Selling With Stories – Why It’s So Important
One of the most powerful ingredients you can add into your sales conversations, is selling with stories.
From the Bible to the Quran; and from The Epic of Gilgamesh to modern movies and your Netflix TV show stream – stories have been used for thousands of years to share ideas, knowledge, and entertainment.
So why are stories so powerful; and how can it be useful in a sales context?
In this article, you’ll learn why selling with stories is so important, and how you can use stories to win more sales and make a bigger impact.
Selling With Stories – Why It’s So Important
What Does Selling With Stories Mean?
Selling with stories simply means using stories during your sales conversations, which in turn enhances empathy, rapport, and helps your ideal client see a reason to invest in your product or service.
Using stories are a powerful way of engaging and selling, because people have always used stories to communicate an idea.
Selling with stories will make you relatable, as well as give you an opportunity to explain how your product or service will give them the outcome and solution they’re looking for.
Selling With Stories – Why It Works So Well
According to Harvard, there are two distinct reasons why selling with stories works so well.
First – telling stories creates a sense of connection.
Stories build trust, familiarity, and helps your ideal client place themselves being in the same position as the character in your story.
At times; the sales process can be complex, and hard to digest and understand.
Stories help break down the jargon and technicalities and makes it easy to understand and relate to.
Secondly, stories stick.
Because stories are so visual, they also make it a lot easier for your ideal client to retain information.
This way it’ll be easier for them to make a decision; and hopefully a buying decision at that.
For thousands of years, human beings have transferred knowledge and ideas from generation to generation by using storytelling.
Because of this, we’re naturally wired to receive and give information to others by effectively telling stories.
Selling with stories works exactly the same – the more you share, the closer you’ll become to winning the sale.
The Elements To Succeed When Selling With Stories
Selling with stories is very much like telling a good story; you want it to be memorable, make an impact, and help your ideal client come to some kind of decision.
So, what makes a good story?
Storytelling experts suggest there are five important elements that you should include to make your story compelling.
#1 – Premise
The premise usually includes the location, characters, and circumstances.
From a selling with stories point of view; this would be mean other similar people like your ideal client who used to perhaps have similar issues to them and were initially in the same kind of space they’re in while your having your conversation.
#2 – The Plot
The plot includes the details of similar people to your current client, and how they overcame any objections and issues to make a buying decision.
We recommend including their previous situation, their pain points, what their ideal outcomes were – and how investing in your product or service helped let them achieve that.
#3 – Character
Every good story has characters.
Here you’ll have the opportunity to go into more detail about how your current clients were just like your ideal client – facing the same issues, what those issues mean, and what would have happened if they didn’t overcome them.
This is a good opportunity to also include other characters such as decision makers, potential hurdles, and what they did to influence and work with these people to make a buying decision.
#4 – Word Choices
When telling a good story, it should always be relatable with no confusion.
Jargon and using technical words can hurt your sales, so its imperative that when you’re selling with stories that you always use easy to understand and relatable language.
#5 – The Theme
The theme from a selling with stories perspective, is how people just like your ideal client may have had objections to initially buying – but why making a buying decision helped get them the same kind of outcomes your potential client is looking for.
Always remember when sharing your stories, that you don’t just talk about features and benefits.
More importantly; share how people may have been hesitant at first, but now realise that investing in your product or service was an excellent business decision.
Selling With Stories – Extra Tips
Two extra tips we highly recommend when selling with stories, is the use of case studies and testimonials, and knowing objections in advance.
Case studies and testimonials are powerful, especially when shared graphically and visually.
When sharing stories, demonstrate with evidence how previous clients got their results using your product or service, and what it will mean if your ideal client takes action too.
Furthermore, we recommend investigating potential objections in advance, and handling these objections when sharing stories.
If you know what the common objections are with clients similar to who you’re trying to close, handle this up front.
This will prevent it from coming up later, making your presentation and asking for the sale a lot more seamless.
Selling With Stories – Final thoughts
Selling with stories is an excellent way to relate with your ideal client, because it makes you more relatable, and builds rapport.
When you share stories effectively, your ideal client will remember what you share, which in turn will make it easier for them to make a buying decision.
Use stories to handle objections and demonstrate what it will mean if they too invest in your product or service.
At first; it may feel a little hard to share stories with your ideal clients, especially if you’re not used to it.
However with practice, repetition and consistency, you’ll become an excellent story teller in no time.
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