Last week, I was with a client and chatting about the sales process. She had already had a couple of discovery meetings with a prospect and wanted to start providing some data on the property. She had prepared a deck with a ton of data. It spoke about how many people they reached, who the audience was by segments, what they did in their spare time, and their HHI (household income). There were several pages of graphs and charts about their own history as a property, how long they have been around, who was on their board and past board members (name dropping), etc. Finally, there was a half-page listing about ten of their existing partners—no info on them, just the names of the ten companies, some of which were household names, others very local or obscure.
I looked at the document and suggested we take a different tact in the upcoming meeting. I asked my client about the ten sponsors they had listed. I asked if all were happy, and if so, why. She was excited as she began to tell me about each one. For each, she had a story about their skepticism at first, how she custom-designed the package for them, and how they found success which they measured and exceeded goals annually. She also mentioned that some of them were there because they had spoken to others who were sponsors and raved about the success. She even noted that one had doubled their investment in three years and had signed a long-term deal. She was so animated and excited when she told these stories.
I then told her that instead of taking the document she had prepared for the meeting, we were going to go into the meeting and story tell. We were going to go in and tell the prospect about all the success her present sponsors have had. She went white as a ghost. She said, “I can’t do that? I am not a storyteller!” I laughed (not the best thing to do in front of a client), then said, “What the heck do you think you have been doing for the last 35 minutes telling me about the sponsors you have?” She looked at me and said, “That’s different. That wasn’t prepared storytelling. It was just me talking to you!” I retorted, “That is what storytelling is. It is just you telling your experience. Sometimes it is to one person, sometimes to three or four people at a table, or sometimes to a room of 50 or an audience of 5000, or through a video or podcast to hundreds of thousands. It is still just like telling me here in your office like you did.”
So off we went—and it went well. She produced no data (that would come later). The prospect asked about our audience and why we were a good fit for him. She told him three or four stories. He was enthralled. She mentioned a few others of the ten, but there was not enough time to tell the stories. He noted that he knew people at two of the companies who were her sponsors and he would be reaching out to them. Before we left, he showed us a document that another property had presented to him a week or so earlier. It was a “direct competitor” to my client. He quickly breezed through it and said, “This one is all about them—who they reach and such—all numbers. Thanks for telling me about your partners and their successes instead of yours. I am really interested in working with you because it looks and sounds like your partners are seeing success and good ROI. I need good ROI—not just audience numbers on a sheet.” That being said, he did ask her to bring some data on who they were, audience, etc. She said she would work to put that together and send it over. We kind of chuckled on the way out. She already had that data in a deck, but thank goodness she did not lead with it. But it is that empirical data (and the confirmation from the existing sponsors) that will secure the deal. We should know more in a few weeks.
For some great professional development through storytelling and understanding storytelling, be sure to register for the WSC Alberta Forum. It is just a month away and close to sold out, so get registered today!
© 2018. All rights reserved.