Sales with Stories

You can recite every feature and benefit of your entire line. You can explain exactly how you stack up against your competition. You can discuss financing options ad nauseam.

But can you tell a story?

If you want to boost your sales, your storytelling ability is critical.

Why?

Because stories are powerful communication tools. Stories:

• are engaging

• can inform and entertain at the same time

• are enjoyable to read and listen to

• can make people laugh, which builds rapport

• are memorable

• can put even the most arcane data in context.

Long lists of features and benefits put prospects to sleep. A well-told story grabs their attention and keeps it.

When you’re talking about your product or service, the prospect thinks about it in the abstract. When you relate a tale of how a customer used your product or service, your prospect relates to the customer in the story.

Typical sales presentations try to make a logical case for buying. Stories enable you to engage prospects emotionally, which is the key to buying decisions.

Want to hook your prospect’s attention? Rather than open your sales presentation by talking about the history of your company and your commitment to excellence, blah blah blah, open instead with a story about a customer who faced the same challenges or had the same goals your prospect does.

Want to close your presentation on a high note? Tell a story that illustrates how the features and benefits you mentioned earlier in your presentation impacted a customer in the real world and the results it created for them.

What stories could you tell? How could you use them?

When you integrate stories into your sales and marketing efforts, you may not live happily ever after, but you will enjoy more sales success.

Want to see an example of a sales story? Click here.