For the customer, making a buying decision is not unlike being a contestant on the TV show The Amazing Race. On the program, she must gather the courage to walk a rope footbridge. Each step toward the other side is taken with great caution and often a fear of failure. That transition from the safety of their current position to opportunity in the future position is uncomfortable, uncertain and stressful.
That situation is much like the customer who doesn’t take that step toward buying our product. Why don’t they take that step when we show them PowerPoints with the facts and figures to support our idea? There is a part of the brain that helps us survive. It wants things to stay the same. It doesn’t want change. It doesn’t like the stress of change. So like the contestant at the edge of the footbridge or about to step off the platform and Zip line high above the trees, the customers is afraid to take that step. They fear failure and they don’t like the stress of change
To get the customer cross that bridge to the positive state with our product, we need to reach both the survival and emotional side of the brain which thinks in pictures to reduce the fear and help them envision the value at the other side is worth the pain they associate with transition. A story paints that picture of success and helps them envision the future state with your product. We include facts within the story to reach the logical side of the brain to justify the decision and enable the customer to mentally make the business case for the decision to buy
Like the contestant, who envisions the successful experience of being on the other side, and finds the courage to make the perilous walk, when a customer hears a story, she finds the motivation to make the decision to buy. The customer also feels in control of the process with this approach. They like to be in control and to buy rather than be sold.
Is this supported by research and experts in the industry? In their bestselling book, Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath discuss the findings of psychologist Gary Klein regarding the value of storytelling. Klein found that storytelling is an effective teaching tool because it is inspiring and motivational. The Heath brothers relate several stories about how emotional ideas make people care and credible ideas make people believe. In their follow-on book, SWITCH, the Heath brothers describe how successful people have unified the rational mind and the emotional mind to achieve dramatic results. Converting case studies into success stories and examples of “what is” compared to “what can be” provide the tension necessary to motivate and achieve a transformational change. The salesperson who wants the prospect to make a change by using the solution she offers will be much more successful with a properly-told story, which is more compelling than a PowerPoint presentation with lots of charts and graphs.
Just remember the stories must be authentic to earn the prospect’s trust and compel her to take action.