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Think back to the last time you were asked about what you do. How excited were you to talk about your company, the products and services you sell? How easily did the stories flow about the amazing things you do for your customers?
If you’re a small business owner or sales manager and this seems a little corny to you, your response could be slowing down your sales growth and de-motivating your salespeople. The simple truth is that your salespeople can never be more motivated than their boss when it comes to flying the corporate banner and engaging prospective customers in profitable conversations. Your ability to tell your “story” in a compelling manner cascades throughout your business and impacts everyone in the team. If you’re wondering why your salespeople are failing to motivate prospects, a good place to start is looking in the mirror and being honest about your personal ability to tell your story in a manner that compels others to want to do business with you and share it with others.
Here are five things you can do as a business owner to make your sales story more compelling and enable everyone in the team to share it with passion.
#1 – Define the problems you’re solving for customers
People are significantly more motivated to solve problems rather than take advantage of opportunities. The more you and your salespeople define what you do by the problems you solve, the more interested others will be in what you can do for them. As a small business owner, it’s important to remember that even though you sell drills, customers want to talk about hanging shelves and painting. Go through the last 10 significant deals you and the team have won and facilitate a discussion around the problems you solved for each new customer. This will give you a great starting point for developing a more compelling story around the problems you solve for your target customers.
#2 – Quantify the value of the problems you solve
If your salespeople are constantly facing price-focused buyers, there’s a good chance they find it difficult to explain the value your products and services deliver. Help them quantify value more effectively by defining comparisons they can use. If we go back to the drill example, make sure they know how much a tradesperson costs per hour and what their minimum charge would be to come out the house and hang those shelves. When your people know this will cost $150, they will feel a lot more confident about selling the $80 drill set.
#3 – Give them a compelling comparison
DeLonghi radically improved sales of its $299 coffee making machine when it introduced a much more expensive $699 version. Previously, customers were comparing the $99 machine to the $299 machine, which made it look more expensive, and made it difficult for customers to justify the extra $200. The more expensive $699 comparison made prospective customers feel more compelled to purchase the middle option and able to justify the extra $200. Have a think about what you could compare your product or service to that would highlight just how much value you’re delivering. If we go back to our example above, it’s easier for your salespeople to sell the $80 drill when they compare it to the $150 visit by a tradesperson.
#4 – Don’t start writing proposals until you’ve brainstormed your compelling headline
Every great story in a newspaper starts with a headline and that’s the first thing the journalist writes before they move on to the body of their story; proposals shouldn’t be any different. By challenging your salespeople to explain their compelling story in a headline before they start writing their proposals you’ll improve their ability to tell more compelling stories. You’ll find that this tends to improve the quality of your proposals and shorten the time it takes to write them.
#5 – Play the “So What?” and “Why does that matter?” game
One of the reasons many businesses fail to ever achieve the ability to truly tell a compelling story is that they’re too polite. What I mean by this is that when asked what the compelling story is the salesperson says something like, “It’s all about the service” and everyone nods and moves on. The problem is that this on its own really isn’t very compelling and there’s a high probability your competitors are telling the same story.
The game goes something like this…
"Whats the compelling story for this deal?"
“It’s all about the service.”
“Why does that matter to this prospective customer?”
“They don’t have any experience in drilling holes.”
“So what?”
“Once they get home they’ll probably have a bunch of questions and if they don’t have anyone to call they could make a mess of the wall when they start drilling.”
“Great – so our compelling story is that they don’t need to worry about their lack of experience because we have a team available to guide them through the process once they leave the store and get home.”
This is a really quick example and normally the compelling story is about 4 – 5 “So whats” and “Why does that matters?” into the discussion.
These are just a few ideas on how to make your sales story more compelling. Make sure you take the time out to discuss this with your team and do whatever it takes to ensure everyone in the business is genuinely excited and able to tell your compelling story.
Download the 7 Tips for Accelerating Sales Performance ebook to learn how experienced sales managers are improving the ability to sell as a team.
Dean Mannix is a Founding Director and Principal Consultant at SalesITV – Australia’s leading online sales and customer service training company. He has over 20 years of legal, finance, sales and management experience and is regarded as one of Australia’s leading performance consultants. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
