Episode #207: Virtual Selling - Virtual Story Telling

We all know that buyers remember stories more easily than facts and data points. In fact, the ratio is twenty two times more likely than being able to remember simple detail. Data is like swimming in six foot surf. Each data point is overwhelmed and replaced by the next towering wave of data points. It just keeps coming, so that we are being bashed by the constant data waves hitting us. Stories on the other hand envelop us in a way where we are drawn into the detail. Because it is arranged in context, we can recall the details. Given this sale’s truth, you would expect salespeople would be storytellers extraordinaire.

Actually, they used to be! The sales rep would turn up with new funny jokes every meeting. They would tell stories about their product or service to the client, such that buyers looked forward to meeting them. Their only competition was newspapers, magazines and the radio. Then television appeared and buyers had other means of being entertained and what once worked in sales was lost.

Storytelling works and science can now tell us why. Listening to stories releases a chemical called Oxytocin into our system, which makes people feel more trusting, charitable, bonded and less anxious about trusting strangers. That sounds like the type of buyer I would want to be selling to, especially if they are a new client.

Stories are good but like everything, there is a degree of best practice required. Jokes are similar. Not everyone can tell a funny joke, which is why so few comedians make it. Unlike the good olde days, where we were competing for buyer attention against very few distractions, today we are being walloped by constant buyer preoccupation and sensory stimulation. This is the Age of Distraction and getting the attention of the buyer is not a given.

Authors of fiction, only have text to work with and so they make sure the first lines of their novel grabs us and persuades us to keep reading. Our sales story has to be the same. We have to break through all the clutter inside the buyer’s brain and pry open a space to pour our sale’s stuff in there somewhere. The first words out of our mouth, as we begin to tell that story, had better be very well constructed to monopolise buyer attention. The story needs to have a personal element to it. We can invoke the greats of the past to our cause, but we have to fit ourselves in there somewhere too. We can’t just relate a third party incident and leave ourselves out of the relevance of the story.

It also has to have an emotional element. This shouldn’t be hard, because most of us in business feel like crying most of the time, thanks to the economic disruptions of Covid-19 and how it is hammering our cash flows. Include a personal story about another client and the problem they had and how we fixed it. There has to be an emotional element to it, so that the listener can relate to the sale’s story more easily. Drama in narratives comes from conflict and challenge. These are in ample abundance at the moment too, so plenty of scope to get these elements into our story. We need to transport the buyer into the world of the sale’s story and give them a front row seat to the action.

The fact that we are meeting with the buyer online makes it more important to get this right. We are not able to bring all of our body language to the story telling and we can’t read the reaction to our words as easily as when we are in-person together. We need to draw mental pictures the buyer can see for themselves. We want characters in that story, some of whom they will know, to make it more relevant. We have to set the scene. We should be specific about where and when it occurred, who was involved, what happened etc.

This storytelling gig is not a reading from War and Peace. The story can be just a few minutes long, yet can trigger such a crystal clear image of our offering in application, that the buyer becomes convinced they need to have it. The secret is in the practice. Most salespeople love to practice on the client and then wonder why the result is a mess. A storytelling exercise is an art form. Where to put the emphasis with certain words, where to drive up or down the energy, where to pause, where to bring in the gestures, etc. How to speak every sentence with no ums and ahs, so we sound fully convinced and confident of what we are saying. We work all this out before we get in front of the client on screen.

Recording yourself is a good practice in rehearsal and do it while you are onscreen so that you get a sense of how you are coming across to the buyer. If you have slides for the meeting and you are relinquished to that small box in the corner of the screen, then practice that way. If you are half screen or full screen with the buyer, then record that version and see how you are coming across. Remember, the audio on many of these platforms is poor, so we have to pay special attention to our pacing to get the clarity we need.

Storytelling works, there is no debate about that. Do you work as a master storyteller? If not then time to get busy practicing. We have reached a point in time, where online meetings will become more common even after Covid-19 has been brought to heel. We need to adjust to this online medium as professionals and the time to start this process was yesterday.