The Art of Storytelling on the Show Floor
Every pitch starts with the elements of a story–the shared goals are all there. The challenge comes when you try to transform one into another. The reward is like turning lead into gold.
Pitches have a point. Stories have a moral.
Where do your sales teams start?
Do they engage customers by jumping straight into the benefits of the product? Are they ready to roll a demonstration of your technology seamlessly?
With just a little bit of thought, those are perfect hooks for your brand message to shine through.
Think about where your company started, and what your mission is.
If your founders created the company because nobody on the market manufactured the kind of quality precision parts they wanted to see, that’s an easy way to tell a story of exploration, trial, discovery, and success–bringing your product into the arms of customers.
If your product is filling a hole in the market, tell the story of how you noticed that place needed to be filled, and why it is important to your team that you make your product accessible.
If your team is all passionate about your industry, talk about the backgrounds that brought you there and how the company enables you to reach your goals.
Humanize the journey of your brand, think of it as the main character.
How can you make the customer emotionally invested?
By breaking down your pitch into the points that hit home, you carve out the meat that you can serve up with your story.
We aren’t preaching to ditch the statistics and remove your rotating examples, simply use them to your advantage.
Explain why those stats matter, who uses the examples you’re showing, and what benefits they have brought.
Without explicitly saying it, you’re telling the customer why they should care.
When your brand is framed as something that they should care about, they will care about it.
It’s stronger than going through a list of your samples or scrolling through pages of a presentation without any emotional buy in. Stories are the first step to a long lasting relationship, one of shared interest, need, and understanding between you and the customer.
