It looks like Bob Parsons, founder & CEO of GoDaddy.com will join the ranks of newly minted billionaires as his company is acquired my KKR.
One thing I love about Parsons is the joie de vive with which he lives his life and runs his business. Case in point, his rules for success. You can read them HERE
All good points to keep in mind for all of us.
Talk soon
Mark
For the 5% who are committed to getting outside their comfort zone when it comes to attracting more affluent clients.
I’m fascinated with disconnects.
The disconnects between what we know we should do…and the reality of what we actually do.
The disconnects between what we think we’re good at…and the reality of our skill level.
And since I focus on marketing, and specifically the stories we develop and use to differentiate ourselves and build curiosity and interest in our services, I’m also fascinated with the disconnects around sales stories.
So where’s the disconnect and why’s it important?
I don’t think too many people argue against using stories to sell invisibly. The often quoted Fortune magazine article of a few years back did an excellent job of pointing out the power of stories, and countless sales training programs and books have advocated the use of stories.
No, the disconnect doesn’t lie there.
The disconnect is that although sales professionals, business owner and consultants all agree that sales stories are a powerful selling tool, in reality they don’t use them much.
…Or as much as they think they do.
There’s two reasons for that.
First, people don’t have a process or system for creating and communicating stories. Which is why so few people are really good at it.
Second (and even more importantly) people don’t have stories prepared.
They don’t see the need. After all “I’ve been telling stories for years. Got a million of them. Pull them out whenever I need.”
Sure.
The problem is that you just can’t make up stories when you’re in the heat of a sales call. Way too much pressure.
Plus, if you don’t get all that many times at bat…only a few opportunities to actually talk with a real-live prospect…the overwhelming tendency is to bring out your “solution” bat at the first hint that the prospect has a problem you can solve, and start just whacking the poop out of the poor person.
Sure…we think we’re good at using sales stories, but in reality most people aren’t.
And I can prove it.
Ready?
Think about the top three reasons (aside from price) for why prospects don’t do business with you.
Got it?
OK, now go ahead and pick one of those. The really big one that comes up time and time again.
Let’s tell a story that will overcome that. Take some time to get prepared. I’ll do a start/stop.
OK, ready?
Start…
Now…
……Stop.
Is that story all cued up in your brain ready to go?
What do you mean, that wasn’t fair? Of course it was.
The reality is that in a real live sales situation you would have had just a little less time than it took you to read that exercise to pull from your subconscious, the story that you would tell to address that really big objection you face.
Not so easy to make these up on the fly, is it?
Which underscores the importance of having lots of stories prepared in advance. Which brings me to “strategic” storytelling vs. “tactical” stories.
When I first talk about using stories to sell more effectively, people tend to think that what I’m referring to are “success stories” or maybe a story about your company.
Those are part of the game, but only a small part.
If you want to sell without it ever really being apparent that you’re selling (aka selling invisibly) you need lots of stories that cover all the components of the sales conversation.
Such as stories for each of the objections you know are coming your way.
Puts developing and using stories in a different light doesn’t it?
I know that when the light went on in my mind that using stories was going to be a more effective way to get remembered and differentiate myself from the competition, I thought the implementation of that approach would be the proverbial piece of cake.
Stories would instantaneously appear when I needed them.
Not even close.
It wasn’t until I started developing and warehousing the stories that they became a tool I actually used. My “Velveeta” story for overcoming the objection that you can do this internally…my “New York City” story for addressing the objection that we know how to do this already. (I shared part of that story with you today when I had you complete the exercise of “do you have a story for the biggest objection you face?”)…the list goes on.
So…how did you do on the little test? Maybe there’s a bit more to this than meets the eye.
If my coaching to help you develop great stories is outside your budget, you certainly ought to grab a copy of my book. It’s helped a lot of people, perhaps it will help you too. You can get it HERE
Talk with you soon,
Mark
Related Links
Want me to coach you on creating an arsenal of great sales stories? Go here and sign up for a free consultation.
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
Marshall Coltrain gazed at the shattered window from which protruded a branch that had until most recently housed his 8-year old daughters swing. With a sigh of frustration and fear he contemplated the wreckage and mused to himself, “Damn I hope this is covered.”
****
Although the casual observer would never guess, Vice President of Operations, Dan Townsend emerged from his staff meeting in a rage. “What is wrong with these people? They can’t get along for two minutes without adult supervision. There’s no way I’ll get the process control system implemented by July if this back-biting and petty snipping doesn’t come to halt. I wish I could just fire the lot of them.”
****
It’s often been said that most important sentence is the first one. It’s goal is to get you to read the second sentence. There is a similar thought process when developing unique sales stories. The goal of the first paragraph is to hook your reader. To engage them in the story that is about to follow. Arguably the opening paragraph is the most important section of your unique sales story.
Great sales stories revolve around a problem. The gap that exists between the current and desired state. However when creating sales stories we need to do more than just state what the problem is. That is seldom enough to draw the attention of our reader or listener. There are two other elements that need to be introduced along with the problem.
The first of these are characters. All stories need characters, and in sales stories they need to be people that your prospects can relate to. If you’re selling insurance, a good character would be the victim of a flood or storm. If you’re in the leadership advice business, the main character would most likely be an executive who is frustrated with internal communications, organizational silos or overt corporate politics. In other words, the main character, the person who suffers from the problem, needs to closely resemble the prospect you’re targeting.
Secondly we need to combine the problem with what is referred to by writers as “context”. This is the place in which the story occurs. Leave this out and the chances of losing the attention of your reader or listener substantially increases.
It’s important to remember that in the opening moments of your story the reader is not only digesting what you are communicating, but also making a decision about whether she wants to continue reading or listening. Which is the reason why an effective opening hook is layered with more details than one might initially assume.
Let’s take a look at how these three elements, Problem, Character and Context blend together to create a strong opening for your sales story. In order to do that I’ll refer to the examples at the beginning of this article as illustrative examples.
When you read the two opening story lines one point becomes immediately apparent; they’re very specific. One is obviously a sales story that is focused on home owners insurance. The other is perhaps a bit less obvious to the general observer, but the target audience would recognize it as a story that will focus on leadership. Very specific messages to very specific markets.
This is important and spells the difference between stories that command attention and those that get ignored. Given the fact that everyone is busy, it would be ideal to be able to write one story that appeals to everyone. Unfortunately that is extremely hard to do and the fields are littered with the carcasses of sales stories that never worked for precisely that reason.
For example, this commonly occurs for consultants or sales professionals who define their market as, small businesses. Unfortunately, defining your market that way is a bit like saying, “Let’s go eat American food.” You just haven’t narrowed down the options enough. From a practical perspective small businesses usually doesn’t think of themselves that way. Rather, they define themselves as consultants, manufacturers, retailers or something far more specific.
In order for your sales story to ultimately do it’s job it needs to be targeted to a very specific niche. The world is just too crowded and noisy. If the message isn’t specific, it’s simply ignored. Thus, defining a niche market is the crucial first step.
Let’s examine the opening sentence from the first example: Marshall Coltrain gazed at the shattered window from which protruded a branch that had until most recently housed his 8-year old daughters swing.
There are a few points to take away from this opening sentence that will help you in the development of your sales stories. First, name your characters. If your story is a composite, simply put an asterisk next to the name. That leads to a disclaimer box at the bottom your page. Although I claim no legal expertise on this, I use language such as The following consists of an illustrative example and no representation of any real person, living or dead is intended.
Naming your character makes your reader or listener care about the problem they face. They need to be able to relate to the person if they are eventually to buy into your recommended solution. As those in fundraising know, tell me about 1,000,000 people who are dying in Africa and I’ll turn a blind eye. It’s just not something I can relate to. However, tell me the story about Orphan Sam who is forced to live on the streets and eat bugs to survive, and I’ll whip out my checkbook.
We also want to provide as much background context as possible. Is he married? Single? Kids? The answer is immediately apparent by telling your reader that the tree branch until recently housed his daughters swing.
Here’s a tip for writing context into your sales story. Start by just writing the descriptive sentence. “The tree crashed through the window.” Now ask yourself, how can I make this more interesting?
We know now that the first step is to name the character. What else? Picture the event in your mind. Visualization is key for writing effective stories. What part of the tree came through the window. The trunk? A branch? What was on the branch? You get the idea.
Let’s take a look at the second sentence. With a sigh of frustration and fear he contemplated the wreckage and mused to himself, “Damn I hope this is covered.”
Two helpful points to keep in mind. First try to use emotion when you are writing. Words such as “frustration” and “fear” let us know about the state of mind of our main character. Again this is important in order to have our reader relate to the story.
(As an aside, I suggest that you first write out all of your sales stories. You’ll find that it’s easy to convert stories from the printed page into the spoken word. Plus, the discipline that it takes to actually write out a sales story will ensure that yours have the appropriate amounts of context and detail.)
Secondly, particularly in your written sales stories, you want to include dialogue. This will make your stories come alive. The dialogue can take the form of both conversations between characters, as well as internal thoughts. , “Damn I hope this is covered.”, brings our character to life and serves to highlight the specific problem that is being faced. In fact with just 6 words we’ve effectively zeroed in the subject of the rest of the story.
If we look at the second example we see that it also includes character, context and problem. Although the casual observer would never guess, Vice President of Operations, Dan Townsend emerged from his staff meeting in a rage. “What is wrong with these people? They can’t get along for two minutes without adult supervision. There’s no way I’ll get the process control system implemented by July if this back-biting and petty snipping doesn’t come to halt. I wish I could just fire the lot of them.”
If you are creating sales stories in the business to business market, it’s often a good idea to give an organizational title to your character. This not only adds a layer of context to the story but it also sends a clear message as to who your target market is.
In this example, there is more detail provided about the specifics of the problem. Dan is under a deadline to get a project complete and his staff is continually fighting among themselves. Certainly a scenario that many project leaders in organizations both large and small can relate to. If this sales story is marketed to senior level executives it is likely that will capture their attention. Again the combination of character, context and problem, when combined together in the opening paragraph, serve as an excellent hook to draw our reader in.
****
If you would like for me to develop a unique sales story for you simply send an email to me at mark@gentlerainmarketing.com with the words “Unique Sales Story”, or something like that in the subject line.
Jason Cornish was a habitually early riser. As a result, the offices of Wakeman Industries were usually dark upon his arrival. Threading his way through the warren of cubicles, softly lit by the morning sun, Jason stopped for a brief moment outside his office.
He’d left early the previous day-the unopened and unread mail still in a pile on the edge of his assistant’s desk. With a sigh Jason picked up the bundle and began to sort through it.
As the Vice President for Human Resources for a $750 million diversified manufacturer, Jason seemed to be on the hit list for every consultant and headhunter on the eastern seaboard. It wasn’t that he didn’t use their services, in fact he was desperately in need of some specialized assistance, but finding just the right advisor was quickly becoming much harder than he anticipated.
One thing was certainly clear-he wasn’t going to find what he needed from his existing network of contacts. That track had been lapped multiple times. Thus, he’d put the word out three weeks ago that he was open to learning about new firms and experts. Since then, the trickle of white papers and reports that came across his desk had turned into a veritable tsunami.
“The problem”, thought Jason, “was the mind-numbing boredom of sorting through all this. Damn, can’t any of these consultants learn to write something that someone might actually want to read?”
He stared blank-eyed at a 37 page, embossed report with the grab-them-by-the-eyeballs title of, “The Integrated Implementation Of Leadership Values-How The World’s Most Successful Companies Achieve Superior Performance Through An Empowered Workforce.”
“Amazing”, reflected Jason, “could they get a title that was both more consulting-speak and yet more boringly generic? There’s got to be a real art to that. I wonder if they teach that at Harvard.”
Jason put down the report with a sigh and glanced at the pile in front of him. Something got his eye. Yes, it was another white paper, but there was something about this that caused him to pause. Perhaps it was the first sentence. It read:
“They all look the same to me” thundered Mike Sullivan to his assistant, “How in the world do they expect me to decide who to hire if they all sound, look and read the same?”
Jason reached over and picked up the report. “Now this is different”, he thought, as he settled back in his chair and began to read.
It’s estimated that less than 10% of business books that are purchased are actually ever read. If business books that someone actually pays money for are so seldom read, how small is the readership of white papers and free reports? And more importantly, how can we increase that percentage?
To find an answer we conducted an admittedly non-scientific study. Two follow up surveys to people who had requested two different free report. Let’s see how many of the reports actually got read and if anyone remembers anything about them. Although the two companies that agreed to participate in our non-scientific study offered different services, they were both in the human resources consulting field.
Off we went to see what we could learn.
In the first study we enlisted the services of a call center and placed calls to 275 people who had requested our client’s free report. We reached 195. The rest didn’t respond to repeated voice mail messages although we stated the purpose of the call. Despite positioning the call as “research”, it’s fair to guess that some percentage of them thought this was just a disguised sales pitch.
Of the 195 we talked with, a meager 23 said that they had actually read the report. Follow up questions made it clear that an additional 60% had started to read the report, but quickly gave up. That turns out to be a very significant statistic.
The subject of the report we were tracking discussed 7 mistakes that executives commonly made concerning a particular business problem. We asked the 23 who said they read the report to name 4 of the mistakes. How about 2? One? To their credit 75% of those we spoke with were able to name one mistake.
Admittedly many of these mistakes were somewhat “blinding grasps of the obvious” so it’s hard to determine whether they knew the answer as a result of reading the report, or whether it was knowledge they already had. Still, given the amount of work that this company had put into writing and producing the report, these results were sobering.
On we went to our second survey.
Our sample was slightly smaller, consisting of 226 people who requested the report. However, 101 people agreed to speak with us. Again the report’s message focused on mistakes executives made around a particular business issue. When we asked a series of similar “recall” questions, an impressive 65% could name 3 or more of them.
Obviously the second report resonated to a far greater extent than the first one. Even more importantly, the message from the second report was remembered and retained.
So what was the difference? I imagine you can guess the answer. In much the same way as our lead character Jason Cornish, introduced in the beginning of this chapter, was drawn to one of the white papers that sat on this desk-so too were our survey participants drawn to one report and not the other.
The simple difference? One conveyed facts. The other told a story.
Certainly something to think about.
*************************************************************
Need a Unique Sales Story that differentiates you from your competition? Send an email to mark@gentlerainmarketing.com and we’ll set up a time to talk. Please reference this blog post. Thanks!
Let me tell you a quick story, and while it may not appear so, it actually does tie into the topic of this article.
Has this ever happened to you? You go to a restaurant that you’ve never been to before. Place looks nice. Perhaps the menu is a bit more extensive than you thought, so you ask your waiter/waitress/waitperson (or is it server/servess/serve-person?), what’s really good?
What do you so often hear?
“Well, we serve a lot of the chicken.”
That’s an interesting answer but it’s not the question we asked. However, according to restaurant consultant Michael Simmons, it is the answer that most people are happy with.
Michael explains: “What we find is that most people want to make the safe choice. Thus if the server tells someone that a restaurant sells a lot of chicken, the patron feels that they are making a good decision. Of course what is not really ever answered is whether the chicken is actually any good.”
The point to this brief story is that this same sort of mentality is also found among business owners and consultants when it comes to marketing or promoting their business. In fact the first step that most owners take when embarking on a “let’s get some new business” initiative is to visit the websites of companies who offer similar products or services.
That’s actually not a bad first step. However, it’s what takes place next that is the usually colossal mistake. Instead of looking at the competition and then doing something different, what is the far more typical reaction? They look at the competitor’s site and then copy it. In marketing circles this is what is often referred to as “the mad rush to the middle.”
“Hey Joe, I see that our competitors have a headline on their website, ‘Will you have enough money for retirement’. Maybe we should be that too.” And companies wonder why prospects have a hard time differentiating between them.
If you want to stand out in a crowded marketplace the solution isn’t all that particularly difficult or complex. There are really only a few steps to the process.
First, create a unique signature sales story about who you are, the problems you solve and the benefits that clients get from working with you. The key word here is “unique”. Make sure that it’s a story that no one else is telling. How do you do that? One simple method is by having the characters in the story be you, your friends, your clients and associates. Another simple way to create uniqueness is to tell the story about why you’re doing what you’re doing. How did you get into the business? Why is this your passion, or at least a strong interest in you life? No one can tell that story but you.
The second step is placing the story somewhere so that people can get it. A simply one page website is the easiest way to do that. Basic one page websites with an opt-in form cost less than $300 to put up.
Now, here’s a tip that’s real important if you want to get lots more clients banging at your door and giving you their business. Make sure that you only tell part of the story on your website. Give them enough that they’re hooked and want to learn more. Give them enough so that they say to themselves, “This is different from what I’ve read on the last 10 websites I’ve visited. I’d be interested in learning more.”
Naturally, in order to learn more and get the rest of the story they have to opt-in and become a subscriber. Now you’ve got permission to send them additional emails or newsletters that tell additional unique sales stories that build trust, credibility and eventually motivate large percentages of them to take action.
Once you’ve got this little teeny-tiny one page website set up, then it is simply a matter of getting the word out so that you get visitors coming to the page and reading your story. There are lots of ways to do that: social media, advertising, direct mail, videos, speaking, articles, the list goes on and on.
But it all starts with the unique sales story. The one that only you can tell. The one that won’t be found on your competitor’s website.
So the next time you’re in a restaurant and you hear, “We sell a lot of chicken.” Don’t accept that answer (either for yourself or your business). Ask them again. “No, what’s really good?” And then take a look at your website and marketing materials. Are you communicating what’s really good about you? What’s unique?
**********************************************************************
This sales letter made me a lot of money. I’d like to share it with you for FREE. Go get it HERE
To say I was frustrated would be an understatement. I had been a member of this peer support networking group for over a year. I had not only explained in a presentation to the group what I did but had made a point to take each member out to lunch to make sure they understood. Look, you can’t get referrals if people don’t know who you are and what you do, so I wasn’t leaving any proverbial stone unturned.
Our meetings were always on the third Tuesday of the month. Occasionally our group leader would invite an outside speaker to come in. That’s what happened on a fine spring day in June, and led me to sitting in my car fuming at the unfairness of it all.
Jim Brinkman is a pretty impressive guy. He’s obviously a polished speaker and his stories about the marketing problems his clients faced are entertaining, well told, and make a lot of good points. Although Jim was technically a direct competitor to me, I found that I was enjoying his presentation a lot. So too were the other members of my peer support networking group.
“Great presentation” intoned Alan Jameson, our group’s leader. “When you were telling us that story about how you helped that chiropractor differentiate his services, that reminded me that I’ve got someone who could really use your help.”
“Your right Alan”, said Tom Treadway, who for the past 11 months had sat to my left at these meetings. “My neighbor only last week said that he needed some help in updating his sales messages-here, let me give you his name.”
I sat there in stunned silence, hardly believing what I was hearing. “These leads would be perfect for me!”, I thought to myself. “Why haven’t you guys talked to me about them?”
The meeting quickly broke up and 10 minutes later there I sat in my car pondering the unfairness of life. “Those ungrateful jerks” I steamed, “I’ll show them. I’ll be damned if I ever refer them any business.” Round and round I went, in an amazingly effective display of mental consternation.
Until I eventually ran out of steam and I began to reflect on what had just occurred with a bit more patience and perspective. “Maybe they don’t like me. Maybe they don’t trust me. Maybe they don’t think I’m competent.” I didn’t know what the answer was as to why I wasn’t getting the referrals I so desperately wanted, but I was bound and determined to find out.
Among all of the group I was the closest to Laura Sinclair. So a couple of days later I invited her out for coffee. I was determined to get an answer to why Jim Brinkman after one 30 minute presentation had received the referrals that had eluded me for 14 months.
“Look Laura, I’d really appreciate your candid advice. I’ve been a member of this group for over a year and have barely received any referrals. This guy Jim Brinkman comes in and picks off two great ones in less than an hour. What gives? Do people not like me? Trust me? Think I’m not competent? You’ve got to help me here, I’m really frustrated.”
Laura’s answer both surprised me and set me on a new path. One that ultimately increased my monthly referrals from zero a month to over a dozen.
“No Mark” Laura said, “It’s got nothing to do with any of that. Everyone that I know really likes and respects you. I guess it’s that we just don’t really understand what you do for clients. To be completely honest, I’m not 100% sure who you work with and what kinds of problems your best at solving. I know you’ve gone to great pains to educate us on that but I’m afraid that it either didn’t sink in or somehow just didn’t register.
When Jim spoke to us I found that I was interested in the stories he told. Even if I couldn’t directly relate to some of them-there was that one about a chiropractor and I never been to one-the problem that the chiropractor faced is similar to issues I’m dealing with. The fact that he told us interesting stories enabled me to understand what he did, who he worked with and the types of successes his clients achieved.”
To say that a light bulb went off in my head would be a little over-dramatic, but that doesn’t minimize the importance of the message. As I reflected on what I had communicated in my presentations to the group and in the one on one meetings, I realized that it had been a laundry list of facts about what I did. Boring, completely forgettable facts.
What made Jim’s presentation interesting? What made it memorable? What motivated the audience to refer people to him? The simple difference was that he told stories. As my friend Laura said, “People don’t remember facts, but they do remember stories.” Once I shifted my communication strategy to creating and communicating unique sales stories, the number of quality referrals I received dramatically increased.
**************************************************
This sales letter made me a lot of money. I’d like to share it with you for FREE. Go get it HERE
OK perhaps the title of this is a bit grandiose, but it did get your attention. After all who want to read or listen to a sales story that’s dull or boring?
So what goes into the best sales stories? Although we can’t always pull this off, the best stories are ones that spark the imagination. Stories that enable us to visualize a desired outcome or experience. This last point is very important to keep in mind.
When we buy something, whether it be a tangible product or a service, we’re really not buying the “thing”. That’s not what primarily motivates us. What we crave is the experience that the purchase will give us. Buying a fancy watch doesn’t enable us to tell time any better. However when I purchased my first Rolex, it was the physical manifestation of a level of success I had achieved. I realize that it sounds somewhat silly as I type this, but I wanted to show the world that I was no longer someone who aspired to own a Rolex, I was someone who had achieved a level of success that enabled me to do so.
Much research has been done about the purchasing behavior in the luxury marketplace, and this desire to show “success” is a primary motivator behind the purchase of expensive cars, pens and other status objects. Thus, the more we can connect to the desires that our audience has, the more our story will resonate with them.
OK, that sounds find in theory, but how exactly do we do that? Here are some thoughts to keep in mind.
First, you need to write for a specific audience. One that you know and understand on a very deep level. This is the reason why niche marketing is so important. What we want to strive for in all of our sales and marketing stories is to have our readers and listeners see a reflection of themselves in what we are communicating. Not surprisingly, in order to do that, we need to target our message.
Secondly your story needs characters. To quote Stalin, “One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.” If your story has characters that the reader or listener can relate to, the greater attention they’ll pay to what you have to say. Not surprisingly, the one of the best characters for your story is yourself.
Which brings me to a very important point.
However, despite knowing that I needed to tell stories and that stories needed characters, my first attempts at creating unique sales stories were mostly forgettable. The problem was that my character, me, wasn’t particularly sympathetic. My early stories were all about my successes and accomplishments. Looking back on those early attempts, it appears that I sprung into my profession without a single misstep along the way. Of course the reality was much more different. In fact my wife is often fond of saying that she wishes that I could get it right the first time just once.
Showing vulnerability wasn’t easy for me. I equated it with showing weakness. However, it was clear that my stories were not resonating with my audience so I figured it was worth a try. The results were significant. What I found was that by sharing this information, I showed that I wasn’t all that different from those who I was writing and speaking to. The only difference was that I was maybe a few steps ahead. What I knew I had learned from others, and from trial and error. It was that hard won wisdom that I wanted to share.
When I developed stories from that perspective, I found that I developed a deeper bond with my audience. By not focusing so intently on trying to convince people that I was an expert in my field, I somewhat ironically found that I was accomplishing just that.
Which leads me to the third piece in the puzzle. My wife Marian is a strong believer in what she calls “your authentic voice”. For more years than I care to admit, I looked at the style of those who seemed successful and tried to copy it. My thinking was that if it worked for them, it should work for me too. What I failed to realize is that the reason it worked for them was because it was their authentic voice, not mine.
The worse experience came when I spoke at a local Rotary group. I adopted a sales style that worked quite well for one of the well-known gurus in my field. Unfortunately it left my audience cold. In fact one lady wrote a note to me in which she stated that she “loathed” my presentation. Feedback like that certainly makes one rethink their approach.
I won’t say that my authentic voice was developed overnight. The real key for me was to relax and not worry about how others might perceive my message. To paraphrase Popeye, “We are what we are.” Once we accept that and focus on delivering our message rather than on impressing others, our authentic voice comes to the surface. Want to learn more? This may be of INTEREST
If there is one problem that perplexes business owners more than others, it’s, “How do I differentiate my business from the competition?” This is a particularly challenging issue for services businesses.
So how can a consultant, advisor, or other services provider differentiate themselves from the competition? What’s the best way to stand out amid an ever increasingly competitive world? For many of the most successful companies the answer is increasingly to focus on telling stories. If you want more referrals or word-of-mouth buzz, telling stories about who you are, what you do and the benefits your clients receive by working with you, is one of the most powerful marketing strategies you can implement.
Unique sales stores can be used on your website, in your sales letters and your stay-in-touch communications. One of the great benefits of marketing using sales stories is that you can reuse one story multiple times without it losing its effectiveness. If one observes those companies that receive the greatest amount of referrals, the one factor they all have in common is that they are adept at developing and disseminating stories about their business.
What makes stories such powerful tool if your goal is to generate more referrals for your business? The primary reason is that stories are so much easier to remember than facts. If I tell you that an architectural firm has offices in Atlanta, St. Louis and San Diego, that information is likely to go in one proverbial ear and out the other.
However if I tell you a story about how the Atlanta office successfully bid on a project by drawing from the talents of one of their team members in the St. Louis office who had worked on the venerable St. Louis arch, and another from the San Diego office who had an intimate understanding of environmental design from work she had done at the San Diego zoo, the dynamics have changed.
First you are much more likely to actually remember the story. This is crucial. Not surprisingly the first step to getting referrals is having people actually remembering what it is that you do. Although this sounds simple and obvious, it’s actually pretty difficult to get your business remembered amid all the noise that exists in the world. Stories help enormously in that regard.
However, stories go far beyond simply increasing the likelihood that people will remember who you are. The true power of stories is that they intrigue people and make them curious to learn more. By engaging this natural curiosity, sales stories motivate readers and listeners to want to learn more. This is what is often referred to as selling invisibly.
Here is an interesting example for how this actually works. The sales letter that is credited with generating the largest amount of revenues is one that was written well over 40 years ago for the Wall Street Journal. This is how it began:
“Take two men. Both graduates of good universities. Both hardworking and ambitious.
Flash forward twenty years and one is in the corner office commanding the attention and respect of hundreds. The other toils amid the legions of middle managers in a largely obscure position. Why did one ascend to great heights and the other plateau so early?”
What made this letter so effective? The answer is simple. It told a story. As a result it creating curiosity and engaged the imagination of the reader. They wanted to learn more. They sincerely wanted to learn the answer to: “Why did one ascend to great heights and the other plateau so early?
This format for writing a sales story, called among copywriters as “Take Two People” is one of the most widely copied sales letters. It has been used to sell everything from consulting services to higher education.
So what types of stories could you tell about your company? What are the success stories that others would be interested in learning more about? Not surprisingly, creating excellent unique sales stories is both an art and a science. It is certainly far more than just simply sitting down and starting to type. There’s a process and system that makes stories interesting and memorable. It takes a bit of an investment of time and education in order to create stories that aren’t flat or lifeless. However, for virtually all business owners it is an investment that is well worth making.
**************************************************
This sales letter made me a lot of money. I’d like to share it with you for FREE. Go get it HERE
