You’ve got a great product with a lot of features and benefits. Sitting across from you is a potential client that you know needs the product. She is interested and wants to know more. So, you start with a list of the product features, benefits and your impressive list of clients. About mid-pitch, you notice she’s starting to drift away. Her eyes wander, feet shuffle under the table, and she starts searching for her cell phone. What happened?
According to an article in Inc. Magazine, "Tell Stories & You’ll Boost Sales (Because of How Human Brains Are Wired)," by Geil Browning, while you were feeding one side of your prospect’s brain with facts, the other side of her brain was begging for some narrative. Research by neuroscientist, Michael Gazzaniga, revealed how our brains process stories and how the left brain fills in gaps for the right brain.
While your information was impressive, it didn’t connect you or your product to the prospect. If you just want to share information, you could save time and money by emailing a product specification sheet and client list. Instead of just giving information, you can help prospects see themselves interacting and benefitting from your products or services by telling stories.
Browning offers some guidelines for using storytelling as a tool. Just telling a good story isn’t enough. You’ve got to balance narrative with information to satisfy both sides of the brain. You need to know your prospect or audience to make the story relevant and persuasive. Salespeople know how to qualify a prospect and determine what the needs are and how their product or service can fill those needs. Your story should incorporate those elements in order to offer a solution to your prospect’s challenges.
- Keep it simple. A long story that takes 15 minutes with a cast of characters can be confusing and difficult to follow. Get to the point within a couple of minutes.
- Keep your balance. The story should feed both sides of the brain, so weave facts and data into the narrative for a complete picture.
- Watch for interaction. While you weave your story, read the prospect to see if they are engaged. Look for eye contact and other body language that shows they are focused on you and not distracted.
- Be authentic. Don’t tell someone else’s story. One of the major no-no’s of professional speakers is telling someone else’s story as if it were your own. You won’t pull it off. It’s easier and more natural to tell a story you’ve experienced. Draw from your own client interactions and success stories. You don’t have to be a professional speaker or storyteller. Use your unique style.
- Think “1-2-3.” Stories have a natural order. 1) The situation, challenge or need. 2) How your product or service met the need, solved a problem, or reversed the situation. 3) How the client benefitted from the resolution; was successful, saved or made more money or time. Include these three elements to allow your prospect to see himself go from problem to resolution.
A balanced story of how your product or service made others successful is a powerful tool. Have one or two that you can share that will give your next meeting a happy ending.
Photo source: Freedigitalphotos.net
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