The Best Stories Are Told By Buyers

By Tibor Shanto
There is a lot of focus on storytelling in sales these days and for all the right reasons. Stories help spark the imagination, help people look beyond their limits. On a tactical level, stories help younger sellers level the playing field with more senior buyers, using stories as a form of validation. But as with other types of storytelling, without interesting themes and strong plot lines, it’s just another story. The best stories are those that specifically move the opportunity forward; for that.  The best stories are those told by the buyer, not the seller.
Getting buyers to tell their story is a challenge for many sellers. One reason for this is many confuse a good story with a polished pitch — a fatal error. Stories need to be engaging, a means of creating dialogue and exploring the specific situation from an alternative vantage point. A good story unfolds between buyer and seller, hard to do