Discover the Power of Business Storytelling with Dave Bricker
Capturing the Right Customers Through Storytelling
Storytelling Strategies that Sell
Marketing fails when it sells conflict and not the transformation customers are looking to achieve.
As business owners we should always be looking for new ways to engage our audience and build on our potential customers.The importance of storytelling for your brand and business is not to be taken lightly. Storytelling is possibly one of the more effective ways to achieve your awareness goals, leads goals, sales goals- all goals you set for your business.
“The secret to getting noticed is storytelling,” stated Dave Bricker, award winning speaker and author, during his #BizHackLive webinar. Dave is an old friend and BizHack course alumnus who also happens to be a potent combination of an expert storyteller and technically proficient marketing pro. He shared with us concrete, digestible ways of elevating your storytelling techniques and strategies to relate, capture, and “sell”.
Recap: Discover the Power of Business Storytelling with Dave Bricker
Storytelling is IN in business
- Storytelling is now considered a business term.
- They are a powerful tool even if they are bad.
EX: We have all sat through a horrible movie because we needed to find out how the story ended. - Your journey, your story, if done right, can make people pay attention. They are a magic tool for doing just that.
Size does not matter. Your stories are big enough and powerful enough. The trick is to turn them into a metaphor for your listeners’ journey.
How to place your stories in the service of your audience
- Stories and the Brain
- We are hunter-gatherers by nature. Our native motor thought is to constantly scan the world for threats and opportunities.
- EX: If you stop on the sidewalk and look up, people will do the same wondering what it is you’re looking at- is it a threat or an opportunity?
- We are hunter-gatherers by nature. Our native motor thought is to constantly scan the world for threats and opportunities.
As a presenter and as a storyteller it is your job to keep things entertaining and keep the attention of your audience. Paying attention takes someone out of scanning mode and into the story.
StorySailing®
The golden rule of storytelling: Stories are always about people.
If you’re not talking about people, you’re not telling stories.
If you’re not telling stories you are not connecting.
If you’re not connecting you are not “selling”.
You’re not necessarily selling your product or service, you’re selling your credibility, your suitability, your ideas, your trustworthiness- we are all selling all the time.
People buy transformation!
Customers want to move away from the stormy seas of conflict and to the safe port of transformation. So much advertising/marketing fails because they are selling the conflict and not the transformation.
EX: If you try to get someone to stop smoking- showing them yellow fingertips and teeth, burnt lungs (conflict) will scare them away. Instead, they need to see themselves being able to spend time with their grandkids, finishing a 5K (transformation).
- Conflict has to be authentic
Remove the “why” from your customer. It all comes down to solving the survival level things (food, love, shelter, sex, status) that are prewired into the “animal” brain. If the conflict is not authentic we tend to say that the story, the person is not very deep. - Your “magic” is unique to you
Like the wind that will blow your sailboat around the world, your magic is a powerful invisible force. Your magic can be your insight, talent, experience, team, equipment, anything that is unique to you. Don’t talk about features, talk about what is special about you and your business that takes your clients from conflict to transformation.
[insert be a storyteller slide] – to find out more here
Business Stories That Don’t Work
- Time is Money- Anyone can sell hours, and a product or service. You need to find the clients who you can guide. It is your ability to take them from conflict to transformation that you need to sell.
- “Sure, you can have purple!”- Professionals don’t hire experts and then tell them what to do.
- The job will take 5 minutes- You are not charging for your time spent, you are charging for the years it took for you to master your craft. The value for your client is what you’re selling.
- It’s time to update PHP!- Skip the technobabble.Customers don’t want to know how it works, they want to know what it’s going to do for their business.
- I can do it cheaper- Change the conversation from price to value. Great clients aren’t looking for the cheapest they are looking for the business result.
Storytelling Strategies
- Sell outcomes
- EX: Real Estate listing: 8000 sq. feet (feature) compared to room for a growing family (appealing outcome); close to train station (feature) compares to avoid traffic and parking hassles (appealing outcome)
- Vote yourself off the I-land
- Explore the You-boat. Avoid using statements such a, “I think…”, “Let me suggest…”, “Our company…”
- Verbalize
- When you give a CTA (call to action) that customers don’t know how to do, you become the guide in their story. That is your sales pitch!
- EX: Promoting this webinar: How stories work compared to LEARN how stories work; Your magic power compared to SHARE your magic power
[insert find and share your magic slide] – to find out more here
