Today, Paul Smith joins us in this episode of the Sales Leadership Show. He is the author of the captivating book Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust and Close the Sale. We dive deep into sales stories and how they can be leveraged to close more deals, as well as how to build a database for sales stories.

Resources:

LeadWithAStory.com

BOOK: Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale

Paul on LinkedIn

Book: Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire

Mind Tickle – A Sales Readiness Software & Sales Enablement

Transcript

Will Barron:

Coming up on today’s episode of the Sales Leadership Show, are sales stories a real opportunity to get more attention in the marketplace?

 

Paul Smith:

Yeah. And, of course, I’ll give you the non surprising answer, which is yes, of course. But I’ll try and be a little bit more interesting than that and the reasons why.

 

Will Barron:

Is there a reason why stories over thousands, tens, hundreds of thousands of years have that impact on those?

 

Paul Smith:

Yeah. I wish I had Richard Dawkins here with me to explain the evolutionary biology behind it. So I can’t explain the why, but you’re right that it is true.

 

Will Barron:

So that said then what’s the difference between, or is a difference between a story that we read in a book versus what we would class in this conversation as a sales story?

 

Paul Smith:

Let me answer that a couple of different ways. First of all, there’s a big difference between a sales story and a sales pitch.

 

Will Barron:

Or is there anything else we need to do differently when we do deliver a sales story virtually?

 

Paul Smith:

Yeah. Well, if you’d asked me that a few months ago, I would’ve said, “Well, everything’s less effective virtually than it is in person where you can see and feel, maybe not touch, but be close to people.”

 

Will Barron:

Hello, sales nation. My name is Will Barron and I’m the host of the Sales Leadership Show. On today’s episode, we have a complete legend. We have Paul Smith. He’s the author of the book, Sell With a Story. And that’s exactly what we’re getting into on today’s episode, how you can build a database of sales stories and then how you can leverage that as a selling tool for your team to help them close more deals. Everything that we talk about is available in the show notes for this episode, over at salesleadship.org. And with that said, let’s jump right into it. Paul, welcome to the Sales Leadership Show.

 

Paul Smith:

Yeah, thanks for having me on. I’m excited to be here.

 

In a Massively Automated World, Are Sales Stories a Real Opportunity to Get More Attention in The Marketplace? · [02:02]