Imagine a lizard sitting on a rock in the hot sun. Bored, motionless, its mind completely blank. Unfortunately, that's how many execu
tives feel when they hear an IT Presentation.
After 30 minutes of blather about SaaS, IoT, and QoS, they scan the
room frantically looking for a pencil to jab in their eye.
Nobody is going to care about your presentation unless you are able to translate your beloved acronyms into business concepts that your customers value
The best way to do this is through an illustrative story
.
Most salespeople don't even bother to tell a story during a sales presentation. That's called a "show up & throw 
up". The meeting ends when the customer looks at their watch, shakes it to make sure it's still working, and says "sorry, I'd love to stay longer, but I need to go to my root canal appointment".
When salespeople do tell a story, it often falls into one of two categories:
- Short & Boring: "our customer had a problem, we heroically fixed it, and they love us"
- Long & Boring: "it was a Tuesday afternoon about 1:30, and I was driving down I-66 on the way to a meeting in Fairfax and blah blah blah ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
How to Tell a Great Story
Every interesting story has an "arc", which introduces the characters and situation, provides some kind of conflict, then delivers a resolution.
A Simple Story Formula
Here is a formula to organize your sales story. It's simple, easy, and extremely effective. If makes sure there's enough detail to make it interesting, provides context, and it ties back to a customer "care-about".
This This model comes from Bill Whitley and his book
The Story Advantage.
Whitley calls this the "Client Attraction Story", and it has five components:
1. Background: Just enough detail so your customer can relate to the story. Who, what, where, and how it's relevant to your prospect.
2. Journey: What is your customer's goal? What are they trying to do, achieve, accomplish? This is the component of the story that most salespeople leave out.
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Bad Guys Make the
Story Interesting |
3. Obstacle; What is preventing the customer from achieving their goal? Who is the bad guy? What is the problem?
Problems and challenges make the story inter-esting, and your solution relevant.
How fun would Batman be without all the villains?
Bruce Wayne = Boring rich guy.
..
4. Solution: What did YOUR COMPANY do to resolve the issue and slay the dragon? Don't skimp on this part, this is the magical elixir, the medicine that provided the miracle cure.
5. Results: What did your customer experience once you worked your magic? What was the ROI?, the Better-Faster productivity? The improved Customer Service?
.All the best presenters and salespeople are good storytellers. Your customers will forget your bullets and acronyms before they leave the room.
They'll remember a well-told story for months. Take the time and effort to craft relevant, interesting stories, and then look to insert them into your sales presentations.
Tell more stories in your presentations!
No more "Lizard Looks"
