SALES IQ
sage, “Baby’s coming. On my way to Vassar Hospital. Meet me there.” She arrived at the hospital and found her husband waiting at the emergency entrance. Robin says she concluded her story by asking, “I’m sure most of your employees will never be in my shoes, but, if they are faced with an emergency situation, don’t you want them to have the most reliable way of communicating with you?” Her customer, Julie Donovan – who works for a construction company – said, “Being pregnant myself, I re- lated to her story; and it really showed me how important it is to have a reli- able alternate way of communicating aside from a cell phone. So I bought one for each of our 37 employees.” “I knew our product was a great fit for the company,” says Robin. “I just needed some way for my client to believe that, too.”
How to Use Stories to Sell LISA FERRARI
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but, in sales, sometimes a few well-chosen words can punch up your point with more power than any four-color brochure. But which words? That’s the key. A story that relates to the prospect’s situation can make a powerful statement with little selling on your part. Here’s an example.
Kelly Robin, a sales representative for a pharmaceuticals company, re- calls a personal story about how the reliability of the company’s pagers had helped her.
Robin had been working for months on an account with a local construction company. Her decision maker was five months pregnant. So Robin told a story about being preg- nant with her first child. While working for a pager com-
pany, she thought it was a great idea to give her husband a pager so they could be in constant contact. Robin says that, when her water broke, she immediately tried to call her husband from her cell phone – but kept getting that annoying message, “The cellular customer you are calling has traveled beyond the service area. Please try your call again later.” In desperation, she paged her husband and had the pager company type in this mes-
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POWERFUL TALES Telling the right story in the right way can be a powerful sales tool to dem- onstrate your sincerity to a potential client, says Frank Carillo, president of a communications company that offers consulting and seminars on ef- fective communication.
Carillo explains that using stories to sell is a form of persuasion. Relating a compelling anecdote illustrates the point you wish to make more power- fully than simply stating the point. This method appeals to your custom- ers’ emotions and can give you a decisive edge in closing a deal. While stories may be great closing tools, they also can be useful at other stages of the sales process. However, Carillo believes using stories works best as an icebreaker or rapport builder in the initial stages of contact. For example, an advertising ac- count executive used a story to win his client’s cooperation before landing a big account. He told about wanting a tree house more than anything else for his 10th birthday. His father was less than convinced that a tree house was a good idea. Consequently, he
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