Episode Overview

In this episode, we talk with Ed Bilat about how we can up our sales conversations by telling stories– what some refer to as "Story Selling". We are all humans at the end of the day, meaning that we live our lives through stories– stories we tell others, stories others tell us, and the stories we tell ourselves. The exciting thing about stories is they play a profound influence on our ability to persuade others.

Ed is the leader of storytellingsales.com with the aim of helping sales teams and business owners grow their business, and essentially make sales more human and more fun through the power of storytelling. His business works with small businesses all the way up to large multinational enterprises.

 

Episode Timestamps

[1:34] How did you become focused on storytelling?

• Car died in a Tim Horton parking lot:
  • Had to wait for mechanic outside.
  • Had to make cold calls from outside the restaurant so that clients would not hear the background noise - as the weather was below zero, these were literally “cold calls!”
    • A telecommunications company that Ed was trying to reach by phone asked to hear about his personal story even though they were not originally interested in his product. After meeting in person, that connection led to many other connections that became Ed’s clients.
    • People want to hear your story. Stories are human. It’s the path to real-connection.

 

[6:34] Why is story selling so important?

• What is our greatest enemy?
  • Attention span
    • Our human attention span is short.
    • As long as a story is engaging, people will continue to listen.
      • Triggers the release of oxytocin
    • Does your story help your prospect think about their process?
    • Did it help them to view their problem in a new light?
    • Will they share with their peers?

 

[10:27] What types of stories do we want to be telling?

• You don’t need to create– you need to document the events in your life and tell those stories.
• All of us have personal stories.
• Best type of story is your customer story.
  • What happened with your client?
  • What happened with your customer?
  • How were you able to help them?

 

[14:58] What is your “STAR” framework/model when constructing your story?

• Structure is better than coming up with a story on the fly.
• STAR model:
  • Situation
  • Trouble
  • Action
  • Result

 

[18:23] Practical tips for how to start storytelling?

• Ideal length of story should be about 5-10 minutes.
• Remember stories for quick retrieval:
  • Different keywords
• Your story needs to be vivid and captivating.
• Be ready for sales objections:
  • Build your stories around them.
  • Make yourself a bank/library full of stories that you can pull from when you find it useful.
• Feel, felt, found.

 

Additional Resources 

• storytellingsales.com
• Ed’s LinkedIn info
• Storytelling Sales Playbook

 

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Credits

Sound editing and show notes produced by – ChirpSound