Selling with Stories: How to Be Entertaining and Persuasive

One of the big trends in selling over the last few years is the notion of selling with stories. I’m quite a fan of this idea and it’s something I’ve been doing for over a decade as telling stories is my most natural way of getting my point across.

Much of what you hear and what people teach is rather formulaic because to be fair, that’s what’s needed to be able to “sell” the idea of storytelling — you have to break it down into a repeatable framework for people.

The lazy point around this would be to say that you need to turn it into a formula because some (or most) people aren’t natural storytellers.

I don’t think that’s true at all. I think it’s a somewhat innate human quality that almost all of us have from an early age, it’s just that some of us are more attuned to it and have had more practice using that “storytelling muscle”.

Think about it… If you’ve spent any time at all with small children, say when they’re about 4 or 5 years old, you’ll know that they almost never shut up. Their little brains are learning how to formalize thoughts, harness their imagination, combine that with their rapidly growing vocabulary and then express all of that into words.

And what form does that usually take? They just make up stories.

Somewhere along the line though, most people stop telling stories to other people and our naturally expansive way of communicating in story form takes a back seat to direct and minimalist directive-based speech.

When you go back to storytelling as a tool in your marketing and particularly when you’re selling, then you have to hone this skill.

Two Storytelling Mistakes Marketers Make

There are generally two mistakes that I see people make with their use of storytelling — one small mistake and one giant mistake.

The small mistake is that they aren’t entertaining enough.

The best stories are fun and engaging. They pull the listener or the audience in and get them to visualize what they’re being told in their own minds.

When you can achieve that, then you’re 90% of the way there.

This leads perfectly to my next point, the big mistake that people make.

In their story, they miscast the hero — they place themselves in the role of the hero rather than the person reading the story.

People want to imagine themselves in the story — when they visualize it in their mind’s eye, they see themselves as the protagonist, not you.

And that one simple shift in perspective makes all the difference.

If you’re trying to frame your reader as the hero then everything about the way you structure the story changes — it becomes their journey, their destination, their fears, and ultimately, their victory.

However, in the case of selling something online, you don’t give them the victory, you explain the opportunity to attain victory with what you’re offering and then give them the chance to grab it by becoming your customer.

The Wise Counsellor Rather than the Hero

One of the great stories of our time is the early seasons of Game of Thrones as told on TV. The book version is a bit meandering, has too many characters and subplots, and lacks the cut and thrust that makes for a great cinematic/TV story. What the TV show was able to do in the first few seasons was to peel that back into something digestible for a mainstream audience while maintaining the air of intrigue around the overarching story.

The great plot device that the TV show uses so well is the idea of the “wise counsellor” — every protagonist on the show has someone giving them sage advice and helping them stay true to their path.

In the story that you craft for your customer, they are Jon and Dany and you’re Jorah Mormont or Tyrion Lannister.

Your job is to help guide them to the right decision and when they take that next step and become your customer, they need to know that you’ll be right there with them, helping them achieve their desired outcomes.

It’s Not Your Journey That’s Matters

But so many people get this wrong — they talk about themselves rather than the customer, they talk about their own journey.

Your customer has to be the hero of the story, what you want doesn’t rate a mention and your “mission” doesn’t matter.

You see even smart marketers make this mistake when they say things like, “My mission is to create 1,000 new online business millionaires.”

That statement has nothing to do with the person reading it — they are an afterthought at worst, and at best, they are part of a statistic in that other person’s narrative.

So definitely use stories in your marketing, but remember that you’re trying to help your customer ascend to the Iron Throne, you are The Hand, not the King or Queen.

And once you get that squared away in your own mind, structure your entire story around that premise.