10/16/2023-Storytelling

Learning to tell stories that engage your buyers is easier than you think, but you won’t get good unless you appreciate how bored your buyers are with PPTs and other traditional pitch approaches.

"So…how was your weekend?" your buyer asks.

If you respond, "umm, okay…didn’t do much…" you may want to learn how to tell stories!

When a buyer opens the door with that question, you must share something from your world. It’s the perfect opportunity to tell a story. Certainly, something interesting recently happened to you in your exhilarating life that you can package as a story….no?

Not good at telling stories? That’s okay. You can get good fast, but only if you start telling them.

When your customer invites you to share something of your life, do it! It’s an opportunity to engage and strengthen your bond.

Today, ignore the voice in your head insisting you’re not good at telling stories by creating one!

Start by thinking of the most interesting thing that happened to you over the weekend…and package it into a "story."

It doesn’t have to be more than one to two minutes, but learn to frame stories like the pros do in Hollywood:

1. Introduce the setting and characters.
2. Explain the conflict.
3. Reveal the resolution.
4. Deliver the payoff (a.k.a. the "so what?").

Tell it as often as you can today…to anyone who’ll listen, including your teammates, mailman, and Amazon driver.

When your buyer asks how your weekend was, you’ll be ready!

Close your eyes and imagine you’re a buyer. You agree to a meeting with a seller because you think their offering would add value for your company.

In the meeting, the seller moves quickly past the pleasantries and starts running through slide after slide after slide.

Before the meeting, you thought their offering was intriguing, but now you’re not too sure!

Your mind can’t stop wandering as you keep thinking about the weekend. You can’t wait to get together with Lucy and Charlie on Saturday night. (They’re a hoot.)

Suddenly, something magical happens, and the vibe of the meeting changes…all because the seller stops talking and shuts the laptop. S/he pauses for a second – which feels like ten – and asks, "Are you as bored by that deck as I am?"

You nod sheepishly. (ALELUIA!)

The seller adds, "Lemme tell you a story about why our company does what we do… ."

Your eyes dilate, and you feel your mind and body return to the room.

Buyers don’t want numbers, facts, slides, and collateral pieces…they want to be engaged. Stories are the perfect communication tool…they engage everyone.

Learn to tell personal and business stories, and you’ll build engagement and trust. You’ll establish bonds with your sellers without having to stay out late closing down bars.

Ex-General Electric transformation agent Karen Eber talks about storytelling in this enlightening 13-minute Ted Talk.

Karen discusses how the brain processes information and presents an interesting fact about storytelling: because of something called neuro-coupling, the brains of both the storyteller and the listener light up when a story is being told.

Cool, huh?

"Data doesn’t change behavior, emotions do," says Karen.

Simple enough…tell stories, spark emotions, get remembered, become trusted, sell more stuff.

Easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez5yS4Q5ASA