Stories Sell, Products Tell

Imagine you’re attending a conference, and you’ve traveled between 5-6 hours to attend this particular trade show. Perhaps you’re in the medical field and you’ve got an interest in learning a new technology that will advance your practice using today’s best technologies. You attend an education seminar on a particular technology and they lose you at hello. Their presentation is dry, but worse than that, they banter on and on about their company in an endless self-promotion of their product. Your first impression is set in stone and if you haven’t already stood up and walked out, you’ve disengaged, and you’re texting and emailing on your iPhone until the session winds up. You’ve spent a lot of money and time to attend this conference, and you’re disgruntled at the seminar’s useless content.

Now, imagine a different scenario. At the same conference, you attend a seminar with presenters who snag your attention from the start. Their passionate energy holds your attention and their presentation provides meaningful support for the performance of their product. The biggest difference in their content? … They tell interesting and detailed stories and metaphors that capture the imagination of their audience. They use this flexibility of thought as a sales communication technique that invites their audience (prospective clients) to engage in a visual and auditory learning process in which the product is understood via association with a story that makes sense and offers meaning. You leave the seminar, accurately informed on this product’s advantages, and you’re eager to talk with the company further upon your return from the conference.

Flexibility of thought utilizes creativity and comparison and is a critical element of your sales team’s training for success. I call the skill of leveraging stories and metaphors in the sales process, Million Dollar Stories. Why? Because your prospects can connect with those metaphors better than they can your new product. If you were explaining social media for the first time to someone who’s never heard of it, you could use the metaphor of Facebook, since it’s a widely familiar social media site. If your corporate sales team were pitching a daily deal sales tool, your employees could utilize the story of Groupon, one of today’s most popular discount deals published every day.

Stories sell, so learn how to use them to your advantage! Our team ready to boost your company’s communication process today. Call us and we’ll train your team to better your bottom line.