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In selling you often need to get your customers to change their thinking before you can make a sale.
And stories can be a very powerful way to do that.
Example:
In his excellent book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey talks about how you can change your actions and even your feelings based on how you think about a certain situation.
Stephen then uses a wonderful personal story to illustrate his point.
Stephen was enjoying a peaceful suburban train ride on a Saturday morning. At the next stop a man got on the train with a number of children. The children began running around the carriage, making a lot of noise and yet the man sat there and did nothing about it.
Stephen could see the other passengers were getting irritated with the disturbance and so he went over to the man. He asked the man if it would be possible to do something about his noisy children as they were disturbing everyone in the carriage.
The man looked up and apologised. He told Stephen that the children and he had just come from the hospital and their mother had just died an hour ago. He said that neither he nor the children were coping that well.
Everyone in the carriage heard the man explain his situation.
Suddenly no one was irritated with his noisy children. They all offered sympathy and asked how they could be of help.
As Stephen explained, the situation was still the same.
In other words the children were still running around and making a noise.
However the people were no longer concerned about this because they saw the situation differently.
And it's the same in selling.
Sometimes all your client needs is for you to tell them a good story to get them to change their thinking.
Example:
I remember speaking to a real estate sales team many years ago.
One thing I wanted them to think differently about was the importance of asking other top salespeople in their company for advice on how to improve sales.
So I asked the question: "Who is the top sales person in your company?"
They all knew who it was.
Out of nearly 500 salespeople a gentleman named Barry had been number one for several years.
"Great," I said. "Now how many of you in the last twelve months have rung up Barry and asked if you could spend a couple of minutes with him to get some ideas to improve sales?"
Out of thirteen sales people, not a single one had talked to Barry in the last year.
I then told them a story about a friend I had called Lance who was working for an opposition real estate company in the same suburb as Barry.
Lance had rung Barry a few weeks earlier and asked him if he would mind giving him some advice on a tricky real estate sale. And Barry gladly gave him one hour of his time (for free) to help my friend.
I explained that top sales people in most industries are quite happy to give advice. The big problem is they are rarely asked.
This story was very useful to get this sales team to change their thinking about asking the top sales people in their company for advice. (After all if an opposition salesperson could ask for advice and get it, maybe they should ask as well.)
If you are looking for a way to get potential customers to change their thinking (so they are receptive to what you sell) then telling an interesting story could be worth considering.
Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.
Robert McKee
Action Step:
What do you need your potential customer to change their thinking about before they can make a buying decision for your product or service?
What stories can you tell that would help them to change their thinking so they become more receptive to what you are offering them?
Stats NZ has revealed its latest Retail Trade Survey for the September quarter.