Selling with Stories!!! Everyone talks about it. . . but how does it REALLY work?

Transcription:

Hello and welcome to The “S” Word Live. My name is Renee Hribar, Sales Strategist, TEDx Speaker and author. And my goal today is to help you make selling for yourself simple and fun. So let’s dive in. Today I’m going to talk about Selling with Stories. So many of my clients this week, and that’s why I’m bringing it up, have been struggling with I have so much to share, so much about personal life and professional experience and personal development and professional development and client wins and my own wins that they find it challenging to wrap that into a system that helps them communicate those stories while still helping people move along the the pathway, the ladder of ascension. So to help you move along the pathway of buying from them.

So whether you have a freebie or you have a low end product or you have a big high end ticket program, these stories are stories you can tell on Facebook Lives, you can tell in your emails, you can tell on videos, on your thank you page or on your sales pages. You can share inside your email sequences, you can share on your website. So here is a framework and some information about how I teach people to sell with stories. So if we haven’t met yet, I have been teaching people, literally thousands of people to sell for themselves, often for the first time ever since 1996. Yes, that’s when I incorporated my first company.

And so I’ve only been in the online space for a couple of years. And I can tell you, I’ve been just so glad that I’ve been able to meet people through video, through podcasting, through speaking at events that I would have never gotten the chance to do had I not joined in the online space. So if you’re new to the online space or you just you’ve been here for forever, way before me, I want to welcome you to this small little weekly show that gives a punch where you need it most.

So today we’re talking about Selling with Stories. And there are three very specific pieces. The number one piece, this is your writer downer, is a sexy title. So when you’re selling with stories, it’s important to have a title of whether it’s a subject line of an email or a title on your video, whether it’s YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, what’s the title, what can people expect? And so I always say today is selling with stories, right? So I like alliteration. So let me know in the comments if you have ever struggled with naming something or giving it a title, if you have, write “title” in the comments wherever you find this video, I definitely have some assets for that. So alliteration is great. So selling with stories or other components. So I definitely want you to know that the number one thing we’re selling with stories is to have a catchy title, because if they don’t come in, they can’t experience the great story.

It’s just like, for example, when I had my offices, I would always say if the front door looks trashy, you know, people have been smoking cigarettes outside and leaving butts, or the parking lot looks messy. If the awning isn’t good, maybe there was a hard storm and the awning was shredded or something. If the lighting isn’t beautiful, then they’re not even going to come in. So they have to come in to be able to experience the greatness. The same thing goes if you’re going on a date, you want to look your best, not because you’re inviting them all the way in, but because you want to at least have that opportunity. So number one is a title, number two, context. So why are you telling this story? What about this story made this story important to tell today? So I did this when I created this story, I shared a little bit of context. I shared the fact that a lot of my clients, in fact this week, have been struggling with trying to share all the pieces of themselves. Right. We aren’t just what we do for a living. A lot of my clients have phenomenal personal experiences, like they’ve traveled to far off lands or they are the oldest of sixteen or they’re a foster parent or they’re an adoptive parent or they were adopted.

These are personal stories, but they inform who they are. Maybe they’re a single mom or maybe they’re Japanese and they live in the US and they speak fifteen languages. Maybe they also transcribe for international students. I mean, personally, I do care what the professional is like. And in this world of social media and everybody having a social profile, your audience cares too. So how to combine that context of why am I sharing this part of the story now? So if I am going to share a personal story, why? And the professional side. Well, maybe they have a degree that they got. Maybe it’s in art history, but they are a business coach. How does that inform their business coaching acumen? Or maybe they’re a yoga teacher, but they also have a degree in information systems. How does that inform what they’re selling now, what they’re offering now, what their business is. So that context of here’s why I’m sharing it. So a great title. Here’s why I’m sharing it and then, of course, the actual story, but here’s the story framework, it’s there was a struggle like so for example, I had a client who was struggling with telling her story. She was a single mom. She didn’t want her ex-husband to really hear all the pieces of herself or her business, but she knew she had to share for some of her clients. So where should she share it? How should she share it? So using my unique systems and strategies and processes, that’s the bridge.

She now is able to share her story effectively to the people who need to hear it on the platforms where she feels safe and her story is heard and it attracts the right clients. So that is using a story. It’s a struggle, your unique systems and processes and solutions. So when you tell the story like this, when you share a story like this, you will have people listening, saying, I have those same struggles. Wait, you have clients like that? Oh, you have signature systems that help solve that problem? Oh, I want those same solutions. Let me take your call to action, which a call to action is the last and final bonus piece is what do you want them to do next. So that is where the bonus piece of selling with stories. What do you want them to do once they’ve heard the story? Do you want them to hit reply in an email or do you want them to click a link? Do you want them to send you a message? Do you want them to call you? So that’s the call to action. So in this case, click the link that goes with this video and I will see you next week for another live edition of The “S” Word LIVE. Thanks for stopping by.