How Do You Sell Potential Clients With Better Stories?

Does your story connect to others’ challenges?

We spend so much time and effort building our businesses we sometimes forget what makes our business unique. We think everyone knows our story so we fail to share it again for new clients and customers. One thing I learned from writing over the years is there are always new people hearing our stories for the first time. My operations officer use to tell me I always had a story to share with our new employees. I always shared our business’s origin story with new employees and constantly asked them to share their version of it. My sales and technical team members always knew the story and shared it with their clients and potential customers. There were subtle differences between how people interpreted the story, but they would all have several key elements that were always shared.

Let’s talk about the different parts of an origin story.  The first part of the story would focus on the problem we and our clients faced. No matter what industry you’re in, there are always issues.  They may not be the same issues, but there are always problems.  .  Some people just complain about the unfairness of the situation.  Smart clients find someone to help work through those problems to a solution.

We then would share the pain that our clients experienced when looking for a solution to their problems.  This required our team to understand and sympathize with a pain point our potential clients might have. This pain point would come directly from our clients’ personal experiences.  In my business, the pain point is that most business owners struggle during the early stages of their businesses growth. They struggle getting the financial help they need to grow their businesses. I also share it’s hard to get the right advice from professionals when you aren’t certain what advice you need.  I share that sometimes it’s important to have an individual who knows where you’re going because they’ve been down this road before.

For the next part of your story reveal how you can change their problem. What you discovered about people in this given situation.  A good storyteller allows their client to understand there is something different about how you do business. The revelation you share should be something the customer can see themselves achieving.  This should allow your client to focus on the results they desire. Your story lets them to see that there is another choice when deciding how to solve their problem.

Then you should share your solution to their unique problem.  But first you must acknowledge that their business is unique and so is your solution.  For many of my technology clients it would come down to the fact that they are experts on their business but we can provide the required information and skills to help them achieve their goals. You want to begin providing your client with a solution to their problems. Your story could include an example where you’ve done something similar in the past to achieve great results.  Sharing a testimonial of a client who is a similar situation is always powerful here.  This means preparing more for the call or marketing piece but increases your sales exponentially.

The final part of the story must include a client success story from working with you and your organization on their project.  If you shared your story correctly the clients should be asking you what the next step in your process is. Each step of your story should connect with your potential client.  It should help them understand more about you by understanding more about them.

When you’re writing the story, end with a call to action. Ask them to call you or request more information. If you are selling in person you should include check in points for the client, confirming that they have had a similar experience in dealing with others in your field. The key here is that you have prepared a story in advance and that story is well known by the many different members of your team. When working with Doctors and other professionals, it is critical that you are all working out of the same playbook. It is also critical to discuss the story in advance of working with particular clients.

Take the time to begin working on your origin story.  Boiled down to its primary components, you share how you helped a client:

• Focus on the problem they faced.
• Share the pain this problem caused.
• Reveal how you can remove the problem, hence the pain.
• Share your solution to the problem.
• Include a success story from solving the problem.

Call me at 440-293-8811 or send an email to tbraden@marketleadership.net today to see how I can help you use an origin story to build more value in your business. It might be just the thing to jumpstart your business development efforts.