Words of wisdom for this week.
“The imagination is far more powerful than the will.”
~ Peter Daniels
One of the best ways to get a point across regardless of the communication situation, a sales call, a management meeting, a coaching session or anytime you are trying to influence or persuade someone is with a story, an illustration or an example. Let’s talk about stories for a few minutes.
You are trying to convince a prospect to purchase your products or services. First of all, let’s correct the previous sentence. You are trying to convince them not to buy your products or services but to that when they invest in what you are offering that they will receive numerous benefits.
Why are stories an excellent selling tool? Why do they improve the understanding in communication? Why don’t more salespeople tell more stories? How can you develop more stories?
Why are stories an excellent selling tool?
The most effective communicators over the past several thousand years were tremendous story tellers: Jesus, Will Rogers, Mark Twain, Ronald Reagan just to mention a few. Very few people are conceptual thinkers, actually research says it’s less than 2% of the population. A conceptual thinker is a person who can figure out what you are saying with a limited amount of words or examples. They can connect the dots without your help. That leaves the other 98% of the population who needs help – getting your message. Stories, when told in a way that the other person can relate (using an example of a historical event that happened fifty years ago when the person you are telling it to wasn’t even alive may not prove effective.)
Stories help non-conceptual thinkers relate to your points, message or presentation.
Why do they improve the understanding in communication?
Life is a perceptual experience. Everyone sees everything uniquely based on their mindsets – perceptual interpretations. These mindsets are formed early in life and influence all of our attitudes, reactions, beliefs, expectations and anything else you can think of. Stories are an effective tool for ensuring that in any communication situation you and the other person or people are on the same page. They may not have had a similar experience as related in your story, but nonetheless they will more clearly see your point as a result of the story.
Why don’t more salespeople tell more stories?
Most salespeople are either in too much of a hurry to make the sale and stories take time to tell, don’t know how to tell stories that reinforce their message or don’t have any stories to tell. (They really do, they just tend not to see how the experiences they have had in the past with other clients or sales situations can be related in an interesting or thought-provoking story.)
How can you develop more stories.
Everyday no matter what you are doing – your activities, outcomes, circumstances – whatever – give you tremendous material for story telling. The point to remember is that the story you tell should help the prospect picture themselves in the story and the outcome of the story is favorable to them relative to your product or service in some way.
Here’s a short one as an example.
One of my email Tips subscribers a few months ago, let’s call her Jill, was struggling with a difficult career decision. She purchased my book Success is a Decision and the examples and illustrations in the book helped her get better clarity and focus in the decision process and the decision she had to make was now clear. She made it with passion, belief and ease once she had a better understanding of why she was having difficulty with the whole decision process.