Storytelling is used today in many customer-facing interactions including introductory calls, discovery, demos, and in some tactical portions of those conversations, such as handling objections. But stories can and should be leveraged more extensively.
Anything that is typically dry or fact-oriented can be brought to life by infusing them with relevant, compelling, engaging, and memorable stories!
Consider the following candidates:
- RFP responses
- POCs and POVs
- Product feature planning
- Startup pitches
- Resumes
Resumes are a wonderful example. Most resumes are factual recitations of one’s accomplishments and skills but lack any real insight into the person.
I know a person who is highly skilled at B2B and B2C email marketing, with deep experience with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Braze, SQL, HTML, Tableau, Litmus, Google Analytics, and other tools. But her resume doesn’t provide the full picture; it’s only (literally!) black and white.
While she’s very thoughtful and analytical, she is also a quietly confident explorer. One day she is completing a major email campaign, two days later she is taking her first surf lesson on the beach in Nicaragua, followed by yoga as the sun sets! One day she’s reviewing campaign KPIs and the next weekend she’s on a solo twelve mile, two thousand feet (vertical) hike through a northwest forest to an exquisite lake with stunning views.
Perhaps including these stories in her resume would offer a richer, full color picture of her skills, experience, and personality.
I’d suggest using stories in RFP responses, similarly, and in defining and managing POCs and POVs. Product folks can (and should!) use stories to support their cases for implementing certain features. And startup founders should leverage compelling stories in their investor and prospect pitches.
What other opportunities could benefit by including compelling stories?
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