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The salesforce.com blog is excited to be publishing a series of excerpts from Linda Richardson’s soon-to-be released book, Changing the Sales Conversation. The author is also the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company.
Convincing clients that you are the best person to close the deal is a difficult task on its own. Now throw in trying to form a long-term client-seller relationship, plus a stressful sales pitch, and you have yourself ingredients for a disaster. Completing all of these tasks (and then some) is no easy feat.
To make it easier, salespeople have developed the idea of incorporating previous success stories, examples, references, and research into their pitch. By doing so, it builds the client’s confidence in you and your abilities to get things done the way they want them to be done. Using previous success examples is only one of the many things Linda Richardson discusses in her soon to be released book, Changing the Sales Conversation.
Read an excerpt from the book here:
Clients are risk averse. By sharing past successes of yours, you build confidence in your ability to deliver results. A key competitive edge incumbents have is that because clients know them, they perceive doing business with them as less risky. Stories, examples, testimonials, references, research, and data are needed to give clients the confidence to make a change. Success stories are one of the most effective ways to persuade clients that you will deliver. They bring your solutions to life because they make results concrete. Clients remember stories better than technical details. Moreover, stories appeal to clients’ emotional side.
Jonathan Gottschall, professor and author of The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, points out that numerical and trend graphs evoke skepticism among people and provoke listeners to think of counter-examples, while stories “soften” listeners and “make them easier to influence.” This is not to suggest that graphs are not highly useful; a picture can be worth a thousand words. But graphs can be quickly forgotten. You will be more persuasive when you also personalize the numbers with a success story. Forrester data showed that only 34% of salespeople consistently use success stories and examples. Therefore, incorporating success stories is a way for you to give yourself a competitive edge.
To gain full impact from a success story, start by setting out the major business challenge. Then position the solution you provided and quantify the results. Conclude by relating the benefits to how your clients would also benefit. Don’t leave it up to your client to make the connection. Keep it brief. Success stories can be specific to your client’s industry or from a different industry as long as you make the connection clear.
For example, Emily landed her company’s first national retail chain by using a success story from the banking industry. She made the connection between the retail chain’s new strategy to attract upscale clients and her company’s deep experience and success with wealth management divisions of several major financial institutions. She showed how one client advanced from number five in market share to number two in one year. By linking the target audiences and sharing the impressive metrics she won her company’s first major retail relationship.
Dylan won three new relationships based on one success story in which his call center client did not lose a single inbound call during the big game and exceeded its revenue goal. The cache of the game's relationship, combined with the exceptional performance during halftime, gave his clients the confidence to move ahead with the purchase.
If your organization is not making success stories available and easy to access, ask your manager to lobby marketing to create a centralized source. Do your part by benchmarking and religiously following up with your clients during and after implementation to assess results, document measurable outcomes, and add to your organization’s library of success stories. Get permission from your clients so you can use them as references.
Linda Richardson is a New York Times bestselling author, educator, sales leader, and the founder of the Richardson consulting firm. She has dedicated herself to helping organizations around the world improve sales performance, process, and effectiveness. Richardson began her career as a teacher and firmly believes that great selling is great teaching—collaborative, relevant, and results driven.
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