The Sales Power Of Stories
Even if your sales presentation is technical and necessarily packed with complex
, detailed information, a powerful personal story will significantly increase your sales presentations impact. Not only can a well-crafted story help clarify your message but it can also engage your audience by touching their human side.
Think about your sales presentations overarching message and then find a way to illustrate that message in a personal way. The story can be amusing or touching, small or large in scope. But if it is well chosen, it will capture the attention of your audience and keep them interested.
Stories can enhance your presentation in three ways:
1. Add credibility
Research shows that audiences are much more likely to believe information related in story form than if conveyed through statistics. Rather than quoting dry percentages to prove your products worth, try telling a story about how it changed someones life.
2. Increase retention
A buyer is much more likely to retain your message if you address not just their analytical brain but also their creative side. A good story activates a listeners feelings and stimulates visual images. With a more complete intellectual response, your buyer will find your message more meaningful and more memorable.
3. Build rapport
When you tell a story, you build a communication bridge to the audience. As they follow the narrative, they share in your experience. Whatever the message you want to convey, it will be better received by an audience with whom youve built a relationship through informality and candor.
The structure of a story matters. Every story should have three main sections: the introduction, the main part and the conclusion. Start off by referring to a specific time and space, i.e., When I was a child growing up in a suburb of New York The central section is where you build the story with details and characters. The end should carry the impact of the story and refer back logically to a key topic in your presentation.
Here are some dos and donts for effective storytelling:
* Be humble as you describe a personal challenge. This is not the time to crow about your successes.
* Be vulnerable. Dont hide what you are really like.
* Be relevant. Do select a situation with which your listeners can identify. Dont leave them out of the experience by talking about an incident so uncommon that they cant relate to it.
* Be real. Do create characters and breathe life into them. Dont neglect their emotionsthis is where you can capture the audience on a deeper level.
* Be unique. Do give each character a voice and some individuality. Dont allow your characters to blend into one.
* Be specific. Do add details that flesh out the narrative. Dont overlook the small touches that enhance any story.
* Be dramatic. Do include dramatic conflict. Dont neglect the tension that any struggle creates in the story and in the audience.
Our last bit of advice is one you hear often: to succeed you must practice, practice, and practice.
Tell your story over and over. With each telling you should revise your story; remove details that dont enhance the story line and tell it more quickly. Your objective is to see that the story flows easily and there are no unnecessary and confusing detours. The more you practice, review and edit, the more powerful your story will be.
by: Russ Silva
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