BASELINE SELLING WEEKLY TIPS

Voice Mail - Stories That Make Selling Sense

Today's Baseline Selling Tip is about the lost art of story telling in sales. I receive many compliments from readers of Baseline Selling about the stories in my book. The two most talked about stories are the Tennis Story on page 9 and the story on page 88 about selling knives to a girl and her mother. The Tennis Story explains how I learned the importance of goal setting and the most effective way to reach those goals. The knife story describes how I really learned to sell along with all of the unexpected events that took place on that call. Both stories engage the reader, are packed with action and dialog and cause the reader to say, "Oh, I get it."

Stories are one of the most important components in selling yet story telling isn't taught!

Stories engage your prospects but most salespeople don't use them.

Stories are a non-threatening way to change people's minds yet most salespeople would rather recite the facts and expect people to say, "Oh, I get it."

If all it took were some facts to get people to change their mind we wouldn't even need salespeople! People are stubborn and often resist a salesperson's attempt to persuade them. But stories are a whole different ball game. Prospects will listen to a believable story and react positively because they weren't told what or how to think. Instead their thinking was modified as a result of the story line.

Do you use stories? What are some of the most challenging points your prospects resist? Would a story about someone just like them, who eventually came around to the preferred way of thinking, help you make your points?

Baseline Selling includes 16 stories, some just a paragraph long, others a few pages. Reread some of the stories to better understand how they are used to make the point in the chapter.