Storytelling is a powerful tool that can be used in sales and in business to connect with and persuade potential customers or clients. It allows you to bring your products or services to life and create an emotional connection with your audience.
One of the main reasons storytelling is so effective in sales and business is that it helps to create a deeper understanding of the product or service being offered. By using storytelling to illustrate the benefits and value of what you are offering, you can help your audience to better understand how your product or service can solve their problems or meet their needs.
Storytelling can also help to build trust and credibility with your audience. By sharing real-life examples of how your product or service has helped others, you can show your audience that you are a trusted and reliable source of information. This can be especially important in the sales process, as it can help to build confidence in your ability to deliver on your promises.
In addition to building trust and understanding, storytelling can also help to differentiate your business from your competitors. By sharing unique and compelling stories about your products or services, you can help to set your business apart and make it more memorable in the minds of your audience.
Finally, storytelling can be an effective way to engage and connect with your audience on an emotional level. By using storytelling to tap into the emotions of your audience, you can create a more compelling and persuasive sales pitch or business presentation.
How can you make sure to tell the right story to your audience?
- Step away from the technicals-sometimes it’s not about the product descriptions and value propositions. Try to talk less technical and more on a personal level. Make the Impersonal…Personal
- Go For Transparency & Create Trust-Subtle sales pitches despite being subtle can easily get all the “eye rolls” from the customers. Be transparent, be honest, and put your audience at the top of your priorities. Look…greatest movies of all time didn’t become great because they were writing for the box office and for that final revenue. Yes, money is important at the end of the day. Tell the right story, and keep your audience interested, and you will end up closing too.
- Use Empathy-give your products meaning. find a way to communicate and connect with your audience. What pains do they experience? What is your product trying to solve? What triggers the right emotion in your customers? Have you ever been on a familiar road and not realized how you got to your destination? Because when experiencing familiarity our brain makes decisions faster. When you are on an unfamiliar road, you will experience more fatigue, you might get frustrated rather quickly and feel like you are drained. Same with stories. If your story is unrelatable, doesn’t spark any emotions, and/or has too many options and characters, the audience will experience fatigue quickly and skip away.
- FOMO…NOT the Right Solution-Did I just say that? Yes…FOMO plays into a few negative things…Anxiety, Depression, and overall negative emotions can impact your brand but also impact your audience. So, what can we do to replace our FOMO in the story? To Replace That with a Feel-Good Ending! Let’s not temporarily rush customers to your brand while leaving them with this negative feeling in their subconscious. Instead, let’s follow the old-school journey of storytelling. The bad (Problem), The good (The Hero- Your Solution), the Challenges the hero experiences along the way, and finally the overcome of the hero over the bad/evil.
- Remember…You are telling the story to your customers…NOT your managers-Many times…marketers’ stories will reflect the will of the executives rather than the will of the customer. Remember who needs to buy from you…It is your customers and not your executives. So listen to your audience…learn from them…understand their habits…I don’t find this weird at all. I rather get 100% relatable advertising than have to wait 45 minutes for unrelatable ads to finish. I rather listen to one good brand story than hear 150,000 brands telling me the same line over and over again.
Dove Did It Right!!!
Chevrolet did it Wrong!!! (Stereotypes)
Did you watch the two videos? What happened when you saw the first video? How did you feel? What about when you watch the second one?
Chevrolet’s ad was a great attempt to relate to an audience that they did not understand very well. This desperate attempt continues for a while until they finally get to introduce the car. Both videos make an attempt to work with the audience’s emotions. Only one succeeds in getting the customer to want more.
Now…
Will you buy from Dove or will you buy from Chevrolet? at that moment maybe you will buy from none of them. However, down the line, each story they tell will become a way to get you closer to the finish line. One will leave you with a feeling of joy and happiness and therefore good about your decision. One will push you away or create a barrier between you and the product.
Original post on Linkedin: linkedin.com/pulse/want-increase-sales-start-telling-story-right-behtash-moojedi-mba
