The ability to create compelling stories takes a lot of practice and can be complex at times. Lucky for us, we aren’t trying to write a novel. Well, I guess I am writing a book, but your goal is to engage with your prospects.
There is a basic structure of a good selling story—characters, situation, problem, solution, question. Let’s take a look at each part.
Characters - Who are the characters of your story?
Situation - What is going on with the characters?
Problem - What is the problem that your characters face?
Solution - How do your characters solve this problem?
Question - Follow up with a question to keep the conversation going.
The reason why a selling story can be effective is because it captures the attention of the prospect and gets them to forget they are on a cold call. Selling stories are great for making a point that can help you persuade the prospect later on in the call when you are asking for time on their calendar. In order to accomplish this we must follow the structure above to make sure that we hit all the components that go into a story. Let’s walk through an example of a story built using this structure.
Characters
“It’s funny you brought that up. Last week I was speaking with one of our long time clients. She’s been the director of customer support for 30 years at ABC company and trust me, she will make sure you know about it.”
Situation
“She was telling me how things used to be early in her career. Her team consisted of 30 customer support reps. It was her first time in management and she felt a little over her head.”
Problem
“One of the issues that kept coming up for her was that the customer support reps would not update all of the information that they were supposed to when completing a ticket. She kept reminding them but they still forgot.”
Solution
“She came up with a simple idea that she was very excited about. She went to Kinkos and had a checklist printed for every rep, detailing each step required when completing a ticket. She had the list laminated. I guess that was the thing to do back then. Anyway, she put the checklist on the desk of every one of her reps and that solved most of the problem. She told me the reps were forgetting to input the data because they didn’t have a process for completing a ticket. What I learned from her is that simple ideas can have a huge impact.”
Question
“Anyway, I thought her story was great. I’m curious about your process though. What have you tried to get your reps to input data into the system?”
As you can see, this story is on the longer side and this is on purpose. If you are looking to tell a short story than take a look at the FFFF we covered in the previous chapter. The purpose of a longer story is to make a point. For example, the story in the example above is making the point that simple ideas can have a huge impact. This point is relevant because our goal is to book a meeting where we show the prospect our product or service, a product or service that is simple and makes a huge impact. Here are a few tips on how to create better stories.
Tip #1: Your story should relate to your prospect
If it doesn’t, they won’t listen to a word you’re saying. The first part needs to get the prospect to visualize themselves as the person in the story. Of course, relating to the prospect’s situation is the broader concept that applies to your entire story as a whole. The reason why we want to start our story off with something that is relatable is because we want to grab the prospect’s attention and get them to listen.
Tip #2: Your story should draw a comparison
The comparison should be between your prospect and another person who overcame the situation that your prospect is in. It is very common to feel like problems are unique when that is typically not the case. Making a comparison is a great way to show the prospect that they are not alone and that there is a solution to their problem.
Tip #3: Your story should illustrate the solution to the problem.
When telling a story about someone who overcame a challenge, it’s important to explain how they were able to do it. This does not mean you should start pitching your product or service. It’s not the time or the place for that. Simply explain how they were able to overcome the challenge and, when it’s time to talk about your product or service, a connection can be made.
Finding Inspiration for Your Story
Now, before you buy a funny hat, quit your job, move to the woods, and become an author, you should probably know how to find creative inspiration. This is the fun part and you have a lot of options for how you go about this.
The Case Study
The first thing you can do is adapt a case study that your company already has. A case study is a detailed example of a company’s before and after using your product or service. If you don’t have access to any case studies, you will have to create one yourself or try a different method for inspiration.
Stories from Other Salespeople
Another way to find inspiration is speak with some of the salespeople at your company. Ask if they’ve heard any good stories from clients or have any good before and after examples to share. This can serve as a great way to learn about the impact your product or service has, as well as hopefully inspiring you to write a great selling story.
Personal Experiences
You can always use your own experiences. This often creates the best selling stories. Don’t worry, you don’t even have to be that interesting to make it work! Your natural instinct might be to ask yourself “What interesting stories do I have?” Odds are you will come up blank.
What I recommend is choosing a specific time in your life and start from there. For example, ask yourself what you were doing when you were 20. Put yourself back in the shoes of a 25 year old you and take a look at what was going on then. What did you do for work? What did you do for fun? Who did you hang out with? What else did you do? Repeat this for different times in your life and see what memories pop up.
Just remember to snap out of it at some point, because we need you back on the phones.
Story Presentation
Constructing a compelling story is only half of the battle. You need to be able to tell that story to the prospect in a way that captivates them. At first, you may have a bit of a challenge with this; telling a story over the phone can be difficult. As you get more comfortable speaking over the phone, your ability to tell stories will improve as well. Over the phone, your tone of voice will play a huge role in how captivating your story is. The prospect cannot see your body language, so all they have to go on is your tone, word choice, and energy. This is like those old radio programs before the world had television—they used voice to paint the picture.
Tone
The tone of your voice always has a huge impact on how you are perceived on a call. Bring storytelling into the mix and it just adds to the importance. Vocal tone is a tool you must use to build credibility, rapport, and trust. When you are early in your sales career, you may find yourself sounding like a robot. This is because you are reading from a script and trying not to mess anything up.
If you want to improve your tone you need to do two things. First, listen to your own call recordings and then, listen to the call recordings of a person you believe has a great tone of voice. What differences do you notice? The person you would like to model your tone of voice after speaks deliberately. They are comfortable with pauses and they speak with a high level of confidence. Below are a few tips I’ve found to be helpful for people looking to improve their tone.
Tip #1: Control your rate of speech.
Most tone issues come from someone speaking too quickly because of nerves or excitement. Be very conscious of your rate of speech and slow yourself down, if necessary. Speaking too fast will give the prospect the impression that you lack confidence and aren’t worth speaking with. Write th
e word “SLOW” on a sticky note and put it on your computer monitor. Whenever you see it while on the phone with a prospect, let it remind you to control your rate of speech.
Tip #2: Avoid the end of sentence uptone.
This typically happens at the very end of asking a question. During the last few words of that question your pitch may increase, getting higher and higher. This hurts your credibility because it will seem like you lack confidence and that you don’t know what you’re talking about. To break this habit, practice asking questions while maintaining a strong, level tone of voice.
Word Choice
The words you choose have a direct impact on the prospect’s perception of you. Your word choice should change based on who you are speaking to. Have you ever noticed that you start using the same words and phrases as the friends you hang out with the most? By choosing words that your prospect has used or that you feel fit their personality, you can build rapport quicker. You will also be able to keep the prospect engaged in your story because you are speaking in a way that resonates with them.
When in conversation, try and pick up on words and phrases that your prospect uses often and write them down. For example, if the prospect you’re speaking with uses the word “wonderful” whenever they talk about something they like, you have an opportunity to alter your word choice to match theirs. For instance you might want to say “The cool thing about automating your client follow up is…” If you alter your word choice to fit the prospect you may say “The wonderful thing about automating your client follow up is…”
When you tell a story make sure your word choices fit with the person you are speaking with. You may be able to use words or phases you’ve heard used earlier in the call. If you are unable to pick up on any unique words or phrases, use what you feel will resonate with the prospect. This takes practice, but once you get the hang of it you’ll be able to build rapport faster.
Energy
When telling a story you have to stay engaged and keep your energy level high. It’s very easy to sound scripted while telling a story. Energy is a tough subject to write about because it’s something that you hear and feel. Think of all of the best storytellers you’ve listened to. Think of the way they enunciate their words, how they pause, what they emphasize. All these things come together to give them an energy you find compelling.
This isn’t to say that you should try and mimic the style of a great story teller. You need to have your own correct energy for the story that you are telling. Just remember how they do it and apply your own personality to the story you tell.
If you’re talking about a failing business that was able to turn things around, you should start with somber energy. Once the story becomes more positive, your energy needs to pick up as well. Movies use music to make us feel the way they want us to at that moment. Watch The Grudge without turning on the sound and the movie will just be about some lady with long hair. We can’t play music during a call, or at least I have never tried. For our energy to captivate the prospect we must be just as invested in our story as we would like them to be.
Creating Your Cold Call Character
One of the most powerful stories that you have is your own. Unfortunately, you won’t have the opportunity to tell this story to your prospects because they don’t have all day! This comes across over the phone by how you communicate, I call this your cold call character.
Your cold call character is an “on phone” personality that prospects recognize you as. This is what they visualize when they hear your voice. If Mark Cuban gave you a call would you hang up on him? Probably not, because he has a personality that transcends a cold call. This is what we will create in this section. The goal is for you to walk away with a vision for how you want to be perceived over the phone.Then, it is your job to execute.
Creating your cold call character is broken down into four parts: attitude, character, backstory, and experiences. Attitude is how you come across on the phone. Character is who you are as a person. Backstory is why you are the way that you are. Finally, experiences are the actual events that got you there.
Attitude
When creating your cold call character you must consider what your attitude is and how you respond to people responding to you. The reason why it is important to define this is because it will dictate how you come across in all situations, even ones that are unexpected. If you do not have your attitude defined, then it will change throughout a call. This has a negative impact on the person you are speaking with because you aren’t consistent. Answer this question… using one word, how do you respond when someone asks you a question? Possible answers may be: thoughtfully, helpfully, informatively, curiously, confidently, energetically. What you may find is that you want more than one of these. This is normal, but for now, you must pick the one trait that is the most dominant. For our example, let’s choose confident.
Using one word, how do you respond when someone asks you a question?
Confidently!
Character
Being clear about who you are as a person is a key element necessary for having presence over the phone. You know who you are as a person, but your prospect doesn’t. Most people don’t constantly represent who they really are and this is because we are so used to surface-level dialogue. Surface-level dialogue works great when you’re ordering coffee or asking a coworker how their weekend was. When you’re speaking with a prospect over the phone and want them to see you as someone who is high value, you must present yourself as such.
Answer these questions:
Question: What does your character sound like?
Example answers: Knowledgeable, energetic, calm, thoughtful, intelligent, confident, an expert.
Question: How does your character build credibility?
Example answers: Controlling the call, asking insightful questions, telling relatable stories.
Question: What value do you bring to the prospect?
Example answers: Industry expertise, infectious personality, innovative ideas. Below are the answers for our example character profile.
How You Might Answer These Questions
Question: What does your character sound like?
Your Answer: An energetic problem solver.
Question: How does your character build credibility?
Your Answer: By referencing other customers who have experienced similar problems.
Question: What value do you bring to the prospect?
Your Answer: Creative thinking backed up by industry expertise.
Backstory
The backstory is the most fun part about building your cold call character. The reason why is because you get put together a character version of yourself. The backstory that you create doesn’t have to be a mirror image of your own. You should have some fun with the story and ham it up a bit to make it memorable. Create a paragraph backstory following this structure. Where does your character come from, how do they view the world, what are they like when no one is looking, and what do they believe happiness is? Check out the example for our character profile.
My character is a good old southern boy who lives in the moment and is quick on his feet. He views the world like a giant playground and is excited to overcome any challenge that is thrown his way. He is passionate and positive even when no one is looking, he wears his heart on his sleeve. Happiness is spending time with people, laughing, and talking about life.
Experiencesd
The final step is collecting experiences that make you… well, you. These come in two forms. The first is knowing your life “path” and the second is having a few go-to stories to tell in different situations. Know your life “path” is another way of describing what your character has done. In our example character profile we might say something like this…
Character path story: My character grew up around a lot of family and had a very close re
lationship with them. He went to school with his siblings and cousins and there were social events every weekend. After high school my character went off to college and didn’t have any family around. He had to rebuild this family structure with new friendships, which he did. This experience gave him the ability to build relationships quickly. He has the same mentality when it comes to selling—family first.
The second part is having some go-to stories that you can actually tell to prospects over the phone—stories that fit with your character. Take a look at the next example.
Stories to tell prospects example: I’ve been to Michigan before, with my family. We camped there by a lake and I’ll never forget how beautiful it was, watching the sunset on the water while telling funny stories around the campfire. Have you ever camped there?
Here is our example character profile fully built out.
Using one word, how do you respond when someone asks you a question?
Confidently
What does your character sound like?
An energetic problem solver.
How does your character build credibility?
By referencing other customers who experienced similar problems.
What value do you bring to the prospect?
Creative thinking backed up by industry expertise.
Character path story: My character grew up around a lot of family and had a very close relationship with them. He went to school with his siblings and cousins and there were social events every weekend. After high school my character went off to college and didn’t have any family nearby. He had to rebuild the family structure with new friendships, which he did. This experience gave him the ability to build relationships quickly. He has the same mentality when it comes to selling—family first.
Stories to tell prospects: I’ve been to Michigan with my family. We camped out by the lake and I’ll never forget how beautiful it was, watching the sunset on the water while telling funny stories of the campfire. Have you ever camped there?
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