Posts Tagged ‘business sales training’

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Become the “Master Chef” of sales stories

Monday, April 9th, 2012


I think that telling stories is a bit like cooking. Most of us know the basics.

So why are only a few of us great chefs?

The key is that they understand how the ingredients fit together. They know when to add a “touch of this” and a “dash of that.” There’s a science to it, but there’s also an art.

I’m not sure the art can be taught, but the science certainly can. I firmly believe anyone can master the art of of telling great sales stories and on May 17th I’d like to show you how.

Let me make you a great (and persuasive) story teller.

More here

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How stories get you on the first page of google

Wednesday, April 4th, 2012


I was talking with my friend Jeff Hopeck of Killer Shark Marketing about Google and it’s ever changing algorithm that determines which websites get on the first page.

The two main variables have historically been links and content. They’re both still important, but the emphasis is now heavily tilting towards content.

And not just any content.

Nope, unfortunately taking one article, blog post or twitter feed and just reposting it over and over again won’t get you high in the rankings. In fact it may hurt you.

If you want to get highly ranked, the focus today is on Original Content. That’s great news for those of you who are creating sales stories about the success of your clients, stories that address concerns and objections, and stories that communicate the values of your brand.

However, simply creating original content is only half the battle. I’d estimate that most everyone can write words that communicate a message. That’s not difficult. But, the reality is that it’s also not enough.

If you’re in this game to win, you need stories that persuade and engage. That’s the key to not only getting your site on the first page of Google, but also how to motivate people to take action. When you accomplish that, then you’ve got a stealth marketing system that gets you both visibility and high conversion percentages.

Content is King.

Speaking of which, I’m opening the doors for an intimate seminar I’ll be conducting here in Atlanta in May. The goal of it is to work with a small number of you on crafting your “Million Dollar Stories”. If that sounds like something that might be of interest there’s some information HERE.

Maybe I’ll see you in Atlanta next month. That would be fun.

Talk soon
Mark

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Getting Prospects To Call You

Monday, March 12th, 2012


If we’re perfectly honest about it, most of us just don’t enjoy chasing down clients…trying to convince them to do business with us. Personally, I’d much rather have prospects call me, and for years I wondered if there was a way to make this possible.

What I found is the answer is “Yes, you can” if you position yourself as one of the leading experts in your field. What I also found is that this is something all of us can do.

As many of you know, over the past year I’ve been a member of Steve & Bill Harrison’s Quantum Leap program. In a nutshell, it’s a year long coaching program that is specifically designed to teach you how to market yourself to the media so that you become the expert which attracts new clients to you.

Over the past 12 months I’ve gone from someone who had zero media visibility to being featured on ESPN, WABC, Inc Magazine, Entrepreneur, Selling Power, Investment News and many others. I can say that without a doubt this has dramatically increased the number of calls I get from prospects who are interested in learning more about my services.

If you’re serious about growing your brand, gaining greater visibility in your market or desire to to be “sought after” rather than always “chasing business”, I think this is something you should consider.

As you know I don’t recommend others lightly, but I can speak from personal experience that this was outstanding. What I learned from Steve and Bill took my business to a new level, and I think it could do the same for you.

If nothing else, it’s certainly worth checking out, and there’s additional information is HERE

Thanks and I’ll talk with you soon

Mark

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Focusing on what’s important

Thursday, March 8th, 2012


It’s easy to get seduced with technology, especially with the increased focus on social media.

But here’s something to keep in mind.

It’s not that you Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or LinkedIn.

It’s what you say.

The key is to be interesting or at perhaps a bit controversial. Which means you shouldn’t be afraid to share information about who you are, how you came to do what you do. I’ve found that people are genuinely interested in the backstories of others.

Of the 8-12 stories I think we all need to develop, the one that tells the backstory of who you are is the first one I’d develop. Once you have it, you’ll be amazed at how it accelerates the relationship building process.

Food for thought.

More Here

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The Power of a Great Story

Monday, January 16th, 2012


For those of you who aren’t quite convinced that a great story can overcome the most difficult objections, this video may change your mind.

Never underestimate the power of a great story.

(Many thanks to John Frisbie for passing this along-I’d love to hear about other great examples of powerful stories, so please send them over to mark@gentlerainmarketing.com.)

This may take up to 30 seconds to load, so please be patient. (Trust me, it’s worth it.)

Give me 3 hours and I’ll teach your sales team how to tell great stories that get more referrals, differentiate you from the competition and help you close more sales. Information is HERE

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Advanced Tool For Great Sales Presentations

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010


As you develop your sales stories and presentations, one factor you’ll want to give consideration to is what’s referred to as the “arc”. This is more than simply the length of the story, although “long arc” stories are, as one might surmise, longer than short arc ones.

Stories are usually told in self-contained units. “Here’s the beginning. Here’s the middle. Here’s how it wraps up.” Certainly nothing wrong with that, and from a practical perspective most of your stories will be in this self-contained, short arc format.

However, some of the most successful sales stories, especially those that are used in presentations are in a long arc form. What this means is that the story is introduced early in the presentation. However the speaker or writer may leave the story periodically only to return to it later on. The long arc story provides bookends for the entire story although there may be shorter stories that are interspersed within the overall presentation.

The long arc story traces its roots to television. Historically TV episodes were self contained units. In the space of 30 or 60 minutes an entire story was told from beginning to end. The next week a brand new story was told. Aside from the main characters, there was little continuity from week to week.

The television show “Wise Guys” in the 1980s is largely credited with introducing the concept of the long-arc series. The season opener introduced a plot line that was not resolved until season end. Some individual shows made no reference to the long-arc plot line, while other episodes advanced the long-arc plot incrementally. It was a tribute to the writers that they were able to maintain audience interest for an entire season, while also including numerous single-show plot lines that were entertaining for the casual viewer. This long-arc format is now successfully used by many shows.

But what makes this particularly interesting is the application to sales presentations and other speeches you might give.

Let me share an example.

In my presentation on Unique Sales Stories that I deliver to groups, one of the key points I want to make is that people remember stories, they don’t remember facts. It’s my belief that one of the reasons why people don’t get as many referrals as they ideally would like is that they aren’t top of mind. When they describe what they do, it isn’t memorable.

Why?

One of the main culprits is that they use facts to describe what they do rather than telling stories. Thus if you want more referrals you need to tell more unique sales stories.

OK, simple enough.

One way I could get that message across is to simply communicate it as I just did. That would probably work OK, but since I’m advocating using sales stories as a tool for getting more referrals, I ought to do exactly just that. Thus to make this point, I use a long arc story.

I start the presentation by saying, “I went to Washington University in St. Louis.” Pause. “Fun fact to know and tell.” Longer pause.

I then go into my presentation during which I share that as the son of a university professor when it came time to apply to colleges, that was a big deal in the Satterfield household.

I applied to three schools. Since I always loved to read and write, one of them was Princeton University which was the school of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Plus, if you’ve ever visited it, Princeton looks exactly like what you would imagine, ivy covered walls, a university straight out of central casting.

I also applied to UCLA, the University of California at Los Angeles. Growing up in New England in the late 1960s, I wasn’t too much different from most other guys. If you couldn’t be James Bond, you wanted to be a really cool surfer dude. Thus, the appeal of UCLA.

I also applied to Washington University in St. Louis (you always have to describe it that way since there are so many schools with the name “Washington” in them.) Dad was from St. Louis, which is how it originally got on my radar screen, but what was most appealing to me was that it offered co-ed dorms. Quite the cutting edge in dormitory living circa 1973.

Anyway, Princeton sent me a very nice letter, “In the effect that hell does freeze over, we would be more than happy to reconsider your application.” However both UCLA and Washington University in St. Louis let me in. That led to a short conversation with Dad (who was financing this experiment in higher education) who said to me that he thought that if I went to UCLA I would probably become a pretty good surfer and flunk out my sophomore year. (Apparently he hadn’t noticed the mention of co-ed dorms in the Washington University materials.) Thus off I went in May of 1973 to St. Louis.

At this point in the presentation I stop and ask the audience to take out a pen and piece of paper. I ask them to write down the name of the school I went to and then the names of the two schools I applied to but did not go to. I then ask them to turn the paper over and tell them that we’ll return to it a bit later on.

My presentation then goes on to talk about other applications for using Unique Sales Stories. At one point I mention again that it’s my premise that people don’t remember facts, they remember stories and that we’ll find out if that is really true shortly. What I’m doing here is seeding and reminding the audience about the long-arc story which is about where I went to college.

I’m now about to wrap up the presentation so I ask the audience to find the piece of paper that they wrote down the answers to where I applied to school, but not to turn the piece of paper over. I ask them to write down on the back of the paper the name of the school that I went to. I then ask them to write down the names of the other two schools. Finally, I ask them to compare what they’ve written down on the back of the paper to what they wrote down on the front.

Here’s what typically happens.

Virtually everyone gets the names of the schools right the first time I ask them to write them down. That’s to be expected. But here’s what’s very interesting. Typically 85-90% of the audience gets the answers correct the second time as well. This is the tangible proof that people remember stories.

If I had simply said that I went to Washington University in St. Louis and by the way, I also applied to Princeton and UCLA, 10 minutes later no one would remember. (And I’ve actually tried this and the recall results are pretty depressing.) By telling a story, people remembered what they would otherwise likely forget.

This story is introduced very early in my presentation, referred to briefly in the middle and then concluded at the end. It’s one of my signature long-arc stories and does an outstanding job of making the specific point that if you want to be remembered, you need to tell stories.

Since I make the cryptic statement of “We’ll see if I’m right a bit later on”, interest and curiosity increases. That’s one of the benefits of the long arc story.

Granted a long-arc sales story requires a bit of time. Thus it’s ideally suited if you’re preparing a speech or a sales presentation. Naturally, if I can be of assistance to you in developing one, please let me know.

Talk soon,
Mark

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What Prospects Are Saying About Your Selling Skills

Friday, August 20th, 2010


According to IDC’s 2010 Customer Experience Survey of 213 senior level buyers, most people are not as effective selling one-on-one as they think they are.

This comes in stark contrast to the perception of most business owners, consultants and sales professionals who tend to adopt the attitude of “get me in front of a prospect and I’ll close the deal.”

According to behavioral psychologist John Crandall, this overly optimistic assessment of sales skills comes from the fact that for many people, the only face-to-face selling they engage in is with friendly prospects who are referred directly to them.

Crandall explains, “Although referrals are terrific, they can give one a false sense of prowess regarding their ability to sell. What I call ‘friendly referrals’ will usually be extremely polite and seldom brush off or overtly dismiss the sales presentation from a person who got into their office as a result of relationship with someone they respect and trust.”

“Thus, the meetings tend to be very pleasant and the business owner or consultant is left with the distinct feeling that a business relationship is likely to happen. Unfortunately, in the majority of cases that doesn’t occur, although the consultant will hold onto the ‘positive belief’ that a deal is imminent for months or sometimes even years.”

According to the IDC survey, 64% of the key decision makers found sales presentations to be extremely ineffective. A chief culprit? According to Eduardo Conrado, SVP & CMO, enterprise mobility solutions at Motorola Inc., “Doing a straight product pitch without relating it to the specific needs that I have.”

Crandall concurs. “It’s amazing to me that although anyone selling for any extended period of time knows about advanced preparation, and communicating benefits rather than facts and features, so few people actually do this when they are in a live selling situation. There is a huge disconnect between what people intellectually know they should do, and what they actually are doing.”

So what’s the solution? What should business owners and consultants do differently when they are in front of a prospect?

Dr. Crandall says, “The reality is that most consultants and entrepreneurs just don’t get that many times at bat. That’s a huge disadvantage because face-to-face persuasion is a skill that gets better the more you do it. However, when one relies on referrals or cold calling as your primary means for getting meetings, you’re just not going to have a lot of opportunities. This is, to a certain extent, a game of numbers, so you need to first fix the process by which you get opportunities to meet.”

But what about when you’re in the meeting, what can make people more effective in that situation? Motorola’s Contrado has one specific suggestion.

“If they talk about case studies and how they have helped companies with similar challenges-that kind of approach gets my brain going about how they can help me.”

In other words, it’s the stories you tell.

Dr. Crandall cautions, “Stories, case studies, call them what you will, are undoubtedly the most effective method for getting your prospect to visualize the benefits that a company can provide. But again there’s a disconnect. Most people think they are much more effective raconteurs than they are in fact. There’s a huge difference between telling a story in a bar to your buddy, and imperceptibly weaving an effective story into a sales presentation.”

“That requires planning, forethought and practice. Unfortunately very few people seem to be willing to take the time to actually develop a series of stories in advance that they can then draw upon when they are needed.”

Mark Wilson, VP at Sybase Inc. concurs, “The most effective sales presentations are those in which the person has a number of case studies and they pick them intelligently for companies that face the same problems as us.”

What struck me about this article, and the comments of Dr. Crandall, was this disconnect between what we understand intellectually and what we do in action. As anyone knows who has sold anything, the face-to-face selling situation is accompanied with a fair amount of tension. What this means is that unless your case studies and stories are developed and rehearsed in advance, it’s most likely that you’ll either fail to use them in the meeting, or that what is communicated doesn’t represent your best effort.

And that’s a shame. Especially if you don’t get a lot of “times at bat”.

I realize that this is extremely self serving, but one of the practical applications for my Gentle Rain Coaching sessions is to help you develop, practice and get feedback on the sales stories you want to communicate. Individual sessions are $250 and discounts are available for longer commitments.

If you would like to receive additional information please email me at mark@gentleraimarketing.com

Good food for thought. Talk with you soon
Mark
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The Most Watched Business Speech Of All Time

Monday, August 9th, 2010


Last night I re-watched what I (and many others) consider to be one of the best speeches given by a business executive in the past 10 years.

Can you guess whom I’m referring to?

Ironically, it was a commencement speech given by one of the world’s foremost business visionaries-who never actually graduated from college.

It started this way.

“Thank you. I’m honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots…”

It’s been viewed over 2.4 million times and is the only commencement speech to actually go viral. But most importantly it’s a model that all of us can learn from who aspire to gain greater attention for our marketing messages, motivate others or simply differentiate ourselves from the over-increasing hordes of competition.

You may have guessed that the speech I’m referring to is one given by Steve Jobs at Stanford University’s commencement exercises.

What made this speech so powerful? A large part of it is what Job’s said in the very beginning, “Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.”

A friend of mine who was there later told me that you could visibly see the audience’s level of attention increase as Jobs spoke those words.

Intellectually most of us know that if we want to get attention or persuade and motivate others, using stories is by far the most effective tool we have.

But do we really do it?

Unfortunately the answer is usually, “No”

A quick case in point.

I was in a meeting last week with a top senior sales executive for one of the largest financial services companies in the world. I was there to talk about my sales training program Unique Sales Stories: How To Get More Referrals, Differentiate Yourself From the Competition & Close More Sales Through Storytelling.

I could tell that Mr. Williams (he asked that I not use his real name although he did hire me to conduct the program for reasons that will be apparent in a moment), agreed wholeheartedly about the “concept” of using stories to more effectively develop relationships and close sales.

I could also tell that he thought his sales team:
1) Already knew how to tell stories, and…
2) Were doing a good job of it.

I could tell this because…well, he told me so.

Anyway, playing a hunch, I asked Mr. Williams if he would spare 2 more minutes and walk with me out on the sales floor. Humoring me, he agreed.

We walked past the desks of over 2 dozen financial advisors, all on the phone, all pitching their services. We’d stop periodically and eavesdrop.

Guess what we heard-or more specifically what we didn’t hear?

Not a single story.

Lots of facts. Lots of features. Lots of…noise. But not a single story that would enable prospects and clients to visualize the benefits these advisors were offering.

I’m sure you get my point.

There’s a world of difference between intellectually knowing something and actually doing it. Even more importantly…as I suggested to Mr. Williams, there is a huge difference between knowing what you should be doing and actually how to do it.

Which is why Mr. Williams is now a client.

But let me go back to Steve Jobs’ speech for a moment. After I watched the speech again I got curious. I’m a big fan (in fact I’m likely to be the only person you’ll ever meet who actually has never used a PC), but I was curious about something.

Does Steve Jobs wing it when he gives a speech? I mean the guy is one gifted speech giver. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he did.

But apparently he doesn’t. Not by a long shot.

I had the opportunity to do some work with Apple about 15 years ago and have stayed in contact with the person who hired me. (Not a big surprise-I am the Gentle Rain guy after all.) Anyway, he had a lot of interaction with the CEO so I posed the question of whether Mr. Jobs did much preparation prior to giving a speech. He replied:

“You wouldn’t believe how much preparation goes into making these speeches look completely unrehearsed and natural. The content is excruciatingly and painstakingly reviewed to make sure the ‘points’ come across. Absolutely nothing is left to chance. The preparation and the practice is the stuff behind the scenes, that very few are aware of, that makes the end result so powerful.”

So here’s something to think about…

Stories are powerful.

Stories get you remembered.

They help you develop more brand new relationships and convert prospects into paying clients.

But knowing and agreeing with those statements is worlds apart from actually developing those unique sales stories that only you can tell.

Perhaps that is something I can help you with. Whether it is training your sales team on how to develop and deliver sales stories…to coaching you one on one…to writing a great sales story for your website…please let me know how I can assist you.

Thanks and I look forward to speaking with you soon.
Mark
mark@gentlerainmarketing.com
770-643-8566

Relevant links:
Learn more about my sales training
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Steve Jobs YouTube video:
Transcript of the speech:

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How To Use Trojan Horse Marketing To Attract New Clients.

Thursday, July 15th, 2010


An interesting short article in SalesForceExp magazine about “What Business Are You Really In?” It reminded me about the power of Trojan Horse Marketing.

For example, on the surface one might think that your local cinema is in the movie business. But they’re not.

The movie is just the “Trojan Horse” for their real business, which is selling popcorn and refreshments. As the article points out, “Cinemas are fast food businesses that happen to offer entertainment.”

So why is this worth thinking about?

Because most services business use a straight ahead-direct-battering-ram approach when attempting to get new business.

And there’s a much more effective way that achieves far better results. Let me explain…

You’d put it more elegantly, but the general gist of most marketing messages tends to be…

Hi…If you suffer from (problem) I have a solution for you. As the leading (financial planner/executive recruiter/technology consultant/Fill-In-Your-Expertise-Here) we have extensive experience working with…(well you know the rest.)

Now there’s nothing inherently bad about that. However the problem is that everyone (or at least all your competition) is taking pretty much that same approach. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so difficult to stand out.

Alternatively, the Trojan Horse strategy approaches the target market at an angle. It may not be immediate obvious what in fact the ultimate objective is.

You see this many times with infomercials. You know, the ones that sell a $8 doo-hickey like some sort of goofy lure that fisherman can use to catch “the really big one that got away”. You’ve probably said to yourself, “How in the world after spending all this money on advertising can they make any money selling something so inexpensive?”

And the answer is…”The can’t.” (And they aren’t.)

In most cases what they are really doing is building a list of buyers of fishing equipment and then selling that list to lots of manufacturers and marketers who sell rods, reels and other fishing equipment.

There’s a lot of money in fishing.

Now they could have used the straight ahead approach, “Give me your contact information and we’ll have a lot of fishing manufacturers send you stuff you might like to buy.” They’d get the really hard core fish fanatics that way. But that’s just a teensy tiny segment of the market.

But they used a Trojan Horse, and now have a list of people who have actually bought fishing stuff.

That’s worth big bucks to others who want to sell fishing stuff, since it’s a proven list of buyers (as opposed to just those who are interested in fishing).

So how does the Trojan Horse approach work with services firms?

Here’s an example.

I’m about to launch a new sales training initiative. It’s my one day sales training program, Unique Sales Stories: How To Get More Referrals, Differentiate Yourself From The Competition & Close More Sales Through The Power Of Stories.

Now I could just create a nice PowerPoint presentation, brochure, website, direct mail campaign ect and market this to sales executives and training directors.

Might work.

But the sales training field is very competitive. Lots of programs vying for attention.

And there are a lot of heavy hitters, companies with far bigger budgets than mine who are mailing their brochures to the same people I want to hire me.

So I need a Trojan Horse.

And I’ve got one.

It’s a book. Not a eBook but a real paperbound book, published by a real publishing house -it’s even got some pictures in it. Pretty cool if I say so myself.

I wrote this book over a 6-week period of time this spring and early summer.

Was my goal to have a best seller?
Was my goal to sell a lot of books?
Was my goal to get “famous”?

Nope.

My goal is to sell a lot of sales training programs. And my book is my Trojan Horse.

Instead of doing what all my competition is doing…sending sales training brochures, having their sales reps cold call training directors and sales executives pitching their sales training programs…guess what I’m going to do?

I’m sending some very targeted direct mail and implementing other very-focused marketing to one niche market that I think has a burning need for this program. (After I hit that one market I’ve got 9 others that are on the list.)

But I’m not going to be talking about sales training in my sales letters, emails and ads.

Nope.

What I’m going to be doing is offering this very targeted and very specific audience a FREE copy of my book.

Guess how many of my competitors are doing this?
What’s their approach?

The straight-ahead-direct-battering-ram approach.

I’ve done this before, the last time I was in the training business. (For reasons I won’t bore you with I’ve been in and out of the training biz periodically for the last 12 years.) The last time I was marketing a program on how to gain access to top decision makers.

Similar model.

Wrote a book. You may have heard of it, Power Prospecting: How To Gain Access To Key Decision Makers (http://www.gentlerainselling.com)

Direct mail to partners at large consulting firms offering the book. Had a small sales team follow up with those who “raised their hands”. (Gave them a great incentive: 50% of the fee for the first training program a company bought and 20% ongoing for all subsequent sessions. With initial commissions of $2250 and then $900 for each subsequent program, my sales team made some serious money…BTW I’m offering the same sales incentive program again so let me know if you want in on it.)

The seminar went head-to-head with at least 7 other programs focusing on the same issue-all of who had been around for at least 5 years.

Using the Trojan Horse strategy we sold $1 million of training in the first 18 months.

All because my team and I were able to get attention by offering something that was “one-off” from the standard straight ahead-direct-battering-ram approach.

And I’m going to do it again.

But the really important point is…so could you.

It doesn’t have to be a book or a movie theater. What it does have to be is something creative that gets people to initially raise their hands. I’ve helped my coaching clients strategize on these and we’ve created some outstanding programs in over 17 different niche markets.

But here’s why most everyone won’t do it.

It requires a lot of thinking.

And planning.

There are a lot of moving parts.

It’s not quick…

But projects that have a potential $1 million payoff seldom are.

So what might be your Trojan Horse?

Summer is good for lots of things. One of which is planning how you’re going to grow your business in the fall.

I’m launching my Unique Sales Stories Sales training program. (And maybe helping some of you with your business launches.)

What will you be doing?

Food for thought.
Mark

Related links
http://www.gentleraincoaching.com
http://www.gentlerainblueprint.com
http://www.gentleraincopywritng.com

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The End Of Boring Sales Messages

Monday, May 17th, 2010


OK…The first step if you want to capture attention is to focus on a problem.

But that’s only the first step. How do we go from “mild curiosity” to having our prospect really care about the story we’re about to tell?

Care so much that they’ll give us a call?

Care so much that they’ll pay us large sums of money to solve it for them?

The answer is by communicating the consequences of not solving the problem. This is the stage at which we make our prospect start to really care about the challenge that faces the character you’ve created.

Consequences address the question of, “Why should I care?” or “Why is that a big deal?” Sometimes a form of Socratic questioning can be highly effective in uncovering the consequences of a particular problem.

Dan and Stan are in conversation. Dan is struggling to hire a salesperson for the St. Louis territory. The search has been going on for over 9 weeks and he still hasn’t found the right person.

Stan: “I don’t understand why you just don’t hire the best person you’ve found thus far. I mean you must have interviewed over 30 candidates.”

Dan: “I tried that once and it really backfired on me. If all you’ve seen is grade C prospects you’re not going to get someone who is really going to solidify our sales position in the mid-west. Compromising just isn’t going to work.”

Stan: “I still think that you’re making too big a deal out of this. I mean you’ve got the majority market share right now-what is it, 65%? That’s huge. Any warm body would have to work real hard to mess that up. I still think you’re being too picky.”

Dan: “And I think you’re missing the point. Sure, I’ve got a majority market share at the moment, but that only because our largest competitors new it wasn’t worth their time to try to muscle in while Susan was working the territory. Now that she’s gone, you know they’ll be dog-birding the new rep to see if they’re as strong. I put an ‘also-ran’ in that job and I’m going to have competitors coming out of my ears in less than 30 days.”

Stan: “Well I really I think you’re giving your competitors a lot more credit for awareness than they deserve.”

Dan: “Suppose you’re right. Suppose they don’t bird-dog my guy. Here’s the next problem. Corporate is rolling out the new products at the end of the month. If this guy isn’t up to speed by then, he’s toast when it comes to being able to talk coherently about the new stuff.”

Stan: “I guess I hadn’t thought of that.”

Dan: “If this guy isn’t super sharp I’m not only not going to make my numbers on the new product, but dollar to donuts he’ll start falling apart with the prime products.”

Stan: “True, I guess the last thing you want is for someone to get overwhelmed.”

Dan: “Yeah, I’ve gone done that road before. Once they feel that they’re in over their heads, they start to get nervous and then embarrassed that they’re not doing better. The next thing I know I’ve got a resignation notice sitting on my desk and I’m starting over from scratch.”

So let’s examine this dialogue and see how it uncovered some real and substantial consequences to the problem of staffing a sales position that Dan faces.

The conversation starts out with the problem being, “not all that big a deal”. This is the attitude that many of your prospects will have as well. Although you may think that the consequences of not addressing the problem are obvious, your prospect is likely not to be as self-aware. As a result of the ensuing dialogue it becomes apparent that there are at least three consequences to compromising and hiring only a average candidate.

1) The competition is likely to find out and as a result put a greater emphasis on gaining market share.
2) There is a new product being introduced. It will be a challenge to get up to speed on both the existing product line and the new one. Unless the new hire is extremely sharp it’s likely that he or she will get overwhelmed and be effective at neither.
3) As a consequence of becoming overwhelmed, the odds of the new rep quitting become increasingly likely. This would put Dan back in the position he currently is with the added pressure of wasted time.

It’s likely that if we allowed the conversation between Dan and Stan to continue, we would uncover additional consequences for not addressing the problem. At this stage in the development of your sales story you may find it helpful to map out the consequences section by using this form of interactive dialogue.

This “devils advocate” approach can be highly effective in uncovering consequences that might otherwise not be readily apparent. Although one could use the discussion model to communicate these consequences, that may not be feasible or practical, especially if your story is to be told verbally. This Socratic dialogue technique is often best used for uncovering the key points rather than as a method for story telling. However, if your story is being told on your blog, website or through a sales letter, dialogue can be a highly effective tool.

The story that we have developed thus far might be told as follows:

Dan Sullivan wondered to himself why with the economy so poor was it so difficult to recruit a top flight sales rep? When he started the search 9 weeks ago, he felt confident that he would have it wrapped up by now. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth.

“Over 30 interviews and I’m not really impressed with any of these people” thought Dan to himself.

He pulled the schedule for the rest of the week up on his computer and groaned. Hardly an open hour remained. “Maybe I should just hire one of these people and hope for the best” he considered as he once again shuffled through the pile of resumes.

His hand paused mid-thought as he reflected on what had happened the last time he had gone down that road. It had been over 5 years ago but the painful memory still lingered. “What a bust that was. Not only did he only last in the job 6 weeks, but our largest competitor instinctively knew we had compromised our hiring standards. They’d stayed out of the territory when we had an A player in place, but this industry is so incestuous-everyone knows everyone-that they rushed in once I hired the best of the mediocre. I certainly don’t want to be sitting here 6 weeks from now starting this process all over again from scratch.”

Dan’s eye turned to his Blackberry and it’s most recent message. “Update on Sniffer New Product Introduction at 3 pm Today” read the subject line. “One more reason not to compromise”, thought Dan. “This person is going to need to not only get up to speed on the existing product line, but this new product is going to challenging to explain to our prospects. Great potential, it could be huge for us, but I really need someone who is going to catch on quickly.”

Realizing he had made his decision, Dan picked up the phone and placed a call he had been hoping to avoid. “These search consultants are awfully expensive, I was really hoping to do it myself, but I just don’t see how I’m going to find the person I need on my own.”

What makes your unique sales story compelling and interesting is the layering of facts it contains. At the early stages of the story, when your prospect is still considering in their mind whether to pay attention to you, we need to make them care about what you are communicating. If you think about stories that didn’t engage you, often times the reason was because the problem they focused on just didn’t seem to be “that big a deal”. By infusing your story with the consequences that can occur we make our prospects care. And that’s a very important step since if they don’t care about the problem they certainly won’t care about the solution. And if they don’t care about that, the odds of them becoming a paying client become very long indeed.
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Want me to write a client attraction sales story for you? I’m actively seeking a couple of great clients who are the “best kept secret” in their market. If that’s you and you’d rather be well known and in high demand, email me (mark@gentlerainmarketing.com) and I’ll send you the most current PDF with a list of the services I offer and the reasonable fees I charge.

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