NYC customer service training

NYC NY Sales Training Case Study


Sales Training: How to Use Stories to Close the Sale in NYC NY

For thousands of years, one of the most effective ways to educate people has been through the use of stories. Important life lessons as well as entertaining fables have been passed from generation to generation via the use of stories.

Sales can be increased with you ability to tell stories, invoke emotion and hold our interest. Our imagination is engaged and we can easily picture what we are being told as the storyteller paints a picture with their words. We are told how the winds howl, the sky is grey as slate, the night was so dark we could not see our hand in front of our face, or everything was so still we could hear a pin drop. Each of our senses was awakened in the story. We were told what we heard, saw and smelled. We were told if we felt hot or cold, if we felt fear or excitement. The better the storyteller, the more they helped us experience each and every one of our senses as they brought us deeper and deeper into the story.

Why Storytelling is an Effective Sales Technique

Our prospects enjoy buying and prefer not to be sold. They want to make decisions that will benefit them and create value for themselves and those they are responsible for. They unconsciously see themselves using your product or someone else's and benefiting. They also may be picturing what would happen if they didn't purchase the product. Either way, they are envisioning things with their mind's eye.

In addition to what they are doing unconsciously, they are proactively weighing out the pros and cons of making a purchase. Does the purchase provide enough value to justify the expense? Does your product or service meet their needs? Would they prefer to buy from you or the competition? Both their emotional and rational thought process is at work deciding how they should proceed.

As Salespeople, We Can Influence Both the Emotional and Rational Though Process

The prospect is painting a picture in their head whether you choose to be the artist (storyteller) or not. Your choosing to proactively be the storyteller and the one painting the picture to direct what they see will significantly increase your close rate. You will close faster and more rapidly.

People buy more on emotions than reason or logic. This is important because when you are painting your picture and placing your prospect into the story, you want to tap into their emotions. You want to make them the hero rather than your products. The product is just a tool that helps the hero save the day. The prospect is the one that made the right decisions and the right calls. Of course, part of being right was choosing your product or service.

In the story, our hero satisfied many of his essential psychological needs. He was significant, gained love and connection as well as experienced variety or certainty. They may have also experienced the opportunity for contribution or self growth too.

One of the easiest ways to help the prospect experience satisfaction of their needs and emotions is through the story you tell. To bring the story to life, follow the basic rules of great storytelling. Use the senses. For example, a client in New York sold boats. The sales team was great at sharing their product knowledge and each of the attributes of their boats. Clients would nod in agreement and take lots of notes. Then they would need to think about it.

During our sales training and follow-up sales coaching sessions, the sales team became conscious of the power of story telling and to utilize it. They were passionate believers in the quality of their boats, they even had a lot of stories to tell from satisfied customers. Previously, they shared excellent, but dry, factual testimonials. After the sales workshop they began to fill the stories with emotion. They injected experiencing the senses into each testimonial. The entire sales process came alive for both the customer and the salesperson.

When they discussed the seaworthiness of the vessel, facts were surrounded by sensory experiences and psychological needs being fulfilled. They would discuss the prospect being off the coast of New York in one of their boats (our prospect, the hero, placed into the story).

They would discuss how a hurricane was coming in, and you could feel the swell of the waves as the they grew 6 to 8 feet. The sky was a dark and dismal grey as the clouds descended and visibility was cut to under 500 feet. You could taste the salt in the air and feel the roll of your stomach because of the stabilizers, shape of the hull, and size, as well as other attributes of the boat. They explained how the captain proceeded with confidence. In addition, because the vessel was so sea-worthy and classified as a true ocean-crossing vessel, the need for variety could be satisfied. The ability to take longer voyages with friends and family in comfort and safety, even when conditions became harsher, also helped satisfy the need for significance as well as love and connection.

The sales team was seasoned. They had stories of their own successful voyages as well as those of other boat owners. The more they brought stories to life, the more engaging their presentation became. Prospects now began to experience the boat ownership emotionally rather than just intellectually. Numerous aspects of the boat were now being discussed in more vivid ways. Some stories discussed seaworthiness. Others focused on how you anchored off a private beach in a hidden cove, lowered the tinder into the water, and embarked on creating the perfect day for the family. Another story was tailored to entertaining, or afternoons at the yacht club or a regatta.

Once they stopped solely showing/selling equipment features and started sharing testimonials based on other prospects' experiences, as well as creating stories that made the prospect the hero, three things happened: Close rate increased, average sale size increased, and repeat business and referrals increased.

Sales Training Exercise

  • 1. List major psychological needs satisfied by your product
  • 2. List prior clients that had that need satisfied and how they did it (I..e testimonial story)
  • 3. List how and what senses you could weave into a story to help your prospect be the star of their story
  • 4. Sketch out several stories you can use to sell your service or product
  • 5. Start using story telling to help close sales

Get Sales Training Info:

  • Role playing activities emphasize the information and tailor every sales method to suit your representatives individual personality and style.
  • Personal sales training consultations match the training to results that calm challenging customers fast and meet customer needs.
  • Limited class size to ensure individual attention.
  • Applicable sales training methods for the New York marketplace.

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NYC customer service workshops

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