We all know the importance of storytelling = a great way to engage, build credibility and bring others with you.
(“Facts tell. Stories sell.”)
So this and next week’s Tips give two examples of how you can create, perfect and tell your own stories – in ways that help you and the people who hear them.
Today’s is about success stories – the best way to share them with your colleagues, so they can learn from (ok, copy) something that’s worked for you.
(Quick story for you first! One of my customers recently used this technique to win £3million sales in a month. One of their salespeople had used a clever approach to win a new sale. I told them how to tell their story – and share this clever approach – with their colleagues, so they could copy it. And then everyone did copy it – winning all these new sales).
When you share your success story, you want people to be able to learn from/copy it. Otherwise it’s just you telling them what you did. Which, although interesting, might lead to ‘Well done! But how do I use any of what you did?’
So remember: ‘copy-able advice, not history lesson’
The template is:
- Outcome – your ‘wow’ point – what you achieved
- Delivered by – what you did, to achieve this outcome. Make sure to link it to the copy-able advice you’re giving. For example, if your copy-able advice is that people should ask for personal introductions, place extra-emphasis on the ask-for-intros-ness of it. Don’t just list everything you did
- Top tip/ FIRST STEP – ‘to achieve similar things yourselves, my top tip is XXX … and the FIRST STEP is YYY’ (the FIRST STEP shows them how to start their copying)
Example:
- We recently won a new customer who’d been with a competitor for 14 years. Nobody thought we’d win it. But we did
- The main reason we did so was because a friend personally introduced us to the decision maker. This helped us build credibility and trust with her. Which in turn helped us to X. And so, when the sales opportunity arose, we were ideally placed because of Y. Which led to us doing Z, which helped us win the work
- So my learning from this – and something we can all do – is to seek more personal introductions! And the FIRST STEP of this is finding someone who’ll introduce you! So, I suggest you review all your buyers from the past X months, and see who likes you and is well connected. And then contact them, and say ‘X’
Why it works:
- The upfront wow grabs them early. Most stories start with boring background. Don’t lose them then!
- The middle is high-level (not too much info), focusing on the specific bits you want people to copy (not a list of everything)
- The FIRST STEP makes it easy for people to start to copy you. Which is kinda critical – because when they don’t know where to start… they don’t start!
Action Point
- For your stories – use the above layout. Share your first draft with a friend, for feedback?
- For your team’s stories – suggest they use this layout. Share their first draft with you, for feedback?
- For both – once you’ve created it, practise saying it a few times, until it sounds brilliant