Founder and Managing Partner | Wolf & Heron.
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Most tech salespeople understand that stories are important to developing relationships and building trust. They throw around the term “storytelling” and try to build stories into their sales pitches and demos. But despite their efforts, they may not see their sales numbers improve. Sometimes it’s because their stories aren’t really stories at all. Other times it’s because tech salespeople lean on storytelling that is too literal and data-heavy that their product or service isn’t understandable.
What’s missing is that the salespeople are not looking at what can truly influence a prospect and integrating that into their storytelling. Not all stories are created equal, and by focusing on what makes a story influential, tech salespeople can dramatically shift their conversations. Here’s a look at the common mistakes and what to do differently.
1. De-emphasize data and analytics.
The tech industry as a whole has a reputation for focusing on data and making data-driven decisions. On the surface, this can seem quite logical and reasonable, but human beings are inherently motivated by and make decisions based on their emotions—logic is only needed to justify the decision after the fact. Very often, tech salespeople have a ton of data and analytics that supports why their product or service is the right choice: It’ll save time and money, reduce risk or increase productivity. But to land the sale, consider a less data-centric approach.
Tell a story that offers insight into the big-picture value the prospect will experience by relating it to a concrete experience or feeling that their clients already know. This paints a much more compelling reason to buy. Brené Brown first bristled at being called a storyteller because she perceived herself to be a serious research scientist. But upon further thinking, she was quoted as saying, “Stories are data with a soul.”
2. Include emotional experiences.
The second most common storytelling challenge for tech salespeople is that their stories lack emotion. Emotions are quite literally physiological experiences. When a story triggers an emotional response, the story becomes experiential. This makes the story more memorable and the salesperson who shared it more compelling.
One of the most effective and straightforward ways to bring emotional experiences forward in a story is to simply replace the word that describes the emotion ("she was frustrated") with a physiological description of that emotion's experience ("her fists balled up and her jaw clenched"). This creates a physiological response in the audience members, thereby making the story more experiential.
Many salespeople are challenged to see emotions as suited for the professional world. But emotions are at the core of the human experience and they connect us to each other. A story without emotion isn't just boring, it's unrelatable and lifeless.
3. Be a part of the story.
The final mistake technical salespeople make is that they neglect to include themselves in the stories they tell. In some cases, salespeople tell a customer success story they have no personal connection to, or they share the story of the company as a series of milestones with nothing about how those milestones are meaningful to them.
The big miss here is that by eliminating themselves as relevant actors in the story, they remove any opportunity for the audience to connect with them. Instead, choose and shape stories that have personal relevance, and make sure that comes across. By sharing what is meaningful to you, you invite your prospects to connect with you. At their core, stories are a tool for building connections.
Influential storytelling is about more than just describing what happened (“the plot”) or leveraging a case study in the sales process. Anybody can do that. Salespeople who take it further by going beyond the data, engaging emotion and including themselves in the story can be more compelling and effective; influential storytelling builds rapport, establishes trust, illustrates a big picture, communicates complex data and inspires clients to buy into your vision.
The next time you have a sales conversation or you are coaching your sales team, challenge yourself to use stories particularly aimed at influencing others.
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