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The Elements of a Compelling

Sales
·0 1) A Hero
·1 Every sales story should include a
protagonist that the buyer -- not
the seller -- can relate to. In other
words, the hero shouldn’t be the
company providing the product or
service or the rep who closed the
deal. It should be the person who
bought or used the offering to their
benefit. Thoroughly describe the
hero and clearly lay out the
similarities between hero and
buyer.
·2
·3 2) A Challenge
·4 After you set the table with the
protagonist, you should introduce
the challenge. Don’t just talk about
it at a high level -- explain how it
personally affected the protagonist
from their perspective.
·5
·6 3) The Change Process
·7 Yes, your product or service will
make an appearance in this
section. But it shouldn’t get the
spotlight. Your offering is at the
heart of the story, but it’s not the
whole story -- process, people, and
strategic changes that accompany a
 purchase are also essential
elements. Addressing the whole
picture and walking prospects
through the hero’s change process
step by step makes the story more
pragmatic and adds credibility. A
great story will be realistic about all
the factors that contributed to the
client’s success.
·8
·9 4) Results
·10 Don’t just end with the impressive
numbers -- “they saw a 25% ROI,”
“their lead generation increased by
50%,” etc. Include qualitative
results along with quantitative
evidence of improvement.
 Remember your hero: How did the
change process directly impact
them? If the protagonist got
promoted six months after the
project, bring that up. If they said
this was the best decision made in
five years, mention that also.
·11
·12 At each step, remember to
humanize it. Stories are told in the
first place because they resonate
better with people than pure data.
Too many use cases are about
companies, and they don’t relate
the situation through the buyer’s
eyes. Infuse people-centric
anecdotes at the start (“The CMO
 had been having a problem with X
challenge for six months”), in the
middle (“The CMO was forced to
choose between X and X”), and at
the end (“The CMO was
recognized by analysts as one of
the key revenue drivers”).
·13
·14 When to Tell a Sales Story
·15 There’s no bad time to use a sales
story, in my opinion. Top reps have
figured out how to use them in just
about every interaction with a
potential buyer.
·16
·17 You can tie a story to almost
 anything a prospect says. Here are
just three examples:
·18
·19 Understanding value. “We work
with hundreds of CMOs with
similar challenges. We understand
those challenges and have the best
practices and insights to help you.
Let me give you an example: we
were working with a CMO in a very
similar situation to you … ”
·20 Overcoming the “we already have
something in place” objection.
“That’s great. Many of my
customers came to me having X
product. As a mater of fact, I was
recently working with a CMO like
 you who had X product. His
challenge was … ”
·21 Overcoming a price objection.
“This guy who became a huge
client of ours originally had a very
tight budget with the CIO. Here’s
what he did … ”
·22 But in order to maximize the
potential of sales stories, there has
to be training involved.
·23
·24 I think a good way of approaching
this is to have the product marketer
frame the story and define how it
will be presented, but then employ
the salesperson who actually closed
 the deal to lead the training
session. That way, they can talk
about the specific points in more
detail, and answer any questions.
·25
·26 Then at a quarterly meeting, sales
leaders can devote some time to
having reps practice their
storytelling by presenting an
objection or situation, and asking
what story they would tell in
response. This will help to
systematize the technique. Story