B2B selling is complicated, arms length and digital. So when you have a chance to get face to face, here’s how you make it count.
Why did you become a salesperson? Lots of reasons, no doubt. You enjoyed the challenge of building a good deal. It played to your competitive instincts. You discovered it was something you were really good at. You can make a very good living. And there are lots of career opportunities.
We’re guessing that a big part of it was that you knew you were making a difference. Directly influencing the future of your business and that of your customers. You could have your impact.
Now, B2B selling has never been more digital, more arms length, more confusing. Your prospect is likely to be more than 70% of the way to a decision before you get a chance to be face to face with them. People buy people – that old trope still has currency – but your chances to sell ‘you’ can be few, and brutally brief.
If this feels true, then this article is for you. We have a remedy.
The book of you
Start by putting down the sales manual and pick up the ‘Book of You’. Read through the early chapters of your life, and rediscover why you got started. Think back to that time when every challenge was fresh and every question new. When you were learning at a scary rate, and the test of whether you understood things thoroughly enough was if you could educate and convince your customer – just a step or two behind you, all the way to the line.
Could you tell me that origin story now, and have me understand it? Because I would listen. I want to know what it is that gives you juice. I want to know what you know. And I want to know how you can help me.
Embrace your personhood
Our remedy begins with a little imagination and envisioning:
- Recall the excitement of solving a challenge for a client, and the thrill of the impact that it made. Maybe you told that tale to your dad, or a mate down the pub, and it was a lightbulb moment for them too, when they finally understood what you actually did for a living.
- Now, you’re beginning to remember how those stories of challenge and triumph, of helping and solving, never get old. How they intrigue and inform the people around you.
- And lastly, remember that this is who you are. A person motivated to help, to create change, to have their impact. That’s a power that you can wield. The power of one.
Storytelling, one-to-one, human-to-human, is how you weaponise that power.
Stories make things simple
“The most important thing I learned was never to try and reach anyone’s grandma or grandpa when they’re watching Coronation Street. If your face pops up on their telly just then, brace yourself for abuse.
“Listen, it doesn’t matter if you’re reminding them to do a pin-prick glucose test, or that their blood pressure is elevated and there’s an alarm pinging on your screen. It won’t impress them that the sensors say they’ve been sedentary for a while, and the temperature in the flat is dropping out of the comfortable range. Dammit, you might even be their favourite niece just popping up to sing happy birthday. You’re going to know plenty about their habits, choices and pleasures, so pick your moment well, is my advice.”
In these rare moments, as we look to hotwire a connection with another, stories provide the sparks.
That was Sam’s story
Sam – a real person but not their real name – works in a very interesting space. For years, social care in the UK has been under terrible pressure. In the wake of the pandemic, everyone can see that digital could have – should have – an important role to play in supporting good health, mitigating loneliness, helping people live safely and longer in their own homes and – if we’re honest – in making funding stretch further. The buying journey is a bit like a game of snakes ‘n ladders though. The buyer is notoriously conservative, for starters. And older and vulnerable people are often excluded from digital services. Established providers have raised high barriers to innovation from outside of their charmed circle. Maybe most pertinently, the sector as a whole finds it very difficult to imagine what’s possible, and how to make innovation a reality.
There are lots of places where Sam’s conversation could begin. But with a short time to establish rapport, to challenge the clients’ purpose and goals, and to construct a shared reality with them, Sam often starts there, with that story. Its content is an innovation, dressed as a use case, wrapped in personal insight, and gifted as a joke.
That’s just one way to do it. Here are 5 recipes for creating and telling more and better ‘power of one’ stories, to help you make your impact.
5 recipes for telling better sales stories
1. Listen, question, empathise
You might have come up against your prospect’s challenge many times before. But for them, it’s often the first and only time they’ll face it. Listen hard to the way they describe what’s going on in their organisation, what the goals are, what the blockers are, what the worries are. Gather as much information as you can. Ask good questions. Get clear on their goals – what good would look like, what success would mean, what the impact of not taking action would be. And after you’ve listened, play back what you’ve heard, sharing stories that show you understand the landscape they’re operating in. Then, when you’ve established credibility as a fellow traveller, tell them how similar organisations have managed similar situations. They’ll be enthralled.
2. Share a secret
Buyers want to know that they’re making the right decision. Selling is tough, but buying is tough too. That’s why case studies are valuable during the sales process. Stories of happy clients who’ve taken the leap to work with you have a big role to play. People want to see the transformation your product or service makes to people just like them.
But aside from the written up, signed off, polished case studies on your website (which, let’s face it, take an age to produce), you’ve also got access to your own personal collection of customer stories. These unpolished gems are a rich seam to mine.
Telling prospect A the story of how clients’ B and C solved similar challenges is the start of a productive conversation. Reeling off a list of features and benefits won’t get you that far. Personal and relevant stories provide context to your offer, as well as reassurance and credibility. They’re credits in the Bank of Trust.
3. Head first, heart follows
Look at Sam’s story again. The little anecdote at the front about grandma’s TV habits uses humour to both relax and focus the audience. Humour is a useful tool to make stories memorable – we remember stuff we find funny. Or you could create a sense of jeopardy – ‘there I was, one foot in a puddle, groping blindly for the fuse box…’ – to literally electrify the room. When we’re listening to a story, we identify with the characters in it. Raise the stakes through jeopardy, and your listener will put themselves in your shoes, desperate to know what happens next.
Our point is that emotion creates the human-to-human connection that you need. The facts and insights secure it. We like to think we’re rational but actually we’re rationalisers, wired to validate what our gut – our emotions – signal to us. So aim for the heart, and trust that the head will follow.
4. Read the room
Right story, right time. Like a risky Best Man’s speech, what will work like a dream in one sales situation can bomb in another. What you want is a mental rolodex of client stories you can flick through, surfacing the relevant details for the scenario you’re facing. Every time you’re listening to a client talk about their challenges, and the ups and downs of a project, and the transformation they’ve experienced, you’re furnishing your library with great story fodder. Heroes, villains, dramas, successes snatched from the jaws of defeat. Even difficult projects make great material.
5. Make the client the hero in your story
You’re selling a product or a service, but they’re hard to identify with. When it comes to the stories you tell during the sales process, it pays to make the client the hero. It might sound counter-intuitive – surely you want your product to be the hero who saves the day – but your prospect will be identifying with the people in the story you’re telling. Include details that illuminate risks that paid off, brave steps taken, trust that was rewarded, and your listener will see themselves in that role.
Remember why you’re doing what you’re doing. Aside from the adrenaline of hitting targets and winning new business, successful sales people are driven by a desire to make things better for their clients. It’s the win- win you’re aiming for.
You may be one but you’re not alone
We started off with the observation that B2B selling is increasingly remote, arms length and digital. And we’ve described a way for you to harness your gift of making a difference when you finally get in the room with your prospect.
But there’s a very good chance that you got to sit in the room because a marketing team was telling other stories on your behalf, through social media, PR, webinars, blogs , emails and e-zines.
Most likely, those stories involved viewpoints and comments, which helped to raise initial awareness. And for those attracted to that content, a raft of how-tos and case studies helped to build trust and relevance, and deepened the interest.
Those stories are targeted no more closely than an entire industry – banking, say. Or maybe they get a bit more specific – challenger banks. And they’ve all got an important job to do in getting your backside onto that prospect’s boardroom chair.
But the stories you tell can be hyper local and hyper specific. Not just to the organisation you’re talking to, but right down to the immediate needs, questions, hopes and fears of the person in front of you.
So team up!
All of the stories have their job to do. And you can – and should – influence the stories that your marketing team tells too. After all, you’re the one that gets asked the difficult questions. You’re the one who really knows what’s going on in a prospect’s world. You’ve got the real-life details and dramas that elevate the same-old, same-old spiel into something that makes people sit up and listen. So take your ‘power of one’ to your marketing colleagues.
Share the best client questions, and suggest some answers. Tell them your best stories, the ones that make clients’ eyes light up. Maybe they’ll be able to turn those stories into content that the rest of the sales team can share.
Ask to see their content strategy, and see if it makes sense to you. Look at the content plan, and understand if, and how, it serves you. Invite yourself to some content planning meetings. Your knowledge and experience is gold dust so they’ll welcome you with open arms.
What do you think?