Sell with a Story Podcast

{#25 in a series of the 25 most useful sales stories from Sell with a Story, by Paul Smith}

One of the most productive uses of storytelling in sales isn’t found in a story you tell to the buyer, a story the buyer tells you, or even a story that you tell to yourself. It’s a story that you craft for the benefit of other salespeople who work at your company. And it tells the story of the successful sale you just closed or the unsuccessful one you just failed to close. The purpose is to capture the wisdom you just gained in the call for your boss, your peers, or the next generation of salespeople calling on that customer.

We all know those wise old sales gurus who’ve been around and seen it all. We love hearing their “war stories” about what worked and what didn’t work. Well, you don’t have to have been around for 40 years to remember a few great war stories if you capture your stories as they happen.

One of my favorite examples comes from a guy named Steve Blair from his days as a salesperson for a major confectionary company.

The Valentine’s Day Box of Chocolates

In the summer of 2010, when Steve was about a year into the role, he was calling on the buyer at a major drugstore chain. The buyer, let’s call him David, was legendary in the business. Once you had his ear and earned his trust, you had it forever. But getting that trust was difficult. And neither Steve nor anyone at his company had earned it yet.

At one point, Steve and his boss (the CEO of the company) rented a suite at a major league baseball field and invited David and his boss to a game. Their general purpose was to get to know their prospects a little better. But Steve also had a specific sales objective: get David to agree to carry at least one of their boxes of heart-shaped chocolates for Valentine’s Day.

Steve had been trying unsuccessfully for weeks to make that sale. David’s objection each time was that he thought the price per ounce of chocolate was too high. Said another way, he thought there just wasn’t enough chocolate for the price. Steve’s response each time was that Valentine’s Day chocolates are a gift. The person who receives the chocolate will appreciate the gift regardless of how much chocolate is in it.

Steve was hoping he could finally get David to see things his way during the game. Somewhere around the sixth inning, Steve saw his opportunity. He noticed that the server in the suite was a 20-something female—exactly the demographic profile of someone who might be on the receiving end of a box of Valentine’s Day chocolates. Steve thought David might understand his position if he could hear for himself how much a young woman would appreciate one of these gifts.

The next time she came through the suite, Steve pulled her over to ask her a question. He took out a sample of one of the boxes and held it in front of her. Making sure he had David’s attention, he said to her, “What would you say if your husband or boyfriend gave you this for Valentine’s Day?” Of course, Steve couldn’t be sure how she’d respond. But who doesn’t like a free box of chocolates?

The server opened up the box, looked inside, and then said,

Well, the first thing I’d probably say is ‘Where’s the rest of the chocolate?’

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Today, Jason Cutter is a sales success architect who coaches and trains successful salespeople. But in his past, he had several sales jobs in the trenches where he made the same kind of mistakes most of us make early in sales. Jason joined me this week to share two of his early mistakes and what we can all learn from them. read more

{#24 in the series of the 25 most useful sales stories}

“Hello. I’m Mark Bowser, and these are not my pants.”

If you’d been in one of Mark Bowser‘s customer service training classes in Indianapolis in the late 1990s, those are the first words you would have heard him say as he introduced himself.

His explanation was just as entertaining. To hear Mark tell the story himself, click the play button above. Short on time? Read the summary of our conversation below. 

Mark’s seminar was being held in the Hyatt Regency hotel, so naturally that’s where he stayed the night before. Well, sometime that night after he checked in and was safely ensconced in bed watching television, he started having a nagging feeling. As he tells the story:

I kept hearing in my head “Check your suit, check your suit.” So I crawled out of bed and looked in my bag. I found my suit jacket right way. And then I quickly realized, “Ahh, I don’t have any pants!” Well, that sent me into a panic. “What am I going to do?” The only thing I could think of was to retrace my steps since I arrived. Maybe they fell out of my bag. So I went back through the parking garage, the lobby, and the stairs—no pants. As a last resort, I went to the front desk and sheepishly asked if anyone had found any pants and turned them in. They said no but told me the hotel had some clothing shops on the main floor that would be open in the morning if I wanted to buy some. They told me what time they opened, and of course it was too late for me to make it to the seminar on time.I was just about to walk away when one of the other clerks who overheard the conversation interrupted. “Sir, did I hear you correctly that you need a pair of pants? Because I have some of mine in the back office. I just picked them up from the dry cleaners. You’re welcome to borrow a pair for tomorrow.” They didn’t fit perfectly, but they were certainly better than nothing. I thanked him and wore them all the next day! It was the most amazing customer service I’ve ever personally experienced.”

Mark never did find his pants. But as a motivational speaker and trainer in sales and customer service, he does find lots of opportunities to tell that story. It’s the kind of over-the-top service story you might expect from Nordstrom. The most obvious use for such stories is to teach other employees within your company what great customer service looks like.

The Lesson

But it’s the not-so-obvious use that I’m more interested in here. If these stories can teach employees how to deliver customer service, they can teach existing customers what to expect from customer service. The purpose of doing that is to build loyalty—to keep your current customers from even considering going anywhere else.

Practically speaking, of course, only rarely would hotel guests realize they’ve lost their pants. A story like the one above isn’t supposed to communicate to hotel guests that they should come down to the front desk to borrow a pair of pants. It just reinforces the notion that this hotel has unbelievable customer service. Why would you want to stay anywhere else?

Recommendation

Find your most outrageously positive customer service stories and share them with your existing customers on a regular basis—in sales calls, emails, newsletters, or notes slipped into invoices. You’ll keep more of the customers you’ve worked so hard to earn.

You can learn more about Mark at

{#23 in a series of the 25 most useful sales stories}

Just because you’ve closed the sale doesn’t mean the need for storytelling has ended. In fact, the best salespeople continue to use storytelling after the sale in three primary ways:

    1. to deliver service after the sale,

    2. to generate loyalty, and

    3. to summarize learnings from the sales call.

In this episode, we’ll talk about the first of those ways — to deliver better service after the sale. We’ll tackle the other two in future articles.

Depending on the type of product or service you have, a lot of times storytelling can help your existing customers make better decisions about how to use what they’ve already bought from you. And it’s obviously in your best interest to help them do that so they can become the most satisfied customers they can be.

Here are two examples from a company called Backroads, an active travel company that’s part travel agent, part Sherpa guide. 

Example 1

So, let’s say a typical trip with Backroads is six nights and five days. Each of those days might include three primary options for each person to pick from that they’ll choose over breakfast each morning. What decision people make can have an enormous impact on how much they enjoy the day. For example, on a biking day, if a novice biker chooses the longest, most difficult bike route, they’ll be overwhelmed, late, and exhausted when they get back. And if an experienced biker chooses the easiest path, they won’t be challenged enough.

So, getting people to make the best decision is critical. The truth is, by the third day, the Backroads leaders know their guests well enough to tell them which option is best for them. But it would be insulting to say to a guest, “Bob, you’re a slow rider, so you should take option #1 today.” The Backroads leaders need to help guests make that decision for themselves, but make it in the most informed manner possible. And that’s where storytelling comes in. 

Let’s say our slow rider, Bob, has his heart set on taking the longest bike route today. The leader might share a story about a similar guest last week who made the same choice:

Last week, Sally picked the same route. But she knew it was going to be a long ride for her. So she got up an hour early, skipped breakfast, and headed out a couple of hours ahead of everyone else. We drove ahead and met her at the 15-mile mark and had a muffin and yogurt waiting for her. By 11 a.m., she was already over the mountain pass and had the rest of the day to make the easy part of the ride.” 

That short little story about Sally now helps Bob make a more informed decision about today’s ride. He might choose to pick another option, or he can do what Sally did and leave early. Either way, he’ll feel better about the experience than being told, “Okay, but you’ll need to leave earlier than everyone else because you’re slow.” That statement tells the guest what to do. The story empowers him to make a better decision for himself. 

Example 2

Storytelling can also help the trip leaders emphasize their flexibility by providing a concrete example. According to Jo Zulaica, global leadership development manager at Backroads, they might say something like this:

Last week, we had a guest who was really interested in golfing and fishing even though that wasn’t part of this trip. So on the layover days, he found a local operator who could take him fly fishing. And on a couple of other days, we set up a tee time for him at the nearest golf course. We even drove him to the course right after breakfast to get started.” 

Compare that short story to the non-story alternatives of just sayi...

Mike Weinberg is pissed off. And if you work in sales, you should be, too.

And that very righteous anger is directed at people in his own industry — the sales coaching and training business. In particular, it’s directed at people holding themselves out as sales experts preaching that “everything in sales has changed. . . nothing that used to work in sales works anymore. . . picking up the phone is for dinosaurs. . .”

That anger prompted Mike to write his most recent book Sales Truth: Debunk the Myths. Apply Powerful Principles. Win More New Sales.

I honestly don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard or learned so much from a single podcast interview. And if you work in sales, you should stop reading this now and listen to my conversation with Mike above. It’s a lot more fun and thorough than the tiny snipped you’re going to get below.

But just so you can have something to read in the bathroom, below is a short excerpt from his book you’re going to love. It debunks the myth that you’ll win more deals by scoring obedience points with the procurement department.

Specifically, it’s about how he finally broke free of the trap of having to deal with the Procurement Department at all. And it’s as liberating as it is genius. I tried it myself and it worked! (You can hear that story in our conversation at the 14-minute mark.)

Excerpt from Chapter 13 of Sales Truth, by Mike Weinberg

I reached my tolerance limit (and finally snapped) after yet one more procurement weenie sent over a master services agreement (MSA), along with the threat that in order to do business with their company, I must agree to the entire thirty-two-page document printed in eight-point legalese.

Not only couldn’t I understand most of the clauses, I was perplexed as to why there were so many sections in the document that seemed more appropriate for a contract software developer or a raw materials manufacturer. I also wondered why I should invest (waste) hours plowing through what felt like an irrelevant agreement in order to conduct a half-day sales workshop for a company that had already decided to use me.

In abject frustration and righteous anger, I tossed that mostly unintelligible thirty-two-page MSA in my recycle bin and called the procurement weenie who had just informed me via email that going forward, she owned the relationship with my firm and that she would be my main contact. As pleasantly as I could fake it, I told this twenty-six-year-old certified procurement analyst (with a very inflated view of her role) that I was tapping out. I had neither the energy nor the desire to spend any more time trying to decipher her nonsensical agreement and I was done.

Then I said two more things. I let her know that she was not my contact at her company, the senior vice president of sales was. And then with a bit of attitude and glee, I asked the procurement woman to please inform the sales executive that I would not be executing the agreement and that I wished her well with the big meeting.

I immediately felt better even though I figured we’d end up losing that deal. Although I was sorry about hanging the SVP of sales out to dry because she was excited about the event we were putting together, the sheer relief getting to tell the procurement woman to pound sand more than made up for the money I was forgoing by walking away. It was quite empowering.

More than that, it was an eye-opening lesson when later that afternoon the sales exe...

[#22 of the 25 Most Useful Sales Stories]

This is the most creative use of storytelling in closing the sale that you’re ever likely to come across. It’s definitely not one I expected to find when I was doing the research on sales stories. But I did, from a guy we’ll call “Brad” who worked for a company that published high school yearbooks.

The Situation

So, imagine you’re a high school English teacher and the adviser to the student yearbook committee. One of your jobs is to decide which publisher to produce your school’s yearbook, and you’ve worked with the same one for years. Their sales rep has always been easy to work with, has high integrity, and is a generally likable person. In fact, under other circumstances, you could easily see yourself being friends.

But while her company does good work, you’ve recently come across another yearbook publisher that offers a better product at a more aggressive price. Now you have to fire the rep you’ve been working with for years. And that’s no fun. In fact, it can be daunting. How’re they going to react? Will they be mad at you?

According to Brad, these are legitimate questions. He’s heard it all. Some reps get offended, as if the buyer’s being disloyal. Some lay on a guilt trip and complain that the buyer is taking food out of their children’s mouths. Some desperately offer to drop their price.

Some even start to cry. And while tears might be a little extreme, most of these reactions are no different from what you’re likely to find in any industry. Business is personal when you’re in sales and your livelihood depends on the revenue. That’s why getting dropped by a customer feels like getting dumped by your high school steady. And to anyone who’s ever had to do it, you know that being the dumper is almost as painful as being the dumpee. And that’s why firing your supplier can be an awful experience—so much so that some people just won’t do it. They’d rather keep their current supplier just to avoid the emotional turmoil.

The Story

And that’s why one of the stories in Brad’s bag is called “coaching the breakup.” It’s how he helps prepare a new client to end their existing relationship as painlessly as possible. In its most common form, the story he tells is about how one of his other clients navigated the breakup. So, it might start out something like this:

I’m really looking forward to working with you. But I know you’ve got a difficult thing you have to do now—explain all this to your current publisher. And I can tell you’re a little stressed about that. So I thought it might help if I told you how some of my other customers handled it.”

And then Brad can walk the buyer through a few success stories of how other customers handled, for example, the offer to drop the price (by asking, “Where’s that discount been all these years?”), or how they handled the crier (by reiterating how this isn’t personal, it’s a business decision), or how they slowed down and continued to work with the old supplier for the rest of the school year before transitioning to the new supplier next year. The story he tells depends on what the prospect thinks the most likely reaction will be.

So, if breaking up is hard for your prospects to do, develop your own breakup stories to help coach them through it. It might help to have some conversations with your other customers to find out how they did it. (By the way, you’ll get some of your best stories that way. Don’t be shy about asking for stories. Think of it as a flattering excuse to schedule some time with your customers.) Your own company’s procurement department is another great source for these kinds of stories. I mean, who else has more experience firing suppliers than a professional buyer? Right?

Next step

Do you really need empathy to be a good sales rep? My podcast guest this week says no. He’s Nicolas Vandenberghe, CEO of Chili Piper.

Nicolas started his career selling newspapers in the streets of Paris in high school, studied math in undergrad, and then got an MBA from Stanford. He then started and sold 3 tech companies, and also ran sales for a $2B telecom firm.

Today he runs Chili Piper which provides companies a brilliant solution to a sales problem they probably don’t even know they have. You can hear Nicolas talk about all of this and more in our conversation above.

A few highlights of our conversation . . .

Closing the leak in your sales funnel

Chili Piper solves an interesting sales problem a lot of companies have. See if this sounds familiar — Someone comes to your website and they click a button or submit a form saying they’d be interested in talking to someone or seeing a demo. Then they get a message that basically says, “Thank you. Someone will contact you” which obviously leaves them wondering who’s going to contact them and when.

And that causes a lot of leakage in the sales funnel because salespeople and the prospect end up chasing each other on email for days and don’t always have a call.

So, what Chili Piper did was to create a JavaScript program you can add into your website so that when that prospect submits the form, the program qualifies the prospect, finds the right sales rep, and calls them on the phone to connect them with the prospect immediately. And if the sales rep isn’t available, they access their calendar and schedule a meeting right on the spot. As a result, you book more client calls and close more sales.

Nicolas meets Steve Jobs and has an epiphany

While at Stanford, Nicolas got to attend a small meeting with Steve Jobs. His reaction: 

“Everyone said he was the best salesperson in the world. And theoretically, salespeople have lots of empathy. Well, the guy sitting in front of me was super inspiring, but he didn’t strike as someone with much empathy.”

And that set Nicolas off to learn more about a number of topics to help him figure out that dilemma.

Nicolas concluded what you really need to be a good salesperson is not empathy (which is feeling other people’s feelings), but the ability to recognize and understand other people’s feelings.

For example, if your prospect is getting frustrated during your sales call, the last thing you want to do is get frustrated yourself, which is what a highly empathetic person would do. What you want to do is be able to stay calm but recognize the signals that they’re frustrated and figure out why so you can change that.

And that ability will help you identify objections or opportunities in a conversation that you might not otherwise know about.

Some of the books and articles that came up were:

* Neuroeconomics: Chapter 27 – Theory of Mind and Empathy

* Mindset, by Carol Dweck

* Sell with a Story, by Paul Smith

* Never Split the Difference, by Chris Voss

You can find out more about Nicolas and Chili Piper at their website here: chilipiper.

What’s the difference between ethical persuasion and manipulation?

That was the primary topic of my conversation this week with Brian Ahearn. And it’s an important difference that any salesperson, marketer, or leader (all of whom influence people for a living) needs to be keenly aware of so they can stay on the right side of that divide. 

Brian is the author of Influence PEOPLE: Powerful Everyday Opportunities to Persuade that are Lasting and Ethical which is what most of our conversation centered on as we discussed ethical influence. 

We talked about the three criteria he uses to define ethical persuasion. That it:

* Is good for the person you’re influencing, not just good for you.

* Contains honest communication, and nothing important is left out.

* Uses psychology that’s natural and appropriate for the situation

That last one was the most interesting and informative for me. For example, one of the persuasion techniques (#6 below) is Scarcity. People are more willing to buy something if they know there’s not much of it. That leads to statements like these: “Get this while supplies last” or “This offer is good for today only”. And those are fine, as long as they’re true. But if you’re not really close to running out of supply, or you know good and well that you’d offer the same price tomorrow if they called you back, then those techniques are not fair.

But mostly we talked about his 7 Principles for Ethical Persuasion, which I’ll summarize here:

* Principle #1 – Reciprocity – Give something of value then trust you’ll get it in return

* Principle #2 – Liking – Ask yourself, “How can I like them?” Once you do, they’re more likely to like. Plus, you’ll be less inclined to manipulate a friend

* Principle #3 – Authority  – Be an expert on what you sell

* Principle #4 – Consensus – Social proof, other people like you are buying this

* Principle #5 – Consistency – Between what you say and do. Do what you say.

* Principle #6 – Scarcity – Rare sells. “While supplies last.” But legitimate scarcity. Reframe as a loss, not a gain.

* Principle #7 – Unity – We say yes to people who are similar to us. People with shared experiences and a shared sense of identity

Okay, that’s just a quick summary. Brian explains more in our conversation here. But you can read more about all this principles in his book, Influence PEOPLE: Powerful Everyday Opportunities to Persuade that are Lasting and Ethical. 

To learn more about Brian, connect with him on LinkedIn (here), or on his website: influencepeople.biz. 

And if you send him an email to [email protected], you’ll get a link to a free 15-minute training video not covered in the book.

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