吃瓜头条

Craig Valentine remembers when he was a teenager going to buy his first car. He walked onto the lot and found the model he was interested in, but then a salesman approached.

鈥淗e said, 鈥楢re you looking at this car? Let me tell you about it,鈥欌�� Valentine says. 鈥淗e said, 鈥楾his car has this type of windows, this type of motor, this type of tires鈥欌�攈e was trying to sell me the car. And I said, 鈥楾hank you, I鈥檓 not interested.鈥欌��

Valentine soon found himself at another dealership, where the salesman took a different approach: 鈥淗e said, 鈥楢re you looking at that car? Oh, you鈥檙e going to look good in that one. You鈥檙e going to be flying down the road, the wind will be blowing through your hair, and the girls will be all over you.鈥� Well, what do you think I did?鈥�

Valentine, a member of Randallstown Network 吃瓜头条 in Pikesville, Maryland, and the 1999 World Champion of Public Speaking, bought the car from the second dealership. What made the difference, he says, was the story that brought the experience of the car to life and created an emotional connection to it.

鈥淲hen I give speeches now, I tell that story and always say to my audience, 鈥楬e lied. I was lonely in that car.鈥� I get a big laugh out of it,鈥� Valentine says. 鈥淏ut I think it鈥檚 important for the audience to realize鈥攄on鈥檛 sell the product, don鈥檛 sell the service. Always sell the result.鈥�

And the best way to do that, Valentine says, is through stories. Adding a story to your sales pitch can hook an audience, create an emotional connection, and enable listeners to remember your main points weeks after the presentation.

鈥淚 always say, 鈥楪ood speakers speak to be remembered; great speakers speak to be repeated,鈥欌�� Valentine says. 鈥淎nd the way you get repeated is by sharing stories. It鈥檚 important to be able to share stories that [the audience] can walk away with and repeat.鈥�

Types of Stories

Steven D. Cohen, Ph.D., professor of practice at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in Maryland, is also an advocate of using storytelling in sales. It鈥檚 the best way, he says, to make an emotional connection with an audience.

鈥淚f you can share a story that鈥檚 revelatory, that鈥檚 insightful, that helps you connect authentically with your audience, then listeners are going to respond in kind emotionally, and they鈥檙e going to be more attached to you and your message,鈥� he says.

Among the stories that resonate most with audiences, Cohen says, are origin stories and client success stories.

Origin stories explain how and why a company got its start. They often focus on the founder of the business and how they got their brilliant idea on which to base their company.

Client success stories put audience members in the shoes of someone who benefited from a product or service. 鈥淢aybe it鈥檚 about a time that a customer or client was a little resistant to what you were selling, and then they became a believer, or they bought in to the idea,鈥� Cohen explains. 鈥淲hy did that happen? Where did the transformation occur? What moment moved the needle? That鈥檚 a great type of story to use in a sales pitch.鈥�

Aspirational stories are Valentine鈥檚 favorite, and they take client success stories one step further by switching up the flow into a format he calls 鈥渢hen, now, and how.鈥�

鈥淵ou tell a story about where your customer was before they met you鈥攖hey probably weren鈥檛 in a very good place,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hen you fast-forward to where they are now, doing really well. And of course, what the audience wants to know is how? And the how is your product or service.鈥�

4 Elements of a Good Sales Story

Cohen says a good sales story has four elements:

1. A vivid and memorable setting.
2. A relatable character.
3. A plot where the character encounters a challenge and makes a choice that leads to a resolution.
4. A moral or conclusion that reinforces the message.
   

Think, for example, of someone on vacation in Hawaii who is frustrated by their inability to stand up on a paddleboard. They decide to sketch out an idea for a device to help, and work with a manufacturing company to create and market the device. The next time they are on vacation, they are finally able to experience the joy of stand-up paddleboarding.

鈥淲hat we鈥檙e trying to do is help people develop an emotional attachment to that product, service, or company, and that鈥檚 where stories and anecdotes come in,鈥� Cohen says. 鈥淭hey create that magic, that connection, that emotion that鈥檚 so critical in sales to deepen the bond between company and customer, or between service and client.鈥�

Using sensory details like sights, sounds, and smells can help bring a story to life, Cohen says. In the case of the paddleboarder, you could describe the sunlight on the water, the smell of sunscreen, and the cry of the seagulls to help your audience visualize the scene.

Tell It at 吃瓜头条

Cohen and Valentine both say a great place to hone your storytelling skills is at 吃瓜头条 meetings, where you get feedback on your presentations and have a low-stakes venue to see what works and what doesn鈥檛.

Cohen, who started 吃瓜头条 right after college, says the feedback he received from those meetings provided an incredible opportunity to learn effective speaking early in his career. 鈥淚 ended up going into storytelling and speechmaking as a professor of business communication, and I think that 吃瓜头条 played an early role in inspiring me and motivating me to push the boundaries of what was possible, both for myself and for others,鈥� Cohen says.

By crafting relatable, motivating stories and practicing telling them to an audience, you can enhance your sales pitches by making them more engaging and more likely to be repeated.

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