Put customers at the heart of your story this World Storytelling Day
It's World Storytelling Day today and leading Sales Enablement Platform provider iPresent is encouraging salespeople to utilize storytelling techniques to engage customers.
Research shows that statistics combined with stories have a retention rate of 65 – 70%, and neuroscientists have proven that gaining an audience’s attention with a great narrative arc changes their brain chemistry and makes them more cooperative. With this in mind, iPresent has put together a list of simple storytelling techniques that can help salespeople deliver better presentations. The full article is available on the company’s blog at www.ipresent.com/blog, and a summary is below.
1. Make sure your customer is always at the center of your story. Though it’s tempting to make your product the hero, it should only ever be the Samwise to your customer’s Frodo. (‘I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!’)
2. Develop a great narrative arc. Every story should have a beginning, middle and end, but more than that you need to build tension in order to gain your customer’s interest. Small details, plot points they can recognize and relate to, and plenty of grit amongst the glitter will help your customer to connect to the story you’re telling.
3. An engaging story will be lost without a great delivery, so make sure you practice your storytelling, focusing on tone of voice and body language. It’s also crucial to have the right tools for the job, so you’re not attempting to balance a laptop in one hand and gesticulate with the other.
“Salespeople have always been storytellers,” says Keith Parrish, Executive Chairman at iPresent. “What’s new is the way customers relate to stories. Empowered buyers won’t passively accept whatever story they’re told, so it’s important to learn how to craft a great narrative that is both convincing and aspirational. Customers should always be at the center of your story, just as they are at the center of your business.”
For more on how iPresent can help you tell great stories, visit www.ipresent.com.
Attending Sales Innovation Expo in London this March? Visit iPresent at booth 1810.
About iPresent
iPresent is a tool to help your sales team sell more.
We believe that delivering the right information at the right time – and in the right way – is key to increasing sales, so we developed a platform to better enable that process.
At its core, iPresent offers unlimited content storage, beautiful design and seamless delivery. We’ve also built some exciting features to make sure both you and your brand look good, and there’s some great behind-the-scenes tech to keep your collateral safe and make sure you never lose access.
Most important of all, however, is the alignment that iPresent fosters between sales and marketing, through which both content creation and delivery can be improved.
The result? A more efficient sales process, smarter marketing, and increased revenue.
Contact charlotte.powell@ipresent.com for more information or visit www.ipresent.com/public/Demo to schedule a demo.