6/16/2025-Hey, didya hear the one about…?

Esteemed Sales Manager Lou Tosto is a great motivator…and he uses a bunch of great lines to inspire his team. One of his best is this one he uses to exhort his sellers as they head out the door for pitch meetings…

"DON’T BE BORING!"

Lou recognizes that part of making a sale means being engaging and yes, maybe a bit entertaining too.

Your buyers won’t base their decisions entirely on your electric personality, but it helps to be charismatic and excited.

Make the customer feel something, and you’re more likely to be remembered.

Try telling stories that make your buyers feel.

You’re not alone if storytelling doesn’t come naturally to you. But practice will help.

Start by thinking about a recent experience on another account that might interest your customer (omit the account and buyer names, of course). Try to frame the story so it presents your company’s service proposition….or bolsters your value proposition.

Practice your story with a friend and keep it to about 90 seconds or so.

Then…try it on a customer and see where it takes you.

Even if your client doesn’t jump out of their seat, that’s okay. You got thick skin…keep telling and refining that story until it’s where you want it to be.

Do you like being preached to? Do you want to sit through a 20-slide PowerPoint presentation?

Well, neither do your customers.

Yes, you need to pitch.

Yes, you need to present your value to your customers.

Yes, you need to show them your whatever…product, demo, pie-chart.

But you need to figure out an approach that works best for your customers, knowing that they will tune out if they get any whiff of feeling pitched.

Sharing stories helps you do that.

In their influential book Made To Stick, Chip and Dan Heath uncovered a staggering statistic: "…after a presentation, 63% of people remember stories, but only 5% remember a statistic."

So if you’re getting pressured inside your org to deliver a general presentation script verbatim in your pitch meetings…push back. Buyers will tolerate two or maybe THREE slides at the most! (Which basically means you’re using slides to accentuate a point, you’re not using them to pitch.)

Figure out how to tell stories to ensure you and your offering are remembered.

Lucky for you, Paul Smith, the author of Sell with a Story, is here to help you build storytelling muscle.

Watch the first ten minutes of this interview with Paul, and you’ll learn specific tips to help you craft stories that get you remembered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxAa8TtV5bI