Tag: StoryTelling

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People laughed at him!

A young boy, who was just 12 years old, wanted to start his own magazine. When he said that, people laughed at him. 15 years later, in the year 1984, he was publishing a hundred of them. And he had built one of the first Technology Publishing empires.

He was interested in Technology, Science and Computing and he found that these three areas were converging.

7 years after he founded his publishing company, he sold it to Pearsons. Then he moved to United States and started his new company Business 2.0 and reached a market cap of $ 2 Billion at one point.

He founded a non-profit in the year 1996 to “foster the spread of great ideas”.

There was another company which was started in 1984 which was holding conferences dedicated to 3 things. And our young boy attended one of the conferences in 1998 and fell in love with it.

Eventually he bought that company in 2001. But the remarkable turn around came in 2006 when he distributed the talks [in the conferences] online for free. That was a revolution.

I am sure you have guessed it by now.

The company he acquired is TED [that stands for Technology, Entertainment & Design] and the young boy is none other than Chris Anderson. https://www.ted.com/

So, what dreams are you chasing? Did people laugh at you? Are you passionate about it? For all you know you may be creating a revolution in the years to come.

Don’t underestimate yourself. If you are passionate about it and if few people have found use for what you have created, you are on your way to success.

Happy creating!

Happy Starting-up!

Happy Selling!

#startupstories #startup #story

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My role model & other anecdotes….

There was a senior colleague who commanded respect from clients, principals, resellers and us colleagues. He was there in office every single day before office started for business. He was truly professional, knowledgeable, kept up his promises, always busy, added value to clients as well as partners, a crisis manager, a great people manager and had coffee & biscuits with us every evening after work. The evenings were interesting too.

One day I was preparing a proposal and he advised me to work on the proposals after office hours and not during productive sales time. From then on, all through the day, I was in front of customers talking about a new product or the upcoming workshops or just building relationship or talking about how technology is changing businesses and even lives. I normally simplify technology. It’s quite simple. I don’t get something if it is too complex. So, I question, read, inquire, find out the truth and understand it in detail. And then I simplify it and fine tune it according to the client I meet.

I think I built good relationships over the years with my clients and prospects. Some of them won’t buy anything related to technology without checking with me even if it is something that I don’t sell. Those were the zen moments in Account Management.

My role model has changed with time. Today it is Gary Vaynerchuk. He posted recently where in he taught how to tell a story. He says, if you are a real estate agent, tell me about the town and not just the house you want to sell. If you are passionate about Sales, tell me why you love it, your most interesting clients, biggest challenges etc. In essence, he says, don’t talk about the product / service that you are selling. Instead share the interesting anecdotes around your business. People would love to hear that. The rest will follow soon. Idea is to make things interesting.

Here is the image he had shared:

Happy StoryTelling!!

Happy Selling!!

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Are you a great Storyteller?

The good news is: You can become a great storyteller even if you are not one currently. I will give you the framework & guidelines for the same.

  1. Have a unique style. And don’t imitate other storytellers.
  2. People like to hear interesting anecdotes. So, sprinkle some here and there.
  3. Let the story be original and true. No fiction.
  4. Pump it with loads of energy. Nobody likes to hear a story that sucks energy.
  5. Make your audience think, imagine, visualize. May your story cause them to think in terms of pictures.
  6. Add humour. People like jokes. They forget themselves when they laugh.
  7. Create a community.
  8. Give them a peek into your life, your difficulties, how you solved them. Show them that you are human just like them. Connect with them.
  9. Speak about what you see in everyday life.
  10. Do not have any theme. But have a message in every session or each story you narrate.
  11. Don’t get stuck to any ideals. That is utopia. It doesn’t sell.
  12. Be creative.
  13. Be bold.
  14. Don’t be shy. Even if you are shy, it is just fine. Most of us are shy. But that doesn’t have to stop us from becoming a great storyteller.
  15. There is something unique in the way you see, perceive and think. Speak about that. That will make a great story.
  16. Try connecting with the local events or the big news of the day or the season.
  17. Just be you.
  18. Engage the audience depending on whom you are addressing. In Sales, we call it target segment.
  19. Don’t reveal the climax too soon. Let your audience get ready for it,
  20. Deliver value, for sure. You need to do your homework on this.

Happy Storytelling!!

Happy Selling!!

#sales #storytelling #crm

Contact: sales at zignalytics.com

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StoryTelling is a must have skill in Sales!!

 

StoryTelling

  1. StoryTelling is an Art. The good news is that you can learn and become a good storyteller.
  2. You can inspire & motivate people with Stories.
  3. With stories, you can engage people well and people will generally flock to you.
  4. In Sales and in all other functions [more so in sales], it is very important to build your personal brand. And StoryTelling can help build your personal brand.
  5. It can help in Sales by effectively helping the prospect visualize and connect.
  6. It helps in communicating your point without explicitly talking about it.
  7. Syncing of brains or mirroring of brains or in other words neural coupling happens in good storytelling. The listener is able to predict what you will say next. Perfect syncing.
  8. You make yourself interesting. You are not making some boring presentations to make a sale. Never.
  9. The idea is to engage the audience in rapt attention. Idea is not to sell. That happens eventually anyway. You sell without actually selling.
  10. Some ideas for your Stories – your experience in community building from college / university, how a prospect faced problems and what you did to solve them, stories of gut and determination, stories of people who faced adverse conditions yet became hugely successful, how someone won in spite of huge opposition, how somebody helped another person while his/her own condition is helpless, how somebody turned around a loss making company etc.

Happy StoryTelling. For more info, you could also visit: https://bit.ly/2sl38us

Happy Selling!!

 

Photo Credit: Photo by Phil Coffman on Unsplash