One of my favorite things to do is tell stories. Now that I have kids, this is really exciting as not only get to reread some of my old favorites like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but also get to feed off their imaginations and create / tell stories with them.
Another one of my favorite things to do is use stories when educating clients about ideas, strategies or concepts they might struggle understanding if I kept it straightforward and technical. I’ve found myself opposite a salesperson unengaged with what they are saying because it was all boring blah, blah, blah about features and the company and themselves… nothing they were saying struck a chord to draw me in and relate to their service.
How to Create Your Story
This doesn’t have to be difficult. Just think about the features and benefits of your product / service and how those affect your customers.
- Use real-life testimonials – Unless you are just getting started with your business, you are likely to have several success stories from previous customers. Identify a handful of the main issues your customers are faced with causing them to contact you and have an example of how you helped a previous customer (be cautious with using actual names here) with their very same problem in the past. This will show them these issues they are facing can happen to anyone and that you’ve had success in remedying the situation.
- Create a story – Maybe you don’t have a real life example that you can use. Not a biggie. Create an ideal story that is fitting to their situation. Don’t hide the fact that this is not a real live story either. Start off by saying “Let’s pretend for a moment…” and then walk them through the issue followed by the remedy per the features and benefits you provide.
- Be very general – If you don’t want to get specific with a particular story, create a very general overview about issues your customers face in your industry and how your company can help. Right now, mobile responsive websites is super- hot topic because of the Google algorithm update that happened a couple weeks ago. For the past couple years, I’ve been talking to my customers about consumers in general and how they are more connected with mobile devices than ever before. This is leading to increased searches driving more and more traffic to their website using these mobile devices. A website that is not mobile responsive is going to lead to a bad user experience and now (because of the Google algorithm update) may hurt their page rank.
For most of us, hearing a story is fun, engaging and likely to get a point to stick with us for a little longer than the typical boring banter that most others are slinging. Make the most of the time you have communicating with your customers so they don’t forget you.