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I led pre-sales teams for years. Do you know what I observed? The most successful people, the people that really influenced customers, that got the promotions, that got the biggest bonuses - they all had the ability to engage people both rationally and emotionally.
Not only did they have great knowledge of their product, but they knew how to bring it to life and connect emotionally with their prospects.
In this article I'll cover:
- Why creating an emotional response is so important.
- How to create an emotional response using stories.
- And some really practical storytelling tips.
Why To Create An Emotional Response
Here’s a great quote:
"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel". - Maya Angelou.
Not only is that a great quote but neuroscience backs it up. When you're talking facts and logic your prospects are just using the prefrontal cortex. But lots of other parts of the brain are unused.
However, if we stimulate an emotional response with humour, shock, anger or tragedy, more of the brain lights up. The amygdala and other parts of the brain join the party. When the full brain is firing, that means better cognitive processing, better problem solving and better recall.
So, by getting people engaged on an emotional AND rational level we're making THEM more effective and they'll remember US better.
How To Create An Emotional Response
So how can we get them in that state. Well, a great way is telling stories and anecdotes. It creates an emotional response.
"But I'm not that guy down the pub will all the stories".
That's what someone I was coaching on my Technical Storytelling program said to me. I'd set him the task of telling a story to the group. He said he didn't have any good stories, nothing interesting ever happened to him and he felt really uncomfortable with it.
So I forced him. In a nice way, in a supportive way, in an encouraging way.
In his role he needed to present to people about some pretty dry topics like change control (no offense if that’s your area), but he'd been delivering it like a human whitepaper.
So he tried out telling the story of that huge Crowd Strike outage. He talked about the outage, how it happened, the impact it had and how it related to change control.
The difference was night and day. And as soon as he bought the content to life, the audience engaged with it, got excited by it and were far more receptive to his ideas. All that from a story.
Practical Storytelling Tips
So, here's 6 tips on how to tell a good anecdote.
- Choose something relevant. Either something that happened to you, your company or in the industry. It can't just be a good story.
- Make it Short. Less than 2 minutes. That story I told you about the change control guy was 1 min. About 150 words.
- Make it about people. The tech is never the hero. Make a person the star and make them relatable. The story is about the impact on that person.
- Stretch The Emotion. If it was bad, make it terrible. If it was good, make it amazing. Use a bit of artistic license to amplify it.
- Make It Interesting. The more interesting, the more impact it will have. A story about making your breakfast will be less interesting than a story about an out of control fire that caused a massive outage.
- Give it structure. Start by setting the scene. Then cover the main substance of the story. Then provide the resolution. Simple and effective.
Well, there we go. Storytelling done! Try it, you'll be amazed by the results.
Conclusion
So let's wrap up. You want prospects to engage with you rationally and emotionally. The top performers are able to do that really well.
Storytelling is a great way to do that and I shared 6 tips to help you level up your storytelling game. Get that right and it will help you build great relationships with your prospects.
So, if you've found this useful then you need the Technical Storytelling Professional Program in your life. www.elevatedyou.live/psc
Hope this helps.
Ben Pearce coaches presales engineers to be more relevant, more influential and more successful. His Technical Storytelling Professional program has enabled PreSales teams all over the world to close bigger deals faster. How? By enabling smart people to build trust with prospects, influence prospects and drive action with prospects.
He spent 20 years at Microsoft before founding Elevated You. He led presales teams that landed the biggest deals, the most complex deals, the most impactful deals. He’s used all those years of experience, the successes, the failures, to craft a program that elevates teams to high performance.
