You may have heard about the power of storytelling in business and how people like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk have used it for some of the biggest product launches in history. Maybe you’ve wondered how you could use it in your business. Storytelling is a form of communication that can be used in almost any interaction. It’s an art worth learning. If you start using stories in your communication, you will be amazed at the results.
The most effective way to connect with another person is through the power of storytelling. As humans, we are neurologically wired to respond to stories. From prehistoric times, when storytelling was the only form of communication, to today where we have so many different means of communication, there is still no better way to grab and keep another person’s attention.
Princeton based neuroscientist, Uri Hasson did functional MRI studies to determine the effect of storytelling on the brain. In one of his studies, five people listened to the same story while their brains were scanned. Before they heard the story, each person’s brain showed all sorts of different activities. There were no similarities between the scans of the five people because they were all thinking their own thoughts. Once they started listening to the story, their brains all lit up in exactly the same way. Hasson says that when people listen to stories, their brains become aligned.
This is an incredibly powerful discovery for the field of persuasion, especially if your role involves communication or sales. How much easier would it be to convince a potential buyer to place the order if their brain was aligned with yours?
So how do you use storytelling in your interactions with customers and leads? It’s not that hard. You just need a framework that you can use to convey your message through a customer success story rather than a complex explanation. If you can provide a real-life example of what you’re trying to say, you will be much better received than if you try to convince them with jargon and technical terms.
The beauty with telling a story is that you take the focus off of yourself and make it about the person you are connecting with. If that person can see themselves in the story you tell, their mind becomes aligned with yours and they become receptive to what you have to say.
The simplest way to create a customer success story is to use these four steps:
Talk about a customer you’ve helped, their life or their business and what they wanted
Describe the problem they had and how it was impacting their life, their business and what they wanted
Tell them how this customer used your product or service to overcome this problem
Show how the customer’s life transformed into the life that they always wanted
Our client Candace Plattor www.candaceplattor.com is an addictions counsellor. She helps her clients who have an addict that they love, reclaim their lives from the ravages of addiction. Here is an example of one of her success stories.
(1-) Martha and Fred adopted their granddaughter Crystal, hoping to give her the life that her mother could not. (2-) When Crystal started using drugs, they did everything they could to protect her. They’d give her money, pick her up at all hours of the night and even bail her out when she was picked up by the cops. They were worried sick all the time and had to stop travelling, something they enjoyed so much in their retirement. (3-) Working with Candace, they learned how to stop enabling and set strict boundaries for Crystal. She kicked up a fuss for a while but eventually came around. (4-) After a year of following Candace’s program, Martha and Fred were amazed that Crystal was adhering to all of their boundaries and had stopped using drugs. They felt so blessed to have their granddaughter and their lives back. For the first time since the whole ordeal began, they were able to go on a cruise.
Use these four steps to write your own customer success stories. Start to tell these stories to your customers and leads when you are explaining how your product or service works. You will be amazed by the